Dubai - Can I get something to eat?

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Late at night, around 11.00 our flight from Athens landed in Dubai.
A mixup with the gates meant we'd be bussing from the aircraft to the terminal. The 4 hour flight had been a pleasant suprise. Not all airlines treated us plebs as well as Emirates did.
The PA extolled the virtues of the UAE, a phalanx of grinning Emirates flight attendants channelling shuffling passengers through the exit door. My glasses fogged-up instantly as I passed out of the cool cabin thrumming with air-conditioners onto the tarmac, the roar of machines thickening your senses , already numbed by the heat. “Shit” I muttered. In response, an amused flight steward farewelled me. “Enjoy the weather”. I could half make out the smile on his face as I briefly turned on the staircase.
A motorcade of low-slung terminal buses collected the 300 odd passengers. We boarded a bus and took the 10 minute trip past rows and rows of aircraft surrounding the main terminal.
It had been like going to the sauna. Cool plane, hot tarmac, colder bus, hot tarmac, finally at the literal and figuratively cool terminal we arrived.

One could be fooled into thinking women have the final say in Dubai. Judging by the long row of hijab wearing women (in black of course) at immigration control having final say whether or not you can even come into the UAE. “Why are you here?”. “To visit friends” we pleaded. “Enjoy your stay” she said with impassive eyes and we walked through.
At baggage claim Michelle had to dart off to the loo. Waiting for our bags, I turned around facing the other way. It felt like we were on the edge of the great continental shelf 'Consumeralia'. A Porsche 911 was being raffled off. For $250.00 NZD you had a 1 in a 1000 chance of winning.
Behind it stretched rows of shops selling the stuff that keeps GQ magazine in business. Except the faces behind the counters weren't the ones of aryan perfection demanded for advertising copy.
Their Pakistani, Bangladeshi, North African, Phillipino faces locked in neutral expressions until a customer came into range. “How can I help you sir”, said with a retail smile.

Dubai would be our last stop. We'd pulled-out of Singapore, our money situation unfavourable.
I'd read myriad accounts of this place and how fantastic the shopping was. Stuff like they had tamed African Elephants to take children for rides around the malls and the 500 genetically engineered palm trees planted in another mall, modelled on Versailles, grew bottles of Chateau neuf de Pape in lieu of dates. Similar stories had inspired Marco Polo to spend years getting to and from China. We'd only needed a 4 hour Emirates flight. Setting aside the guaranteed eternal happiness promised by shopping we'd come to Dubai to spend time with Michelle's friend Anthia, husband Dan & 3 and a half year old Vlad.

Anthia was waiting for us in the arrival hall. Smiles all round we stepped outside again into the carpark. A skinny old man hurried up to the boot of Anthia's car. Before we knew it our bags were in the trunk and hand outstretched the man stood there. We gave him some Dirhams, he thanked us effusively, hurrying back beneath the shadows of the terminal. Anthia surprised & annoyed backed out the car and we headed for the toll booth. She was surprised the guy could move so quick given it was Ramadan. Ramadan? The month of September is an especially holy month in Muslim countries like the UAE. Observance is strictly enforced. Basically, we, along with anyone else could be arrested if we ate, drank, smoked or chewed gum in public during daylight hours.* On the plus side a bit of weight loss wouldn't be such a bad thing.
More on Ramadan later. Anthia tut-tutting with annoyance about giving the freelance baggage-handler money drove us down the main drag. The uncalled for porter had broken through her ex-pat defense cordon protecting her innocent tourista friends.



Michelle & Anthia had loads to talk about. In the back of the car my thoughts turned to the high rise flanking the motorway. Late at night we passed by the Burj Dubai rising up. It cuts the sky above. The lights glowing green, blue and red through the haze.
The Burj is the stand-out piece in the giant meccano set being erected along the highway. On April 7, 2007 it became the tallest building in the world when it's radio mast was completed.
It's a building that proves useful even if you never, ever set foot in it, let alone rent an office or buy an apartment. All because of the Burj Al Arab. The sail-like hotel sitting on Jumeirah Beach kilometres away. Between the 2 buildings lies most of the city, these buildings provide the handiest reference points. Dubai has no 3G coverage, so forget about Google Maps, if you thought Auckland taxi drivers are bad. Think again. But you can't get lost if you can see the Burj Dubai & the Burj Al Arab.

