Transcription
[Music] Mini breaks are 50 Shades of cray cray. How can anyone be expected to go somewhere new and enjoy themselves without at least a decade to decompress? There's no idea where to go, what to do, or how to eat. It's impossible to stop the whole thing turning into a monumental f-up.
But let not tears bespoil your cheeks, for I, Richard Shard, am about to apply a damp compress of cheer to your badger brow. Stop contractually tethered to a TV face to comprise some kind of deathly ad hoc double act. I'm going to savagely shoulder you through a maxi-mini break. This is travel without mercy.
Tonight, a 48-hour Emirati excursion in downtown Dubai. 14 million tourists a year bear down on this opulent oasis, flinging coin around like they were in some kind of coin-flinging competition. And helping me in this affront to austerity is actor, comedian, and institution, Johnny Vegas. Got really weird buzzing me testicles. Sure, together we will skid around on sand. This entire sequence could have been handled by my stunt double. Sightly like windblown chaff. This leaks the uh, the city bus to it and blow a bundle on ice. It's lick the exhaust off a Capri. That is not the review they're looking for. So, we're here, but should we have come?
The only humane way to get to Dubai is a 7-hour flight, flight calling into question the foundational notion of what constitutes a mini-break. You about, yeah? You backed shotgun, yeah? You know I suffer from motion sickness. I'm feeling, I'm coming over. Old Swatch. [ __ ] Well, not for the first time. So, with me publicly acknowledged skinflints raised on Butlins and cheap camping holidays, well, this is like a fancy version of that.
Why Dubai? Why the millionaire's playground? Well, I'll tell you why. Dubai is one of seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates, a relatively new country created the same year as the year in which 1971 took place. A tiny fishing village until the '60s, Dubai exploded out of the desert into a high-rise landscape of shiny mega-structures, thanks to the discovery of oil, the fuel that brings only joy. Things in Dubai are, in a very real sense, well, massive. So well massive that the Guinness Book of World Records has a Dubai outpost to cope with the influx. World's tallest building, they got that. Largest shopping center, they got that. Most sound moved with a teaspoon in 30 seconds, they've done that. And largest gathering of people dressed as nurses, they got that.
Unlucky fellas prepared to keep a tight grip on their wallet can enjoy a weekend in Dubai for around £800. But for the benefit of a ward-baiting TV, Johnny and I are about to spat 10 times that on hotel rooms alone. The Atlantis, our sober retreat for the next 48 hours, is situated on the world's biggest man-made palm-shaped island, the Palm. I mean, how late were those doors? I'm curious. I was right next to it. Look at this comely centerpiece. As a potter, yes, stroke sculpter, how do you feel about that? It's pretty. I'm, I'm impressed. A younger chunk of me would want to climb that. Don't rule it out. Well, why don't you go to your suite? To my, okay. One of the 1500 rooms here, and we can meet at the aquarium. What? In 3 days time? In 5 minutes? 5 minutes? You expect to meet it? Okay, come on.
Our rooms come with private 24-hour butlers. Hello, welcome. Someone's broken in already. Who have previously pretended to care about Kylie, Dairo, Kardashian, and Vernon. The face. Ceilings for a pinch. High. It'd be perfect. Johnny's in the three-story Neptune Suite with its wall of fish. Oh my god. Oh, this is madness. My personal joint retailing at over 8 and a half thousand a night has five balconies, gold lac toiletries, and mercifully British standard AC power sockets. You've got to be moved by this. I am moved, but I'm trying not to get sucked into the commodification of marine life. This has to be an overly obvious place to rendezvous in a spy film. It's ridiculous. 11 million liters of sea water, of course. 65,000 types of fish. 220 kg a day of food. Oh God. The pleasing thing is this is 70 cm thick. That's the only thing I need to take away from here. I can set me the paint in front of this for 3 days. We don't have time. Su, there's nothing here that you can't get on a screensaver of any standard PC. Let's go.
