Source: United Arab Emirates page.

Driving as a tourist

If you are a tourist, you only need an international driving license from your home country. It will give you the right to rent a car.

Driving as a resident

The things get different once you get your residence visa. When you become a resident, you can’t rent a car with your international license anymore and need to get a UAE driving license.

Some residents do rent cars without a UAE license using some gray schemes e.g. renting a car in Sharjah or renting it in someone else’s name. This might get one into a serious trouble; you will read about that later.

Exchange driving license from your country

If you are a citizen and a holder of a driving license of one of the following countries, you can just ‘exchange’ your license for a UAE one. That does not mean that your license will be physically exchanged; you will still keep yours and get a new one.

• Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC)
• Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom (UK)
• North and South America: United States of America (USA), Canada
• East Asia: Japan, South Korea, Singapore
• Africa: South Africa
• Australasia: Australia, New Zealand

This list may change. Visit Dubai Police website

Back to driving school

If you are not lucky enough to find your country in the list above, then you are in trouble. You are in less trouble if you have a driving license from your home country though.

You will have to go to driving school for 20 or 40 classes depending on where you are from, pay them a lot of money and pass the driving test. The driving test is somewhat very tricky. Many people do it 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times and more. Every time they fail they have to pay for additional classes. This is the way the system works.

Driving without a driving license in Dubai

I wouldn’t do that. However, some people rent a car while they are still on a tourist visa and then continue driving the car they rented.

The chance of being caught by the police is minimal but you always have to keep in mind that if you get into an accident, you will face the police and there the trouble begins.

• The car may be seized (in fact making you have to pay for it to the rent-a-car company)
• Insurance will not be valid
• You will also be severely fined

Read this article in the Gulf News; 5000 AED (900 EUR, 1360 USD) was the fine for two persons driving without a license in Fujairah, UAE.

I will give you a brief overview what you should be looking at in your contract. Of course, the contract is different for everyone. This will only give you an idea what you can ask for.

Employment in Dubai

Benefits

• Housing is quite expensive here, so ask for a housing allowance. Most landlords also ask for an annual payment in one cheque. It would be better if it was paid by your employer rather than yourself.
• Real estate agent fee is normally 5% of the annual lease price. Ask your employer to pay for it.
• Housing security deposit is normally 5% as well. It is refundable but it is still some money you will have to pay immediately. Ask your employer to pay it for you and then deduct from your salary during a few following months (or from the first salary).
• Car is a must-have in Dubai. A company car or a car allowance will make your life easier. It should be at least about a monthly rent-a-car rate.
• Fuel is cheap, distances are quite high though. Having a fuel card will save you some money.
• Leave ticket for the employee or the whole family once a year is normally provided by Dubai employers. Ask for a possibility to encash it instead. If your home is somewhere in Chile, it can be a good deal!
• Schooling is expensive. Ask your company to pay for it.
• Medical insurance will help you a lot as good healthcare in Dubai costs a fortune.

Use living cost calculator to get an overview on the cost of living in Dubai.

Relocation

• Preview visit for you and your spouse would be quite a good deal. Dubai is a city that not everyone will like, so it may be worth to have a look at it first. Read more about a preview trip.
• One-way tickets for the whole family. Try not to pay for them yourself.
• Visas for the family. This will save you some time and money.
• Temporary accommodation in a serviced apartment for at least a month will help you to secure a permanent place to leave without any rush. It would be better if there was a kitchen in there. It will save you some money for eating. Otherwise, ask for a meals allowance.
• Relocation agents are quite useful in terms of searching for a place to live, preparing documents, etc. They cost some money though.
• Personal effects and furniture transportation and storage
• Relocation allowance or one-off payment to facilitate your move would be nice to have. This will allow you not to transfer your home currency into dirhams to live until you get your first salary. It may also help you to pay for some stuff you will need to settle in like utilities deposits, curtains, etc.

Redundancy / end of service

Of course, almost nobody relocates thinking of being made redundant. Though given the current economic downturn, it is worth to provide yourself with some security.

• Notice period is how many days/weeks/months they will give you in advance before the retrenchment.
• Severance pay. You never know if the employer will fire you or not to save costs. You may have bought a car, got a loan, etc. Make sure you are paid well if you are laid off.
• Repatriation is better to be paid by the company. Tickets for the whole family, furniture and other stuff transportation, tenancy termination fees, etc.

Miscellaneous

• Start (entrance) date. If you are relocating within the same company, make sure your new assignment is considered a continuous employment. So that 1) you don’t have a probation period and 2) you don’t lose any money in case of retrenchment or resignation.
• Sick leave and annual leave. I don’t know how they are regulated by law. I have them hard-coded in my contract. Why not?

Should you have anything else to add, please feel free to add a comment.

Feel free to submit a link to your website via the comment form.