Eventually, somewhere between these buildings, the high rises dropped-off as we left the motorway onto the main north/south road that runs along Jumeirah Beach. Turning into a tree-lined side street we pulled into the carport of Dan & Anthia's Villa.
I wasn't expecting a tent in a wadi, but stepping out of the car you could be mistaken. It's Botany Downs with less botany. In a 2-dimensional sense. Looks the same, sounds the same. My glasses fogged again. The 3rd dimension had spoken.
The neighbourhood we were in, generously named Jumeirah 3 (a bit more real than the cravenly dishonest 'Botany Downs' though) was practically an Emirates enclave. Emirates, the airline, provided housing for many of it's employees. Dan's an engineer. Neighbouring houses housed other Emirates staff. We tip-toed indoors, back into the cool. The bed in the spare room was nice and normal. Much better than the eclectic collection of bedsteads we'd suffered through across America and Europe. We bade goodnight to Anthia and sunk into the best sleep we'd had in ages. In a home, not a hotel.

Telling nightime stories is like narrating a trip down a tunnel. It's only emerging in daybreak that you can wake-up, look around and appreciate your surroundings. Leaving my snoozing Wife I walked into the lounge. Blue sky poked over the fenceline surrounding the yard the lounge windows opened onto. Dan had just left for his shift supervising aircraft maintenance. Anthia was overseeing Vlad gulping down breakfast before heading off to kindy on the back of a bicycle.
A red light run had resulted in one of their cars being impounded for two weeks.
Apologetic, Anthia wanted to show us round but it was going to be taxi's and buses for us.
We were grateful just being here and spending time with them. Besides, it'd be more fun finding our own way round this place and being Mum to a 3 and a half year old, who realised the word “No” had certain powers, meant Anthia had her work cutout for her.

Michelle had a big sleep-in, while I sat on the corner of the big dining table wileing-away the morning on the laptop. Compulsively surfing again and again the same sites. New surroundings provoking the thumb-sucking withdrawl a couple more days would cure. Action or inertia? Staying wrapped-up in the tech cocoon leaves the day wasted, whereas going & doing something alone is risky. It was early afternoon and Michelle had risen, Anthia had gone to pick-up Vlad. I had to do something. I announced I'd go for a walk around the block. Get a feel for the place.

The coffee coloured ground met by the muddied haze frothing around the Burj Dubai far in the distance and whitening higher up into the sky, finally pure blue circling high, high above. In my t-shirt, shorts & jandals I set off down the footpath. My watch said 1pm.

Soon I found the north/south road. I was a solitary ant on the bright white side of the road. Cars raced by, windows up. Save for the occasional bus packed with Bangladeshi labourers, arms out the windows going to and fro. Across the road behind walls with gates was a row of Villas sporting english signage. 'Woman's Gym, Laprosopic Surgeon, Heart Specialist, Florist'. Behind, stood 2- and 3-storey building sites. A few Bangladeshi's dressed in dusty blue overalls locked in Ramadan's lethargy wandered about carrying tools and scaffolding.
Ramadan is about humility. These men working under the 40 degree sun in their full length overalls, indentured labourers confined to work camps when not working, humbled already by 7-dollar-a-day wages would for 30 days have that humility stretched again with a spot of fasting.
Suddenly from all around erupted the call to prayer. As I stood on the pavement watching the workers, many disappeared off to pray. The recitation, broadcast over speakers seemingly everywhere gave me the feeling I was in the middle of a giant home theatre system.
I used to live in Grey Lynn. Without fail, every sunday the Methodist church choir down the road would launch into this fabulous, ethereal, dignified gospel singing. At least it felt that way until they started practicing every night it seemed.
The beautiful recitations, 6 times a day asserts that priorities here are a little different.
You realise how secular NZ has become, standing on a street, the heat and chanting washing over you.

