Dubai/Abu Dhabi with Type 1

Where Was I?

Flew from Cape Town > Dubai

Taxi from Dubai > Abu Dhabi

Total Flights: 1

When Did I Go?

Oct 29 – Nov 5

Currency

Emirati Dirham

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After spending a month in Africa, it was time to move on to a new continent.  I wanted to spend a bit of time in the UAE before hitting Southeast Asia for a while, so I spent this week mostly in Dubai before spending my final day in Abu Dhabi.

 

Dubai

Dubai was really something.  The kids would call it extra.  Very extra. It’s an extravagant, over-the-top, posh, modern city that shows off its wealth in so many ways.  There were hundreds, if not thousands of high-rise hotels, apartments, condos, and office buildings scattered throughout the city.  I stayed by the Dubai Marina, an area southwest of downtown that has sort of a South Beach feel to it.  It’s probably not the best city to spend time in on a budget, but I managed to stay occupied without going broke.

The Best Thing I Saw

The Burj Khalifa, located in downtown Dubai, is the tallest building in the world, and the observation deck on the 148th floor is the highest observation deck on a building in the world.

I went up to get a picture.   It was overpriced (a little over $100) but the views were amazing.

 

The Burj was located right next to the Dubai Mall and the Dubai Fountain, which was very similar to the fountain water show in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  The mall was big enough and had enough things to do to probably spend an entire day, but I just had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack (love the shack) and then watched some UAE hockey (because of course they had an ice rink in the mall) before going up to the top of the Burj.  They also had almost every store and chain imaginable in the mall.  Just in terms of food, besides the famed Joe’s Crab Shack, I could have eaten at TGI Fridays, Cheesecake Factory, Johnny Rockets, Chili’s, California Pizza Kitchen… I could go on and on.

 

Other Highlights 

– Desert Tour

The desert tour was a lot of fun. It was my first time dune bashing, which was basically off-roading in a land cruiser on sand dunes.  It felt safe enough.    Then at night, there was a dinner and an Arabian show at the camp, where we also got to ride a camel.

 

 

 

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A post shared by Jeremy Hyman (@type1_travels) on Nov 1, 2018 at 10:58am PDT

– A Michael Jackson tribute show

Kind of stumbled on this one night, but it wasn’t bad.  Long live the king of pop.

– Some great Middle Eastern food

 

Abu Dhabi

I was only in Abu Dhabi for one day and one night as it was only about an hour taxi ride away from Dubai and my flight to Bangkok was from the Abu Dhabi airport.

I was glad I at least got a chance to see Abu Dhabi, which was much different from Dubai.

The Best Thing I Saw

 

 

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A post shared by Jeremy Hyman (@type1_travels) on Nov 4, 2018 at 6:48am PST

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque was quite a spectacle.  It’s the largest mosque in the UAE and one of the largest in the world.  It also is one that allows non-Muslims to visit, making it a major tourist attraction in the city for people of all religions.  They suggest men wear long sleeves and pants, but it wasn’t a requirement.  Women had to cover up and wear an abaya to enter.  Shoes were also not allowed to be worn, as you had to leave them on a shelf at the front.  The inside of the mosque was just as nice looking as the exterior, with giant chandeliers hanging from the ceilings.  There were evening prayers going on when I was there, but they have a separate area to go if you are there to pray.  I went at sunset to see the place in both the daylight and lit up at night, which I’d recommend doing if you decide to visit.

 

The Sugars

Highest high: 313

Lowest low: 56*

Avg Morning: 155

Avg Afternoon: 128

Avg Night: 135

Insulin Pods: 3

Avg Basal Rate: 1.10

Emergency sugar supply: Skittles, glucose tablets, energy drinks, Oreos

*probably went lower, but didn’t check

 

A majority of the time in the UAE my sugar was in a very good range.  It’s funny because when I took my sugar at the mosque it had been high for much of that day, but it was like my body knew a picture was coming up so it went down to 99.

I had one night in Dubai where I felt a low come on and it took longer than normal for my sugar to get back up into a good range.  I don’t always have to check my sugar and waste a test strip to know these things.  I can feel a low and I don’t really have to know how low it is to know I need sugar.  If my sugar is 50 or 30 I need sugar either way, so I won’t bother checking.  That’s why I put a * next to the 56 for the lowest low in the UAE.  On the night it went low, even after I ate some of my candies and glucose tablets, my sugar levels didn’t seem to regulate fast enough, so I took some more.  A few hours later was when my sugar went to 313.  That happens from time to time.  It’s over correcting, which happens every now and then.  I was probably worried about it going low again, because it stayed in a high range for most of the next day, but I straightened it out after about 24 hours.

I remembered from my two-day stopover in Dubai back at the end of September that the heat and humidity of the UAE was causing my sugar to drop, so I factored that into a lot of what I did and it seemed to be better this time around.  It also wasn’t as hot as it was about four weeks earlier. I didn’t have too many lows over this week and I kept my basal rate at 1.10 for most of the time.

When I ate a big Moroccan meal, with lots of couscous and breads, I raised my basal rate that night to 1.30 because of all the carbs.  I’ll often do this when I eat a lot of breads and pastas that take a while to break down to sugar in my body.  Before my trip, when my normal basal rate was 1.30, I’d change the setting to either 1.40 or 1.50 if I had a big meal with a lot of carbs.  It usually helped, but sometimes I would still wake up with my sugar higher than normal.

On my last day in the UAE, I picked up my long-term supply of insulin from a family friend who lives in Abu Dhabi.  I had dropped it off with him during my stopover about a month ago, so I wouldn’t have to carry it with me on safari.  I have Frio bags for the insulin to keep it cool, but I’d still prefer to keep it in an actual refrigerator when possible.  It’s recommended that insulin be used within 28 days after removing it from a cooled temperature.  So, I usually carry two vials of insulin in my day bag, the vial I’m currently using and the vial I’ll be using next.   Each vial lasts about 12-15 days so carrying two outside of the refrigerator means I’ll be using that insulin within 30 days. The rest of my insulin that I plan to use over the next few months I prefer to keep cold.  However, on the 27 day tour of Southeast Asia coming up in mid November, that will be a lot harder to manage.

 

I left the UAE and arrived in Thailand, the starting point of my tour.  I’ll be in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam until mid December.

To more solid sugar levels

 

Jeremy

 

 

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