The souks are clean and freshly swept, and not far distant from shopping malls where the names Armani and Ralph Lauren and Moschino are prominent. At the Hotel Inter-Continental the daily breakfast buffet features French toast, salted hammour fish, baked beans, channa masala, miso soup, fried rice, lamb chops, and Cheerios. Television channels are available in Japanese and Hindi. Women in Dubai may drive cars, and Western women may lie on the beach in bikinis. But there is no lack of reminders about where you really are.
Minarets rise above every neighborhood.
The camel track lies on the outskirts of Dubai, at a place called Nad al Sheba, and during the racing season the green, red, white, and black national flag of the Emirates flutters atop high poles that line the road leading out from town. The races take place on a vast oval more than six miles around. In Saudi Arabia the races may go twice as far. They have been known to run at ten miles an hour for eighteen hours. During a race, in which fifty or more camels may compete, trainers and owners in jeeps speed around the inside of the track, talking with their jockeys by radio.