Every 500m or so refridgerated bus stops give respite to waiting travellers.
The cool wraps around you standing in one. I wasn't catching the bus so was forced to move on feeling like a frozen moro bar fallen out of the icecream fridge in the supermarket.
The pavement was deserted save for an occasional labourer swaying by on bicycle.
Sweat sucked my T-shirt and shorts onto my frame, my sunglasses slipping on the bridge of my nose and the back of my ears. I walked past a shop filled with colourful interesting shapes.
Entering seemed to quell the meltdown but almost immediately the attractiveness of my surroundings took a nosedive. I'd stepped into a shop selling evil looking knives, hookah pipes and tobacco. I turned to leave. The desperate looking shop-assistant reached over the glass-topped counter stuffed with what looked like hash pipes and shoved an icecold drink in my face. “Please! For You!!”, but I turned again “No please, you have! Free!”. In a split second I theorised. Was this the famous Arabic hospitality I'd heard about? Did I seem as if I would collapse from heat exhaustion? Or did he just want me to buy something else? I took the delicious crushed-lemon drink. Looking round the store trying hard to find something I could actually use proved impossible. He saw my gaze focus on the hookah pipes. “You smoke yes? Shisha?”. I laughed. “No, no. I no smoke Hashish”. Sheepishly I backed out of the store onto the street, refreshed but feeling bad I didn't smoke anymore. Realising days later that 'Shisha' is a perfectly legal herbal fruit smoked. Not the downright illegal Hashish which attracts a generous prison sentence.^

Further down the road, I spotted the beach down a side-street. Either side of the road the construction sites now lay silent as the prayer continued. The long tan walls hugged the street heading down to a fuzzy sand border 300m away. The road stopped and spreading out left and right before me was a long expanse of sand kilometres long, the beach hundreds of metres deep. A rocky spit began where the sea started right in front of me.
Above to the left, in the distance loomed the Burj Al Arab, it's sail-shaped form shrunken inside the haze. To the right construction sprawl traced along the beach. But, nothing, no one but me was here on the beach under the sun. Walking closer to the water I crossed a road fashioned out of the sand, marked by little red flags every 20m. It seemed to run all the way along the beach going god knows where. Used for who knows what?
Over the road I slipped off my sandals and hurried down to the water. The sand singeing my feet before I extinguished them in the seawater. My panama hat soaked-up all the sweat it could, my sunglasses stained with the overflow. It was time for a swim.
Stripping down to my undies I threw myself in. The water, powder blue. Almost like a Central Otago river. Was nothing like the numbing glacial shock of swimming the Matukituki in the summer melt. The spa-bath warm washed over me as I stretched out on my back bobbing in the sea.



The spa bath with sand was nice, but I had to dry-off somehow. Judging the warm dry wind adequate for the task I stood under the sun on the deserted beach for twenty minutes drying.
Feeling utterly refreshed and at one with myself again. Comfortable at last in these alien surroundings somewhat reminiscent of Mt Mauganui without the bogans I made my way back down the side road off the beach. The deserted building sites had come back to life. Workers moped about, toolbelts loose around their skinny frames packaged in dusty overalls.
They were a quiet bunch. “ Salaam” I made a habit of greeting them as I walked passed. Some, impassive walked by, others grinning broadly, nodded in acknowledgement but a few just stared.
The heat made me drowsy and I started to sleepwalk my way home. My head dropped, focussing on the pavement preceding my footsteps. I realised the workers had been awfully polite. A large stain had soaked through the front of my grey/white pants. I must have looked like a mad-expat finally gone troppo, all the quinine run out, wandering round the streets in a gin-soaked haze looking for my house.

Well, I was lost. Somewhere I'd overshot the road I needed to turn down, it took me a few more meandering circles to find Dan & Anthia's place again. This had given me ample opportunity to think a lot about dying of thirst in the middle of the desert. There was no need to worry, almost every street I wandered down had a big stainless steel box squatting on the side of the footpath, much like an industrial dishwasher you find in restaurants. A water tap poking out the side which dispensed ice-cold, refridgerated water. Guzzling away I stopped suddenly, crouched down and scanned the street furtively. I'd belatedly remembered being told that drinking anything in public during Ramadan can get you in all sorts of trouble here. In Mt Mauganui it might mean a rap over the knuckles and a stay in a tennis court holding cell on New Years Eve. Here it means a rap over the head with a knuckleduster and an indefinite stay in a prison with an HIV epidemic.