No one has walked in Dubai since the late '70s, and with dwindling oil reserves, the roads could soon go the full Mad Max. So we opt for an alternate mode of transport. Come on, you can do this. Uh, why am I, why was I made? Entire body language. Why was I made so weak? I'm such a weak person. It's, um, it's in the mind. Got no constitution. This beats the uh, the city bus tour. Do it. Finding two of my favorite types of motion sickness, air and sea. We're airborne for a far too long 40 minutes. We'll loop out from the historic heart of Dubai, the Creek, and take in the offshore man-made world, the Palm, and the city skyline. This is a bit much for me. Ooh, ooh. That's the cluster of islands meant to look like the world out there. What is that, my man? Yes. It didn't naturally form into a map of the globe. How come it doesn't drift like when you built a sandcastle? I don't know how the. I need you to know these. I know you know. I have the brain of a 12-year-old that just has questions. What's that [ __ ] doing there? I don't know. What country is that meant to be? Poland. The fishal when it's raining, yes. Oh, oh God. Wow. I was not keen on that at all. And that's the Palm over there. That's where we're staying. Oh, for you, it's an you name in feature. It's admirable, but it's the kind of thing Michael Jackson would have done. Yes, yes. Speaking personally, I can never do this again. This plane is too small. It's like a VW van that has taken off into the air. That's my favorite bit of the trip. Land it. It's [Music] ending. May need to use my seawings. Compliment there and leave them my compliments. All I can say is I feel Craig David would like it here.
After risking our lives for something that could have been more comfortably achieved using Google Maps, we decide to soothe our black and souls in the secular chapel of consumerism. Shopping tops the list of reasons for visiting Dubai, and the world's biggest mall is an attraction I plan to prowl around like a mighty tiger. I like malls, do you? I love malls. I could waste the entire trip. Put his some serious dents and a credit card. Yeah, what can go wrong in a mall? Nothing. I feel safe. There's no weather. Time is irrelevant. As well as a host of high street mainstays, it's also home to Donald Trump's favorite tea shop. That's £1,000 for 100g. There's nobody in this world that I love enough to to pay that much. I'm right here. I'm right here. Could I pay something this size? That one is 90 just for the 10. That's 90? Yes. It's empty. I've been a fool all these years just throwing out my recycling. I know. Don't ask how much for sugar.
Dubai Mall has more than 150 food joints, but only Mulus specializes in camel cuisine, which is fortunate because Johnny and I have been on strict camel-only diets for close to a decade. Look, this is the camel milk cafe. Get camel milk products. Three times the vitamin C of normal milk. Closest animal milk to human mother's milk, which is slightly creepy. Is that supposed to be a benefit? Or slightly saltier than normal milk, as you maybe expect. You like salty milk, surely? Is it popular amongst the locals, or are we just being? The place is packed. We're lucky to get a seat. What are you talking about? We're going full hump with a camel sandwich, a camel milkshake, and a camel chino. You haven't thought of a pun for the milkshake. You've gone camel chino. Yes, that's just. But that's camel. This one is a camel camel milkshake. Camel milk. Camel milkshake. Camel milkshake. Camel milkshake. Come on. I only want 25% of that. Yes, okay. Thank you. Smells like spam. Camel spam, but it's quite mild. I thought it would be a really hot. Can all right, that is saltier than I would have expected. How's that camel shake? That is actually, that's pretty damn good. I wouldn't know that was camel. I don't know what you'd believe that was, but you'd certainly ask what kind of meat is this. All right, yeah. Let's leave before they try and get us to pay.
