Timeshare Dubai-style
Welcome to the concept of a bedspace. A bedspace is a timeshare in a bed. It is used by people in Dubai - generally Asian migrant workers - who are so poor that they cannot even afford to rent part of a room.
Instead they team up with someone working an opposite shift - perhaps a night watchman - and share the bed at different times. Quite what happens on the weekend is anyone's guess, but it's doubtless even less comfortable.
Interestingly, the bedspace has a long and glorious history in Dubai. Back in the early days of the oil boom, when there were few hotels and thousands of foreign businesspeople arriving by the day, the Intercontinental on the Creek used to double-book beds. It was quite normal, if disconcerting, for a German businessman to arrive back at his room to find a sleeping Syrian businessman occupying half of it. Or for a British oil executive to wake up in the morning to the sound of a Dutch counterpart arriving with his suitcases.
How times haven't really changed at all.
Instead they team up with someone working an opposite shift - perhaps a night watchman - and share the bed at different times. Quite what happens on the weekend is anyone's guess, but it's doubtless even less comfortable.
Interestingly, the bedspace has a long and glorious history in Dubai. Back in the early days of the oil boom, when there were few hotels and thousands of foreign businesspeople arriving by the day, the Intercontinental on the Creek used to double-book beds. It was quite normal, if disconcerting, for a German businessman to arrive back at his room to find a sleeping Syrian businessman occupying half of it. Or for a British oil executive to wake up in the morning to the sound of a Dutch counterpart arriving with his suitcases.
How times haven't really changed at all.
24 Comments:
Realistically, I don't think they'd have weekends at all.
That's a very valid point Sam.
perhaps we can blame their 'holding of hands' etc on the fact that once they have become bed-fellows, why stop at that?
okey cokey
We heard a similar thing in Jordan at the Amman Kempinski in February.
An American checking in, saying in a loud voice, I understand that you don't have a room for me, but surely YOU understand that I DO NOT want to share with a complete stranger.
At least they told him first! :-)
What i dont understand is, why do people who hate this country and its people so much, insist on hanging around.
Anyway back to the subject, the bedspace thing is quite common not just amongst indians but also Arabs and Europeans as well, even those with good jobs. People who suddenly find themselves working across emirates may have no choice but to take a bed in a large room in a villa or apartment because it is difficult to find an appartment.
Personally unless I am with friends, i'd rather travel the distance than share a room with three or four other guys...
i'd rather travel the distance than share a room with three or four other guys...
Thats what 9/10 people want. Then why is it that they still choose to be 'sardined'?
You have to be blind if you can't see why...
Best thing I heard recently is times are getting so tough in Dubai, they are now offering "Half Bed Spaces", meaning that some enterprising guy has rented a studio in Deira, and put as many queen size beds as he can in there, and rents two people a single bed. Amazing what people will do to live here and get by.
What happened to the story on people 'camping' in their cars 24/7?
That's nothing. The practice of bachelors killing themselves just so they get to sleep in the mortuary has been going on for some time now. Apparently, one chap killed himself, slept in the mortuary, went to work the next day and came back to find the mortuary attendant insisting that he share a slab with another dead guy for a few hours until that one could go to work.
Amazed at the ignorance of aussie70..surely you haven't been around here long enough.
I suppose it's only a matter of time before some Sheikh Sillyhat issues an order banning bed-sharing as 'immoral' and 'anti-muslim'. Although,
I guess most of the guys sharing beds are not muslims, anyway(?).
Actually, there are a few women at work I'd like to share a bed with. D'you think I could pull 'em if I showed 'em the article?!
that is really sad.. the gulf is widening in many ways than one.. but it's very important to highlight this. Thanks SD.
i am mildly surprised that the intercon used to double book. it's not that old a hotel (although one of the first in the city). i should ask dad.
buj - one old-timer told me that people would book rooms for months on end at the Intercon (and elsewhere) just to hang on to them.
Ask your father if he ever heard of the Bon Vivant. This was apparently a decommissioned Greek cruise ship with no A/C that was moored on the Creek and used for accommodation for business execs. The heat was so stifling that people couldn't sleep, and would come out on deck in the middle of the (hot, sweaty) night just for relief.
SD.. will ask and report back!
I'm sure he'll know.. or at least he'll know someone that does..
was this in UAE's time or Trucial States' time i wonder...
buj & sd, yes it's true. I was here back then and people did share rooms at the Inter.Con.
I even have a photo of the Bon Vivant on my blog, back in the March Archive. (There was another one moored in Sharjah called the Flotel.)
That was in 1977, so we were about six years into the UAE. Dubai really took off in '73 with the oil price hike and Beirut imploding, so business moved here and the city boomed. Business people poured in...to not much in the way of hotel accommodation!
When you get paid like 1000 dirhams/month, its not like you have a choice? Its the real estate boom that is driving everybody live together, its not like they want to do it. They just don't have any other option.
didnt you know yahya, he is sticking around to ride his bike around satwa :)
It's a single bed in a room for a single person and is not shared by different ppl at different times. Get ur bloody facts rite
Bedspaces are shared by more than one person when circumstances get really strained.
1. Try reading the linked article.
2. Get "ur" bloody facts "rite" before making a rude, ignorant idiot of yourself on someone else's site.
3. And get your spelling right while you're about it, rather than adding illiteracy to your heap of cretinry.
It's time now to boycott Duabia until they provide safety to local gays who are afraid to "come out" or else they may be jailed or worse. Recently, 12 gay men were forced by the authorities to undergoe forced tersterone treatment. This so so wrong. Tell all your friends to boycott Dubai, please?
It's time now to boycott Duabia until they provide safety to local gays who are afraid to "come out" or else they may be jailed or worse. Recently, 12 gay men were forced by the authorities to undergoe forced tersterone treatment. This so so wrong. Tell all your friends to boycott Dubai, please?
hello,
I am Indian my new job in Dubai next month my salary 15000/- Indian Rs.
Please Help Me One Room
And Any Tips
S78648007@Yahoo.co.in
Sumit_vyaslove@yahoo.com
Is the thing that people have between their legs the only thing that matters?
It's about time they legalized homosexuality in Dubai.
All the local men seem to be gay.
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