There's nothing Michelle likes more than wandering around malls. There's nothing I like less.
Which is why, when we do go shopping I have the same tolerance for browsing arcades as I did for being held captive on sunday drives as the grown-ups in the front seats looked at houses for sale.
In other words I start sulking very quickly. Besides, I treat shopkeepers as if they don't have my best interests at heart or Michelle's which can make me embarassingly frank.
So shopping alone is best for both parties.
My mission was to find a new graphics card for my computer. Dan had briefed me on 'Computer Street'. Aptly named it's quite literally an entire street filled with nothing but computer shops.
The next morning I got up, champing at the bit to find my super-cheap card. Anthia gently informed me that the shops didn't open until 10am. Sitting on my hands for a couple of hours I fantasised about bartering-down shopkeepers to unreasonable levels.
Soon enough I was in the back of a cab, hailed from the pavement, heading towards Computer Street. Thankfully the driver seemed to know where to go. Recently numbered streets finally got names, sowing confusion amid the taxi community.

The taxi deposited me outside a nondescript, mid-rise building on the edge of huge traffic roundabout. Cars, trucks & taxis whirlpooled around it. Taking up most of the space in the middle was another construction site. Not a shred of greenery offset the grey-white pavement, concrete walls & anonymous mirror-glass clad towers above, around and beyond. Billboards in arabic & english extolled the names of the different malls scattered up and down the long treeless boulevard.
On the ground floor a supermarket, much like Foodtown catered to the slow morning trade.
I went in and bought a pen & paper. On the billboard past the checkout were pinned homemade ads for used BMW's & Mercedes next to ads for hardworking, honest Filipino maids.
Leaving the supermarket I found myself in a mid-sized mall, 3 storeys high with glass fronted shops crammed with laptops, printers and plasma TV's.
The mall was deserted. Most of the shops had 3 or 4 shop assistants milling around. I thought to myself they'll be hungry for business.
But no one approached me. Normally I like this. The words “can I help you?” are my cue to leave a store. However pricetags on items were few and far between and there definitely weren't any on the stuff I wanted to buy. I'd go up to an assistant and shove a piece of paper with the make & model scrawled on it. He'd go away and talk to his manager who'd invariably dial his telephone to ask someone else 'how much?' Time after time the answer was bad and they wouldn't barter. My fantasy was unravelling. I'd withdrawn a heap of Dirhams which were burning a hole in my pocket. Not wanting to give in to just having to have what I wanted I left one mall and ducking across the road tried a couple more. No luck, they were all the same.
Every single shop I tried was more expensive than buying back home in New Zealand.
Incredible. Little old NZ, thousands of miles further away from anywhere, let alone Dubai had the cheap goods. Here I was, with literally hundreds of shops selling mostly the same stuff and no one wanted to barter?

'Disappointed', that patronising word schoolteachers aim at bewildered 7-year-olds who’ve misbehaved. It seemed applicable here. I'd expected people selling stuff to sell it to me with my ridiculous expectations. I felt disappointed.
It was close to midday now. I was going to take the bus back. The route map in the bustop might as well have been written in arabic and the bustop was broken. The normally securely shut sliding doors yawned wide apart rendering the airconditioning useless. Rather than waiting round in the open air broiler I hailed another cab. Michelle had texted me, we'd meet at the Mall of the Emirates. 15 minutes later, doubling back, passing where we were staying I arrived outside this massive building complete with artificial ski slope, 450 shops & 70 restaurants. Strolling into the mall past the valet parked Bentleys & Maseratis, I ran into Michelle almost immediately.
The Mall was nearly deserted. Ramadan is like New Zealand on a Sunday, pre-Roger Douglas...for a whole month. The quiet, emptiness of the Computer St mall's was tenfold inside this consumerist cavern.

Without free access to food and drink I'd earlier resorted to locking myself in a loo cubicle swigging back bottled water and chomping on the banana Anthia had given me. Now it was lunchtime and both of us were starving. Thankfully the mall had a closed-off area shrouded in floor-to-ceiling black curtains. Behind the sheets was a foodcourt. Given that 80% of residents here aren't citizens, local dishes are hard to pin-down. Instead you get the best ex-pat Indian, Thai and Chinese food on your plate which suited us fine.
Something was on my mind. Jutting out the side of the mall was a long, long rectangular box angling upwards. I knew what is was, finding it proved easy. It was a 100 metres from where we were eating clear rice noodles & Thai beef. Finishing-up we parted company.
Michelle would shop, I'd go skiing. You pay your money, grab your clothing & skis and waddle over to an escalator which brings you up to the piste.
It's a stupendous thing. First someone thought a stupendous thought, someone else said yes and gave a bunch of Architects a bunch of money. Then someone else put in snowmakers and when the whole thing filled up with snow a chairlift got plonked down.
The 22,000 square foot ski area is kept frosty with blast freezers. The average temperature is -8 degrees centigrade perfect for skiing. The chairlift was of course closed and the rope-tow was jammed solid for 30 minutes as all of us in the queue talked. Australians, Americans, Canadians and me and another NZer. So the Arabs had got the cultural experience spot-on. It felt really authentic, the lift breakages and the queuing that is.

