Dubai..

Considering moving to dubai for a year or two or even longer if all goes well. Myself and my girlfriend would go from Australia, what I want to know is what its like pay wise and how to find work etc. I have heard from people that the people there are not a worry at all and very nicee..

I would like some suggestions on places as I have no real knowledge on the area and would like some info

Thank you
Kanga

reply to post by kangajack

Let's just say if your girlfriend gets raped, no matter the circumstances, it will be her fault by law. Read up on recent problems for foreigners there. As most Arab countries, far better to be a man, beware if you are a woman. Be careful if you consume alcohol. Be careful expressing opinions not shared by others around you.

reply to post by kangajack


NO WAY ARE YOU NUTS???

go visit first and see how you like it. no drinking, no weed, no kissing, no holding hands, muslim prayers 5 times a day. Women and camels have equal rights. I wouldn't move there! You'd have to speak the language to even be considered to get a job. I'd go visit though for sure. Australia is way way way more free and better by far. Always visit a country you're interested i moving to first. Then if you move there you should have a job waiting for you with a reputable company. Not just move there hoping to find a job. That's a totally different culture than more westernized countries

reply to post by spartacus699

haha yeah defiantly was going to go visit first one hundred percent,

thanks changed my whole opinion will do more of my own research to get more of an understanding

thanks

I thought about movie to Dubai too. I talked to a guy who lived there for a few months. He told me that it's a great place to visit but that aparently you wouldn't want to live there full time.

reply to post by spartacus699

no drinking

Dubai is full of bars. Foreigners (ie 70+ percent of the population) can drink as long as they're not Muslims. You get a permit to buy booze at special shops, too, though it's not for sale on every street corner. Most people don't bother, they just drive down to Ajman, a neighbouring emirate, and stock up, though you have to watch out for the police on the way back. At least that's what people did ten years ago. There are also bootleggers who home-deliver. They're a phone call away.

no weed

No comment.

no kissing, no holding hands

No kissing outdoors in public, or in a shopping mall or anything like that. It can get pretty steamy in the clubs. Lots of prostitution, much of it pretty blatant. I haven't heard of people being told not to hold hands — Arab and South Asian men often hold hands, you know.

muslim prayers 5 times a day.

Yes, you'll hear a muezzin's call five times a day. Try not to get an apartment too near a mosque. Unless it's the Jumeirah Mosque, where the muezzin's call is beautiful music.

Women and camels have equal rights.

Ignorant slander. You obviously think all Arab countries are like Saudi Arabia.

You'd have to speak the language to even be considered to get a job.

The lingua franca of Dubai is English. Everybody speaks it. The most commonly spoken languages are English, Malayali and Arabic, probably in that order though it's hard to tell because there are lots of foreign Arabs — Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and others — working there along with Afghans, Americans, Australians, Bangladeshis, Britons, Canadians, East Africans, all kinds of Europeans — Western and Eastern — Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Russians, South Africans and just about everyone else in the world.

I'd go visit though for sure.

Good advice to anyone planning to relocate anywhere, if they can afford it.

*

reply to post by kangajack

It's a strange place. I hated it. Most people complain they don't like it, but they stay there because the money is good (or because they're in hock to the banks and can't afford to leave) but in the end they adapt and eventually acquire the local — highly cosmopolitan, money-fixated, conspicuously-consuming — way of doing things. You don't see very much of the Emaratis (the locals); they keep themselves to themselves. In the end, everyone else in Dubai is there to serve them, and they don't mix much with the help.

But it has its compensations, including the desert, plenty of nightlife, parties and sex, and the thrill of walking through the souk or down by the Creek and hearing a different language being spoken beside you every step you take. It's one of the great meeting-places and marketplaces of the world. Buzzing with life round the clock. Everything in the world is there for you... at a price.

With Dubai it's the money... always the money.