Rainforest, underwater zoo, aquarium... find them all in Dubai

Dubai - Green Planet, Underwater Zoo and the Aquarium are vital draws and an example of how a city continues to innovate to bring in more.

Liam John Barker likes to spend most of his days sleeping and basking in the sun. When he does move, he likes to glide along slowly... very slowly, only to hang upside down from a tree branch.

Mr Barker, as he is better known, is a sloth, an endangered species known to inhabit the rainforests in South America and some parts of Central America.

But Mr Barker does not live in either of these places.

He lives in Dubai, right in the middle of the Arabian Desert. And he is doing fine.

Mr Barker's home in Green Planet, a carefully created rainforest has just the right kind of air, water and vegetation for him to thrive.

The Green Planet - along with attractions like the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo - is one more effort by the Dubai government to create a "foreign" ecosystem right in the middle of an arid landscape where the average temperature is 41 degrees Celsius.

The Green Planet, a careful amalgamation of the real and the artificial, opened its doors to the public in September last year and figures prominently on every tourist's must-see list.

The project began in 2013 to create awareness about the environment, and later transformed into a place that lets people in Dubai experience what it is like to be in the middle of a rainforest.

Built around a 25-metre-high manmade Kapok tree, Green Planet is tucked away in a corner of Dubai City Walk. It is an artificial yet life-sustaining tropical rainforest with over 3,000 plants, animals, birds and insects.

The entire forest is enclosed in a glass structure that allows enough natural light for both the plants and animals.

"The tree is made of wood and cement, and spaces within it are filled with soil for natural plants to grow so that animals and birds feel they are in their natural habitat," said Marissa, one of the over 70 staff and experts who operate The Green Planet.

"Fifty per cent of the plants on the tree, including the algae on the bark, are real," she added.

The Green Planet is spread over four levels - the canopy or the roof of the rainforest, the mid-story, the forest floor, which is humid, quiet and dark, and the flooded rainforest.

To get a holistic experience, Marissa suggests a top-down tour - first meeting the hornbill and the Brazilian parrots, then saying hello to Mr Barker, moving on to an encounter with the green emerald boa (snake), and finally feeding arowana fish in the waters below.

"The green emerald boa has one of the slowest bowel movements. It feeds once a week on frozen mice," Marissa explains.

Walk down the winding path and you get a panoramic view, as a golden conure and a black-napled oriol fly over your head.

Along the way are reptiles and insects like the new Caledonian gecko, the Asian forest scorpion, tamarin monkeys, a couple of Amazon milk frogs, a green basilisk in glass cabinets.

The Dubai Aquarium and the Underwater Zoo offer similar experiences.

Both are housed in the Dubai Mall, the second largest shopping complex on earth.

The Dubai Aquarium is 11 metres high, 20 metres wide and 51 metres long. The artificial aquatic habitat holds 10 million litres of water and is home to over 140 species of marine animals.

"Over 300 sharks and rays live in this tank, including the largest collection of Sand Tiger sharks in the world," a staffer at the Dubai Aquarium said.

Visitors walk through a 48-metre-long glass tunnel, giving a 270-degree view of the tank.

For those looking for more, the Aquarium offers several interactive experiences that lets them get up close and personal with the sea creatures.

• UAE
• Dubai