Finally the rope-tow was fixed just as the numbness from my hire boots set in. Soon I was standing at the top of the 300m slope. Seconds later I was back in the queue for another haul up the tow.
This is where the novelty wears thin. You get in a few deeply satisfying turns and it's back to the bottom. Having given myself a big, smug pat on the back for getting a couple of ski-runs in Dubai's autumn, my feet now hurt. The snowboarder I talked with from NZ cheerfully continued on. He'd skimped on a hat and gloves. His enthusiasm helping ignore blue fingers and chattering teeth.

Back out of the ski jacket and trousers, I eventually found Michelle and shrugging in collective mall fatigue we made for the exit. Back in the late afternoon heat we flagged down one of the latte coloured Toyota Camry taxis. Pointing at the map, the driver U-turned across the carriageway. Soon we were heading home, the entire fare cost about $20.00 NZ. We were as silent towards each other as the driver was. The drab enterior muffling the senses, the beige carpet soaking up the rushing sound of the air-conditioner. Only a the dull 'whump,whump,whump' of a misaligned wheel interjected the hush. I sensed disappointment. Mall's aren't fun unless you have money and lots of it. But maybe it was more that it was just another Westfield. I'd already started to feel guilty about the wireless headphones I didn't need that I'd bought.

I needn't have worried. They didn't work properly. Able to take them back, I did. The store clerk incredulous that I demanded a refund. The firm set in my eyes enough to seal the deal.
So we spent another half-day at the mall, but then again what else can one do here?
Anthia was determined to make it a little bit more real for us. As couples do, Anthia & Dan had a quick 'best restaurant conference' with each other. It came down to Beirut.
We were happy to their choice. Having no idea what constituted good Dubai food, I only hoped that it didn't involve sheeps eyes and boiled goat.
We all bundled into their station wagon complete with an excited 3 and a half year old. Somehow the conversation got to New Years Eve. Driving down Jumeirah Beach Road had triggered Anthia's recollection of how different the culture really is here. On New Year's Eve the road is clogged with exhuberant, supercharged teens in their hotted-up cars. Yelling and screaming out the windows and sunroofs. High on each other, no drugs or alcohol involved. Cars getting the shaving cream treatment.
We sat in collective disbelief, trying to imagine the scene. A long, long column of Parachute Festival youth but Muslim instead.

Beirut restaurant & buffet resembled a Yum Char joint. An expanse of round tables with chafing dishes parked along the wall in a Le Mans start fashion. Waiting for people to queue and jam-up behind a dithering patron at the meat selection. Buffet's are always false economy so we chose the a la carte menu. Our Syrian Matre 'd ushered us into a booth. The girls on one side, us boys. Dan, Vlad and Simon chatting away ducking in and out of kidspeak for Vlad's benefit.
Soon loads of skewered meats, hummus, pita, tabouleh and salads crowded our table. We'd all ordered a round of Pomengranate juice. None of us having any idea what a pomengranate is.
Repeated progress updates were requested as the food went down but no juice arrived.
The meat was tender and spicy and there was a lot of it. I wondered out loud where it all came from.
Dan pointed out that there are farms here in Dubai, including dairy herds. He might as well have said that pineapples grow in NZ. But technology has made it so. Not the pineapple bit, the whole notion of the place would be nought without air-conditioning, desalination and oil.
As our eating slowed down the juice finally showed-up. The wondrous name misaligned with a somewhat gritty, earthy dilute juice proclaimed by Dan 'a good honest drink'.