• Casual Expat Dubai – the new home for crap-free Dubai. Now all expats can contribute articles, forum posts and much more!
• Dubai as it used to be – This is a must-see website containing loads of photos of old Dubai. It is extremely interesting for the residents to see what the place you are living in used to look like 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. “I came to Dubai in 1971 with Port Rashid’s “Start Up” Team, I intended to stay a couple of years but stayed 30+ years working in Dubai’s Ports” – says Len Chapman, the author.
• UAE Interact – Useful information about history, culture, geography, shopping, tips, etc. I consider it the best among all other information websites about Dubai.
• Dubai Expat by Allo’ Expat is connecting Expats in Dubai: general information, useful tips, forum, etc.
• Moving to Dubai is a guide for would-be Dubai expatriates from expatarrivals.com
• InterNations is the biggest global networking site for expats of various nationalities and their family members. At the moment, we have got about 170,000 members in 230 cities worldwide, a substantial percentage of whom comes from English-speaking countries. On our platform, expatriates and their partners can connect with compatriots, ask for advice on everyday life in their host country, provide other members with useful tips, make new contacts and find information in our City Guides.
• resto.ae is for the people who always search for the right restaurant and looking for dining information in the United Arab Emirates.

Note for a webmaster: A back-link to my site would be much appreciated!

Feel free to submit a link to your website via the comment form.

Note for a blog owner: I normally put nofollow links, but I will make your link dofollow (helps your google page rank) if you put a dofollow link to any page of my website that you like in one of your posts or simply anywhere. Both you and I will benefit from that.

• Dubai Expat Blog Directory lists tens of blogs of expats living in Dubai.
• Life in Dubai – The author describes his blog as “Moving back to Dubai after 22 years has been an experience! Back then we didn’t have the internet or blogs. Now we do I can jot down my thoughts on daily life, things we come up against, [...]“. Very interesting reading if you are interested in some comments of a wise man on life in Dubai.

Feel free to submit a link to your website via the comment form.

• Casual Expat Dubai – the new home for crap-free Dubai. Now all expats can contribute articles, forum posts and much more!
• Expat Expert is designed to assist expatriate families living and working overseas — and returning home one day. Expat Expert is also the home page of Expatriate Press, which publishes Robin Pascoe’s four titles devoted to global living. Personally, I find the books’ titles Robin writes quite interesting, they are mostly related to wife’s living and growing kids. I haven’t got any of her books yet but definitely want to buy Rising Global Nomads when we have a baby.
• Expat Focus – global relocation advice for expatriates covering visas, residency, overseas employment, buying property abroad, international schools, offshore finance and more
  Join our lively expat community today! Meet and learn from other expats in our forums, email discussion list and monthly newsletter. Get help finding overseas property, job opportunities abroad, international insurance cover and investment advice, including pensions and retirement planning.
• Allo’ Expat helps connecting the expat world offering information & communities throughout the five continents with over 170 users’ nationalities and 164 countries covered.
• Expat arrivals contains carefully researched, impartial information written by expats, for expats. At the moment of writing this they have 70 city/country guides for expats.

There were quite a few issues however.

Banks in Dubai

A few links to banks’ websites. There are more banks, these are the most branded ones which you can see at every corner.

International banks in Dubai

• ABN Amro
• Citibank
• Habib Bank AG Zurich
• HSBC
• Saxo Bank
• Standard Chartered

Local banks in Dubai

• Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
• Commercial Bank of Dubai
• Dubai Bank
• Emirates NDB
• First Gulf Bank
• Mashreq
• NOOR Islamic Bank

Bank cheques in Dubai

In Dubai a lot of payments are done with cheques (for example rent is usually paid with a cheque). I had not used any bank cheques before I moved here, so using them was a new experience for me.

Your salary or other payments may be made in cheques. To get cash, you will have to go to a bank to encash it. To deposit a cheque into your bank account you will need to go to a bank, use an ATM or use a special cheque deposit machine available in all shopping malls.

To pay with cheque you need a cheque-book. I am not sure if all banks give it with an account by default, my bank does. Paying with a cheque is simple, just fill a blank cheque in.

Loans in Dubai

It is very easy to get a loan in Dubai. To get some money for your own or to finance a car you just need to provide some basic documents like a payslip and a passport copy.

My car finance was secured in less than 24 hours. The dealer called the bank (the same bank I’ve got an account with), they called me and the next day I drove my new car home.

The issues I had

• It took me about a week to get hold of the personal manager working with my company. He missed the appointment time a few times. Finally, I was waiting for him to come at X o’clock. At X:10 I called him and asked where the heck he is. He told me something in an excusing tone (as always btw). I asked him what the name of his boss is. He said he would come in 5 minutes. He did come in 10 or 15 minutes, and we got everything done.
• I asked the guy to issue 2 ATM cards – one for me and another one for my wife. My wife’s card was never issued although I called him a few times and was promised to be sent a card in a week or so. Finally, I just gave up.
• The bank issued 4 (!!) credit cards. Visa and MasterCard for me and for my wife, but I only asked for one MasterCard for myself. After a few calls he finally came to me and we destroyed the Visas. He said the associated account would be closed in a couple of days. It is still open and next year I may be charged for it unless I go to the bank and close it.
• “No! Forget my number, I will not work with your bank! All the best!” It was my boss on the phone with the same guy… Didn’t sound good. He decided to open an account in another bank after the bank’s manager didn’t come for the n-th time.

