Rose early. Played tennis – breakfast – lounged by pool.
Went first to Jumeirah Beach Hotel for nosey & to book dinner for tomorrow. Then on to our dinner at Arab Tower [Burj Al Arab] “Al Muntaha” on 27th floor. Incredibly kitch interiors and pomped up staff, for very good meal nonetheless.
One of the attractions of booking Al Muntaha for dinner was the opportunity to have a guided tour of the interior of the Burj Al Arab. The hotel was selling tours at quite a sizeable rate – I think about $20 per head, whereas the tour was thrown in for free if you were dining at Al Muntaha.
Arab Tower has now overtaken Gazelle d’Or [near Taroudant, in Morocco] as the most pretentious and snotty place on earth.
Enjoyed the people watching.
I have one very special memory of the people watching.
Janie and I had gone to some lengths to ensure that I had the requisite clothing to meet the requirements of the dress code, which was basically to wear a collared shirt and tie with tailored trousers.
We were sitting quite near the entrance to the restaurant. Soon after we arrived, a couple arrived, the gentleman of the pair wearing a casual polo shirt or t-shirt, with no tie. The maître d informed the gentleman that he was required to wear a collared shirt and tie in order to gain admittance to the restaurant.
The gentleman said, very loudly, in a gruff voice…
“well, I don’t have a shirt and I don’t have a tie, but I do have loadsa money”…
…while extracting and waving a wad of notes in the direction of the maître d.
This way, sir…
…said the maître d, hurriedly ushering the couple to their table. How many of those notes changed hands, if any, is lost to us as neither Janie nor I saw the very end of that transaction. Al Muntaha. Possibly not quite so pretentious and/or hypocritical 25 years later.
You can see all the pictures from that final leg of our journey on the Flickr album linked here and below.