Emirates not only do plane rides. They have a desert tour complete with camels on offer.
On our 2nd to last afternoon here we took a cab down to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and waited in the lobby for our complement of tourists to assemble for the desert tour aptly named Arabian Adventures. It probably would have been easier explaining to Sharn, our driver & guide that we'd gotten our Emirates employed friend to buy the tickets. Saving us a few bucks. But not wanting to get arrested I introduced myself to Sharn.
“Hi, I'm Dan but people call me Simon”. Then Michelle broke in “Hi, I'm Michelle.......”. A heavy silence just hung there for a second, I interjected, “Anthia likes to be called Michelle”.
Either Sharn knew what was up or he truly believed everyone in NZ must go by their middle name.
I was acutely aware my probably needless deception was pointedly exposed every time Sharn adressed us. He would start every sentence with 'Simon' or 'Michelle'. At least that's how it felt as we waited for a pair of Germans to show up. They never did, Sharn took us to the waiting truck we'd be driving in. Another couple were already waiting within. My anxieties overcome with relief as it dawned on eveyone involved that it would have been a a tight squeeze if the missing couple were here.
We'd be travelling in 5.5 litre GMC Yukon 4wd. This angular masterpiece of American engineering actually being used to proper purpose rather than propping-up a commuting soccer mum's vanity.
Sharn went off to complete the paperwork absolving himself of the 3rd couple's no-show.
The middle-aged couple turned out to be Germans too. Helmut & Carola were from Munich, over the course of the tour we'd learn a lot from Carola. Her perfect english inflected with the excitement and pride of a life lived well.
Michelle sat in the back with them as I rode shotgun with Sharn. Soon we were heading down the highway out of the city in the late afternoon haze. Unlike the silence of our taxi rides, Sharn, Corola & Michelle talked non-stop. Gradually, I overcame that first time discomfort and cross-questioned Sharn on Dubai. It became apparent he gave the first name treatment to everyone so our little scam was forgotten. All sentences would now start with Simon, Michelle, Carola or Helmut. Helmut, with his amish beard & wireframed glasses, a little bit shy or hampered by limited english just sat there and grinned.

About 40 minutes later we turned-off the highway lined with construction sites and giant portraits of the ruling royal family onto a narrow road, sandrifts encroaching the tarmac.
On the left hand side of the rode ran a chainlink fence in the distance, in the foreground, parallel with road ran a railing about waist high. A long line of mounted camels trotted along at their highest hump-bouncing speed. High stakes camel-racing took place at the purpose-built camel racetrack we'd passed on the motorway. 5 minutes later we left the road and bumped along a dirt track.
The chainlink fence grew larger, a checkpoint complete with an air-conditioned guardbox stood in the yellow sand.
A row of GMC Yukon's like the one we rode in waiting to pass through the barrier. It prevents the joyriding set in their Range Rover Vogue or Porsche Cayenne from running over one of the camels, snakes, foxes or hares that can be found in this national park.
Sharn reassured Carola. No snake would come near us due to the noise & vibrations of our passing vehicle. On the other side of the fence we stopped amongst 30-odd other 4wd's. As we stood on the golden sand dunes taking photos Sharn let-down the tyres. The rubber now sagged outward, gripping the sand beneath.

We all climbed back aboard, the 5.5 litre hemi burbled back into life. The V8 muted & soft through the cabin and then Sharn launched us over our first sand dune. Now the engine gargled into a roar as we crested the dune, the horizon tipping and tilting. We were in a long procession of vehicles sailing over and down, up and around this sandscape. Little red flags occasionally picking out the otherwise random trail it seemed. Sometimes we'd swoop over a dune and looming smack-bang in front lay a stationary 4wd. Sharn shovelling on the gas as he yanked the steering wheel in exaggerated left and rights to get us passed the obstacle. One 4wd we passed had its doors open and heads portruding. Passengers carsick after only a couple of minutes voyaging on the high seas of sand.
The journey continued, no one succumbed to carsickness in our wagon. Sharn could take a lot of credit for this. He was an excellent driver, he'd been on the job 13 years.
I'd quizzed him earlier on the 'guest' workers as we passed one of the countless buses crammed with construction workers on the motorway. I wondered aloud about air-conditioning, Sharn was adamant the buses had them, but if so then why were all the bus windows wide-open all the time?
The longer one stays in Dubai, the more inclined they are to defend it. Sharn really was a local, having lived here most of his life. He worked 6 days a week, driving sometimes 3 hours a day each way to get to and from work. Of Pakistani blood; He cannot become a citizen.
There's comfort in numbers though. He's one of 80% (& climbing) of the population that cannot.