Later the bank’s customer service representative called me asking to convert my account into an Islamic banking account (read what it is on wikipedia). After I confirmed the operation, she asked me if I have anything to say about the service. In the beginning of our conversation, she told me that the call is recorded. So, I did have a lot to say.

It appeared that everything that the bank guy promised to me was something that he could not actually do and I had to go to a bank’s branch personally. Fair enough but it meant the guy was completely incompetent…

I never worked with local banks. My boss and another colleague did. Having denied the company’s preferred bank because of the poor service, they went to one of the leading local banks. They’ve got the same service issues with it though.

From the distance I was taking pictures it was not clear how it happened. The barrier between the carriageways was broken and the car was just completely crashed. There were 2 ambulance cars and a few police cars and policemen.

It seems the driver was alive as the ambulance guys fixed him on a stretcher and were doing something. Hopefully, he is still alive.

The road became quite busy. First, because it became more narrow. Second, because everyone was slowing down to see what happened. The service road was completely stuck with cars and people watching what was going on. I actually was taking the service road due to another reason but I couldn’t help stopping and taking a couple of pictures.

Be careful.

Accident photos

The crashed car

Dubai Police

A bigger picture

Ambulance

Traffic jam

People watching the accident

Actually I felt a bit sceptical when I was going to take some pictures of the Burj Dubai opening ceremony…

The Burj Dubai opening ceremony was announced to start at 17:00 on the 4th of January 2010. I came to The Dubai Mall at about 15:30, easily parked the car on parking level 5 and went to see what’s going on.

There were quite some people at the Waterfront. It was like a showcase of the world’s cameras, lenses and tripods. Everyone wanted to get a picture – amateurs with iPhones and mature photographers with Canon 1D Mark III. I just hanged around for a while and finally found a spot at Souk Al Bahar behind some women who were smaller than the height of my tripod.

As 17:00 was approaching, so was the crowd. At 5 o’clock the place became a little too overcrowded. Nothing started at 17:00 though. Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al Maktoum arrived at around 19:00 and was speaking to other VIP guests with Burj Dubai passes on the Burj Dubai side of the water. The other visitors could see what’s happening on two screens standing on the mall’s side.

A bit later than 20:00, the show began. Just see the pictures of the Burj Dubai fireworks.

It ended at about 21:00, so I headed to my car. That’s wasn’t easy. I went off Souk Al Bahar to Emaar boulevard and got into The Dubai Mall via one of its parking entrances. Then I spent another hour and a half trying to leave it. The Dubai Mall’s parking was not made for five thousand cars leaving at the same time. I never understood why the architect of the mall’s parking made so many narrow passages with curbs. In a heavy traffic jam they just make it harder to drive while they don’t seem to be necessary.

And again, I was very upset with the driving culture. Most of the people just didn’t give way to others, horned and behaved like they were the only on the road.

Burj Dubai opening ceremony photos

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Arabian dancing

Burj Dubai opening - 17:00

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Burj Dubai opening fireworks

First fireworks above the Dubai Mall

First fireworks above the Dubai Mall

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Burj Dubai opening ceremony

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai on fire?

Burj Dubai on fire?

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

Burj Dubai fireworks

When the fire settled down

The End of the ceremony

Burj Dubai is the tallest building in the world overcoming its closest rival Taipei 101 by more than 300 metres.

Burj Dubai is definitely a place everyone must see. Actually, when you stay just in front of it, the building does not appear to be the tallest man-built structure in the world. But if you go one or two kilometers away, you will see the true power of optics. Burj Dubai is an enormously huge beautiful building. It is just amazingly tall. The Address Hotel which is also big seems to be a tiny house next to Burj Dubai.

And it is just unbelievable that Burj Dubai was built in 5 years!

It is located next to the Dubai Mall, the Address Hotel and Souk Al Bahar in Downtown Burj Dubai area. Just follow the Dubai Mall signs.

Burj Dubai opening ceremony
4 December 2010

Burj Dubai facts

Burj Dubai photos

All Burj Dubai pictures here are taken by me. I do not mind redistribution, you can use them free of charge. If you use any of my Burj Dubai photos, please put a link to this page.

Click on pictures to enlarge them and see a slideshow. High resolution pictures can be found on flickr in my photostream.

Burj Dubai opening ceremony
4 January 2010

Burj Dubai opening ceremony
4 January 2010

Burj Dubai opening ceremony
4 January 2010

Burj Dubai & The Moon
1 January 2010

Burj Dubai & The Moon
1 January 2010

Burj Dubai & The Moon
1 January 2010

Burj Dubai & The Address Hotel
30 December 2009

Burj Dubai at night
30 December 2009

Burj Dubai from the Old Town
30 December 2009

Burj Dubai from Al Khail Road
26 December 2009

Burj Dubai peak
4 December 2009

Burj Dubai from the Old Town
4 December 2009

Burj Dubai from Souk Al Bahar
4 December 2009

Burj Dubai at night
12 September 2009