A small man who couldn't stop laughing assured us that no trip to Dubai is complete without heading to the desert. So we're doing exactly what he said, heading 45 minutes out of town in search of sandy action. You wouldn't know to look at me, there is just a tad of uh adrenaline junkie. As long as it takes. No more physical exertion than you know, putting your foot down. Tourists who love water-scarce topography can ride camels, ski across the dunes, or fly over them in a balloon. It's at this point that the laughing man's chuckles start to have a hollow ring. My name is Mitch. All right, guys, you ready for the buggies? No. Yes. Have you done anything to those dunes to make them roadworthy? Nothing at all. Okay. Why won't people accept that there are some places that they cannot drive? It's man's overwhelming need to conquer the elements. Whilst on a stag do, a guided tour around the dunes costs £125 for a couple of hours of sandy, gripless hell. Now, I'm not confident about this. I'm not confident. I'm not confident. No, no, no, no, no. That's no. The only thing I have in common with Jeremy Clarkson is that we're both casually racist. Ah, no, no, no. You've gone out of your mind. This entire sequence could have been handled by my stunt double. No, no, no. Oh, I feel trust slipping. Come on. That was a rush. That was the same kind of rush as being [Music] abducted. That was brilliant. Come on. Oh, look at the sound. Look. I go through life, um, just limping with gout. Out there, I felt like a sand ballerina. I was focusing on my own terror, but I'm pleased that you managed to uh, to let go. I did that. It's a d experience. Me lifetime as Eve assaults. Johnny demands that I hook him up with some high-end ice. So we sloped down to Scoopy, one of Dubai's most recently opened ice cream parlors, to carve up the most costly ice cream on the planet. You will need to give me a credit card at the end of this because I, I intend to order this. The Black Diamond Madagascan vanilla ice cream blended with black truffle is frozen live using a liquid nitrogen method for optimum taste and texture before the addition of what can very much be described as garnish. A garnish made from supposedly health-giving 23-carat edible gold. Is good for your brain, your nerves, right? The hemoglobin of your body. It increases. Okay. A lot of benefits are there. So maybe why I feel so bad is I've never eaten gold. Iranian saffron and gold sprinkles. Take this volley to £533 a scoop, but you could claw back some of the cost by eBaying the complimentary saly bowl. You ready? I'm in. Yeah. You can really taste that gold. Are you getting that metallic aftertaste? It's like, like the exhaust off a could pray. That is not the review they're looking for. Sorry. Well, very good. You take the book. No, I. No, no, no, no. It's my gift to you. No, sing as you've paid. What do you mean, sing? I paid. Remember to tip. And with Johnny and financial disarray, the fripperies of day one finally fizzle out.
In the second half of this tour, to force we vie with vertigo. It's so high, it's become silly. Oh, attract a squall of golds. Oh, now was going to bit hit and overpay for some tat. It's not a game show. I'm well aware of that. [Music] We're halfway through our near-mythic quest to gut all the goodness from Dubai in just 48 hours. So far, we have been propelled at altitude. All I can say is I feel Craig David would like it here. Skidded ungoverned in the desert, gone out of your mind, and exceeded our culinary tolerance. What kind of meat is this? By day two, we're as relaxed and unable as bankers. You all right, chaps? No peeking. Yes, I mean, you. We have become so heinously spoiled that we demand that breakfast is brought to us. Morning, please join me on my personal roof terrace immediately. You're the boss. See you soon. Thank you. That best fit your robe. Morning. Don't get up. How's my butler? Let me in. Hope you don't mind. Yes, he's a good man and thorough. In an act that combined faux authenticity with greed, we order a full Arabian: four types of cheese, full madames or beans and sauce, a vegetable platter, omelette, fruit, and flatbreads. I go back home and my wife presents me with Coco Pops, I'm just going to end up in tears. Going to have to hit the roof now. By the way, I have to let you know about some standards of decorum here, right? These are things which are voten foul language, okay? Crude gestures that can include the protrusion of your tongue, and try and refrain from showing the soles of your feet, 'cause I know that's often how you communicate. But the manicures, they're very well maintained. I love your feet, you know that, but you cannot show the soles of them to anyone here, okay? How's that cheese ball going down? Amazing. Well, we can't be too long. We, we only have limited time. Just take the plate with you. Take the bowl. I'll take this. I'll just take a little bit of cheese with a bit of this. Bit cheese and there. Cheese. You got any clean f. As our remaining insulin floods through us, plain common sense insists we ascend Dubai's biggest tourist attraction, the Burj Khalifa, holder of eight of Dubai's 149 world records. What floor are we going to? 124. It builds, it builds the tension. The composer is to be congratulated. And what two vertigo sufferers wouldn't want to stand upon the world's highest observation deck? Something in me, in my brain, is telling me that a gust of wind is going to take me through that gap. I'm worried my glasses will fall off my nose. No, don't. Please, please, please. I think, I think maybe it's for this so you can have a your look. No, I. No, I'm picking out this. Getting really weird buzzing me in me testicles. Sure. Not in any sexual. No, your body language was not telling me that that was a good thing. Let me hit you with some stats here, Johnny. Right? Highest residential apartments. Most floors in any building in the world. Tallest freestanding structure in the world. World record for vertical concrete pumping. That's a great one to get. 605 meters. World's second highest swimming pool. That must sting. That's going to hurt. And my favorite, the world's highest toilet, which I plan on using. Yeah, I don't really need to read our way up. Yeah, there's a good way to go. What it be like, two-thirds up or something? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Just oh. Who cleans the windows? It's so high. I've gone out the other side of my words. Ago. How can you be so casual at this? Because it's so high, it's become silly. That's why I'm going to take you out of here, Johnny. So just look. Let's go use the world's highest toilet separately. Right, okay.