A less experienced but bold driver had attempted crossing a dip way too deep & steep for his 4wd.
Now marooned, the Yukon's front bumper chin-planted into the sand, it's wheels whirring helplessly around like a giant slot car dislodged off it's rails. The driver finally admitting defeat. Sharn and a couple of other drivers flung a tow rope around the rear bumper and hauled it out with another more fortunate Yukon. The brief interlude gave us all a chance to look around and take in the desert.
The sun, shrouded in haze, the static flat light dulling the horizon. The dunes rusty red under the dying light made it a sublime experience, tinged a little by the realization this unique experience would be one of our last on our long, long honeymoon.

But we still had camels to visit. Back in the Yukon we raced through the dunes and came out at an oasis. Gathered around a few desiccated trees stood a herd of these cantakerous animals.
A single strand of barbed wire at waist level kept the camels at bay. They needn't have bothered, most couldn't care less for us. Spindly-legged young calves hung back close to their mothers. A solitary old man held a reluctant Camel in place for photos. His free hand grabbing anyone in range, his fingers simultaneously rubbing together like one rubs sticks to start a fire as he gestured for money. His limps puckered unevenly from missing teeth as he hissed out “dollars”.
I got the photo, he got the Dirhams and off we went again for the final stop - an Arabian feast under the stars.

I wondered how those who had recently vomited their guts out felt. Had their stomachs ceased churning? Were they as hungry as we were? Around a bend in the high dunes we entered a carpark.
Around 40 Yukons parked in orderly rows sat outside a walled compound sprouting floodlit tents.
The sun had gone. In the half light from the trucks headlights people streamed into the compound past more camels hunched down like nesting hens. Not ones to miss a sales opportunity, stalls had been set up selling Arabic-flavoured tourist kitsch. Sharn & the other drivers disappeared for evening prayer as we passengers mingled, wandering about on the massive persian rugs spread over the sand, looking for a free spot on the long, low tables scattered about. Around the compound walls, awnings covered more tables. Amid the tables crammed with aussies and young americans we found a free one.

Soon we were reunited with Helmut & Carola. Wandering around looking for a spare table they sat opposite us. If I had had a seat to fall out of I would've, listening to where our conversation went next.
There are various germanic achetypes to indulge in if you're being lazy and feel an onset of anti-Germaness.
The anal-retentive authoritarian prussian,
Uber gay love parade euro-trance pill poppers,
Earnest eco-warrior, pony-tailed hippies.
Dan had described to us over last night's dinner a virulent strain of Germanicus we'd unwittingly observed before from a distance but still left unclassified.
Dan explained; The terrible conflicts Britons on holiday have with their German counterparts. It seems that fighting over holiday resort deckchairs could easily destabilise relations between Britain & Germany. We remembered something......

About a year ago we stayed one night at a resort hotel in Fiji, eating breakfast early next morning, overlooking the pool area, we watched an elderly man race around a group of deckchairs. He flung towels and water-bottles over half a dozen chairs before retreating to his room. To return at a more suitable hour, say 10am, with extended family in tow. Seats bagsed!! Had we seen a widening of the European war to the Pacific theatre?
It seems that the more leisurely but entitled British cannot cope with such Germanic efficiency and all sorts of fisticuffs can erupt. This amusing little vignette came to the fore as Carola, unprompted, started to talk about the 'great trouble' her fellow Germans had with der Britisher.
She might as well have stood there with a map and easel, a field marshal's baton in her hand, briefing the Whermacht high command, pointing at southern Europe as she uttered these words. “Vee Germans haff control off Majorca!” “Der Inklish haff Valencia unt Majorca!”

As I struggle to write this blog the whole beachtowel rumour was confirmed by the TopGear episode I watched last night. TopGear faced-off against their German counterparts. The silly competiton culminated in who could beat the other team round a racetrack, claiming the deckchairs with beachtowels first.
The conversation moved to much less controversial matters eventually. Carola did all the talking, she told us about their long marriage and all the places they'd travelled to. She was especially proud of their children and how they raised them. Doing the maths I quickly realised these two grew-up in the great post-war uncertainty of West Germany. The strident post 1945 identity had been shattered, replaced with a paralysing guilt in the 50's & 60's. Carola & Helmut's parents would have had first-hand knowledge of war. But they sat opposite us proud of what Germany has become and who they were, notwithstanding beachtowels.

