Walking under the desert sky is fast becoming a favourite activity in Dubai. The trend has come with the appearance of some excellent walkways in various parts of town.
This is a sea change for the desert city. For long it has been known mostly for shopping. That is how it marketed itself, and that is what has been bringing it visitors from all parts of the globe. Such walking as took place used to happen mostly in its fashionable air-conditioned shopping malls.
But these days you will find growing numbers of people striding along its fine new pedestrian paths. They come in all shapes and sizes, wear all kinds of attire and speak all sorts of tongues. Some do power-walking and others simply stroll. It is nothing unusual either to see parents pushing prams, often with other children in tow.
The view across beautiful Safa Park of downtown Dubai where the towering Burj Khalifa presides.
It is visible evidence of how Dubai is fashioning a new dimension for itself. It wants also to become a place known for healthy living, for visitors as well as for its own citizens and the many expatriates that make up well over two thirds of its population.
For visitors especially it means dispelling the notion that its desert climate is so harsh as to make outdoor activity impossible. Its midsummer heat can certainly get unbearable. Its beach sand gets too hot to step on and even the Gulf water gets too warm to cool down in. But come the milder months, from about September through to about April, there are many days perfectly made for outdoor activity.
The oldest walkway is in a built-up area known as the Dubai Marina. It runs along a canal that is open to the sea and is lined with luxury apartments, hotels, shopping malls and restaurants. An array of yachts and boats moored along the canal’s banks sway gently as water buses and taxis ferrying people from one side to the other stir up waves on the otherwise placid waters. The exotic design of many of the surrounding skyscrapers lends spice to its ambience.
The best of its new walkways is the 14-kilometre Jumeirah Corniche that winds along stretches of beautiful beaches reaching from the luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel that towers like the bulging main sail of a ship just off the coast to near where the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, presides over its section of the elongated city.
The Burj Al Arab that billows like a ship's main sail off shore.
The soft surface of the walkway’s main track lends a spring to the step that makes the walking all the more enjoyable. Next to it is a hard-surface track favoured by joggers and used by skateboarders. Along the way are shaded benches, kiosks, eateries, toilets and solar-powered wifi and mobile-charging points. On most breezy days you will see fire-spewing dragons, teddy bears and giant worms bobbing and curling in the sky among swarms of kites hovering above a section of beach reserved for enthusiasts.
The soft-surface Jumeirah Corniche that has become a favourite with walkers and joggers.
The corniche has played a major part in bringing a real holiday-resort atmosphere to the stretch of coast where nowadays it is not uncommon to see women in the flimsiest swimwear languishing on the sand or wading into the surf next to others covered from head to toe in black abayas.
The whole walkway trend is in the process of getting a massive leg-up from the Jumeirah Corniche’s link-up with fabulous new walkways along the banks and over bridges crossing the just-completed Dubai Water Canal. The new multi-million dollar waterway forms an extensive loop from the city's historic Creek through its outer suburbs back into the Arabian Gulf at Jumeirah Beach.
The walkway along the new Dubai Water Canal and one of the pedestrian bridges crossing it.
Work is still in progress in shaping the landscape along its banks, but word is that it will in typical Dubai style end up in fabulous terraced gardens among fancy hotels and other constructions.
There is a delightful imagery about the Dubai Water Canal. Close your eyes and picture it as an ancient moat encircling an ultra-modernistic city that from its centre has the Burj Khalifa spiralling nearly a kilometre into the sky.
A pleasure boat passes along the new canal as the afternoon sun reflects off downtown Duba's skyscrapers.
Again it is the meeting between new and old that remains so central to the enigma that is this desert city state.
A work of art is this bridge crossing the new canal.