Keen to add the instability of water travel to our dizzied frames, we decide to hit the Creek. Oh, hello. Wooden abras have been ferrying locals over the Creek for a mind-boggling 40 years, and at one dirham, approximately 18p, it's the cheapest way to travel to the oldest part of town. You like this? I do. Yeah. It seems very unsafe. These boats do look like they could go any minute. What's Oh, okay, here we go. I'll get it. I'll get it again. You sure? It's fine. We'll square it at the end. Oh, just got a bit hitch. Look at this. This is go heavy. I don't want to be tippy. Head on here. Yeah. What they want from us? I'm glad I haven't been fishing chips. Do we need Bernard Herrmann to score this moment? We're going into that old Dubai. Some of this is as old as Katy Perry. A pleasingly swift four-man journey lands us in the Al Fahidi district with its pre-Arabian wind towers and labyrinthine streets. History. I know this is all from the late '90s, I think. And it's a bit less Dallas. All that remains of the old city walls is on display, and what a magnificent sight it is. 50 cm thick, 600 meters long. These are impressive stats, aren't they? 2.5 meters high. In the beginning of the 20th century, the wall was demolished to accommodate the expansion of the city. In frankly good riddance to what is a statistically unimpressive wall. It homes of uh Chessington World of Adventures. And you say that like it's a bad thing. Dubai. I love that place. Yeah, that's a place where you can dream.
The only thing left for us to achieve is the purchase of some random guff with which to sanctify our stay. How are you with fridge magnets? I like them. Just say Dubai skyline. It doesn't. I love. So you're not, you're not overcommitting. Yes, you're just ambivalent. You just acknowledge that it has one. This could be pleasing. Oh, hey, now. Oh, it keeps going. That's coming home. That's coming home. Beauty. I like. Yeah, perhaps it's not the best momento, but just fill every refillable butane lighter in the world. Okay. I don't know. You can take that on the plane. That looks well. That's lit. Flammable. No, but I'll just fill a lot of lighters while I'm here and then check all the lighters on separately. If you're getting through that many lighters here, I'm going to recommend you cut down. So I these two. I'm not sure what you'd call them. They're each. Johnny, get in here. How much? One pound 20. What? 20 for one? Yeah. Oh, come on. Johnny does not like the sound of that. Please, please. We're on a limited budget. Said for 30, 35 and three. Okay. Yeah. And then the tea. 25. Woah. Now, now, come on. That's. I know me tea. I sell a lot of tea in the UK. You're talking to Mr. Tea. Trust me. I mean, not the real Mr. Tea. We can get them both for 40, and I'll do a picture holding the tea for you. The whole lot for 100. 100? 100 for all? Okay. I don't feel totally comfortable with your energy level at the moment. You seem kind of down about it. Are you okay with this? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give you some more money because because it's not a game show. I'm well aware of that. It lacks the ratings and the razzmatazz. I know, but you're missing up on the whole ethos of B. No, I don't. The man looks down. So I'm going to leave another 50 dirham. Okay? Because for everything. Is that enough now? Okay. I'll give you 100 more dir. No. His manly yet doleful eyes end up costing me close to half a sea, taking our consolidated weekend spend to £16,924. A bill which remains unpaid. Tempus is as fugate as ever. So we slumped down on the hotel's man-made beach to assess our colossal achievements. Johnny, what activity did you like best? Ooh. Um, you seem to like the dune buggies. Dune buggies? Yeah, that was a hell of a lot of fun. I love the uh, the river tax. Yes, 'cause that felt like the most authentic thing, and it's something that everyday people were using. I tell you what I've really enjoyed. I've enjoyed the fact that they are three-pin plugs here. Yeah, that is a joy. That will accommodate a two-pin. It will accommodate a two-pin as well. It's, it's some of the best power socketry I've ever seen. I'm going to go and have a paddle, I think. Ask the foreman over there when they'll be done. Will you make your own way back, Johnny? Well, no. If you get, if you get a spade, we'll start chucking some sand in and create a bit of real estate of our own. All right, I'll get a spade. Next week, a tonic trip to Berlin with Rowan Atkinson. We're stalled. We're stalled. N. [Music]