A Desert buffet had been put on for us. Over the loudspeakers a voice curtly announced dinner was served. We queued up for barbecued meats, naan bread and salad. The bar was doing a roaring trade in Heineken and wine. Around us, the Aussies and Americans, with a few NZers loudly got stuck-in to the booze and barbecue. As we finished our meals another announcement told us all the lights would go out for five minutes so we could admire the stars, commanding us to be silent.
No such luck. No stars nor silence. Telling Baz & Murray from Nu Zilllund and Awwstraylee-ah to shut-up with a few beers under their ample guts is asking too much.
Nevermind, the whole desert safari had been absolutely brilliant. The stark beauty of the shifting sands and the utter disconnect from the world we know left a mark. This was the singuarly best thing we'd done in Dubai. Every time you get involved with ordinary local people it makes travel a whole lot more interesting. Sharn was great fun, happy to oblige us in our funny observations.
No one had got sand in their meals either.

There was one last challenge. Full to bursting from dinner, would our party succumb to round of car-sickness?
As Sharn sat there grinning, gunning the engine over the sandy trail lit by the headlights I started to feel unsettled. Silently holding-on for the tarmac as we raced through the checkpoint. Stopping briefly to re-inflate the tyres for the motorway I breathed a sigh of relief as the wheels met bitumen and started to thrum back on the motorway to Dubai.
Sharn was good enough to drop us off near Dan & Anthia's, saving us a cab fare. Although Carola said we shouldn't tip here, especially higher-earners like Sharn; I still felt a little guilty as we shook hands on the sidewalk before he roared-off home to his wife 3 hours away. The smallest note I had was 100 dirhams, it still felt a lot and it stayed in my pocket.

Sometimes when you go back somewhere you can't recapture how it was.
Our final day in Dubai got off to a slow start and stayed that way. Michelle got some more sleep, I twiddled around on the laptop. Finally the pressure to get out the door and do something bit at 3pm.
So I headed back to the same spot on the beach for another swim before we left. What a difference the afternoons bring. At least 3 other people lay about the spot where I swam last on a now wind-swept beach. The waves crashing onto the steeply banked beach churning up all sorts of litter.
An occasional jogger puffed past. On the rocky spit sat workers fishing.
It wasn't cold, but the water felt the same as a hot bath filled hours ago. The residual warmth lingering around tepidly. My feet brushed past something smooth and sharp. I can go to Mission Bay to get my feet bottled so I dunked my head one last time and got out.
September is Ramadan but it's also when the weather starts a slow shift colder.
Only a month ago it was 10 degrees hotter, Dubai's minimum temperature would continue dropping as the year's end drew closer to around a chilling 15 degrees. Good acclimatising for the Auckland summer still ahead of us.
Back at the house voices floated through from Vlad's room. Michelle's mock-pirate voiceover narrated Vlad's stage direction of an action-figure battle on the carpet. Fresh from playcentre Vlad triumphantly bellowed as his favourite, Buzz Lightyear won against the Pirates.
Dan was heading off to the airport soon, he'd work through the night. Making sure the aircraft (including the 777 we'd be on in a matter of hours) wouldn't drop out of the sky.

Early next morning we got up and went through the well-rehearsed packing drill. Anthia making sure we were full of breakfast before heading to the airport in the back of a taxi.
We said our goodbyes, knowing we'd catch up again in February back in NZ. The Baker family coming to visit 'rellies. Our stay had been the perfect antidote to indifferent service, lumpy beds and that isolated state travel can leave you in. Thankyou Anthia, Dan & Vlad. It was lovely spending time with you.
Check-in went better than usual. Noticing an unacceptably long queue of about 10 people, an Emirates employee ushered us around the corner. Like baggage carts towed by the tractor we got deposited by a waiting attendant ready to check us in. My efforts so far for the unlimited foot-room of emergency exit seats had been in vain, the request usually met with a slightly cruel stare.
But I'd found out the exit seats are given to able-bodied men. In the unlikely event of surviving a crash your job is to help open the emergency door which otherwise provides a convenient foot-rest. It must have been how I puffed-up my chest and with a manly voice stated I was 'big & strong!'. The attendant laughed and handed over our precious boarding passes. Seats 37 a & b...emergency exit row!! Wildly happy with the outcome we boarded, heading to the back of the plane, past business class to our sort-of upgrade seats.

We'd been gone a long time. Together we'd taken a huge punt.
The constant excitement of new places, new experiences. Like a never-ending scratch card was over. Edging deeper inside as the 1000's of km's removal wound back down to Auckland was uncertainty and worry.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan

^http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/05/middleeast.gender

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