Well. I arrived in Dubai early in the morning and was picked up by Daniel -my cousin at the airport. We sped around Dubai, seeing all the tourist sights at 180km/hr all on the wrong side of the road. And yes I did drive. A couple of times, not mounting the curb once! although there were a couple of near misses on round-a-bouts that have no lanes. in fact the whole of dubai and the UAE has no lanes, and indicating is a habit that you quickly discard and assimilate with the locals. most of whom are wealthy 'sheik' looking people or 'dirty pakkis' in people movers who don't know how to drive!
Daniel and i took a tour through the massive blocks of apartments where all the construction workers live. we really needed a drink so we stopped at a supermarket and bought a bar full of different drinks. ale, milk - from camels and cows, energy drinks, cordials, juices you name it. if one wasn't nice we disposed of it in Dubai fashion, chuck it out the window on the side of the road. or in our case, over our heads - ahh the beauty of a convertable. Camel milk was how you'd expect - disgusting. but i wanted to at least try it. the others were okay and were consumed throughout the day during visits to the beach and just driving around.
The first night we went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner which was delicious, however there were these weird meatballs that we ordered and paid for later that night - both of us had food poisoning... moving on. I saw the Burj Al Arab - famous sail shaped hotel. The palm jumeriah which is getting built - palm shaped suburb in the ocean. Wanted to swim out to the world islands - also another residential suburb (shaped like a world map). Went skiing in the indoor ski slope which is part of the second biggest shopping mall in the world - Mall of the Emirates. Drove past countless palaces and attempted to drive to the other side of the UAE one afternoon but got stuck in a massive traffic jam on a 7 lane highway which lasted for about 2.5hrs, but it was kind of good in a way, i saw many crazy crazy sights. packs of pakkis as we calle them, 5 year old children playing cricket on the side of the motor way on which people were zooming along at up to 200km/hr! arabic graffiti. took heaps of photos of freaky arabs/pakkis staring at me in the car, i think one in particular thought i was in love with him because i looked at him in the eye for maybe 1/2 a sec. anyway, we got passed the jam and by then it was too dark to see anything so we stopped to have dinner. I got out of the car and was actually the only blonde person there and the only white person apart from Daniel. infact i was the only woman that had exposed something more than eyes, oh those sensual forearms of mine, not to mention my sexy knee caps. Daniel and i both agreed that i should buy a shirt to reduce some of the wandering eyes and luckily there was a clothes shop just down the road. I went in and it appeared they only sold male t-shirts, but any t-shirt was better than none. i found one and asked how much it was. "25d" the shop owner said. 'What! No way!' daniel protested for me and we got another shirt that said 'element' as in the skate brand for 15d which is about $5. the shirt was so funny because it had a completely different tag on the back, nothing to do with element. anyway i put it on and walked outside down towards the 'Gulf Gate Cafeteria' where we were going to have dinner, when my 1min old shirt split at the sides from no cause, wasn't too small, too big if anything but never the less it managed to split. We both burst out laughing and i could have taken it back but i thought it was such a good momento of the UAE, so i'll give it to patrick with that story. We headed down for dinner and although it was in a very dodgy place it looked clean and reasonably well regulated so we ate there - with success i might add. As a bit of dinner entertainment we watched in astonishment the 'drive through' system. an angry arab would park outside the restaurant in their flash SUV and honk the horn until a waiter went out and took their order. they would then wait patiently for 30secs and honk the horn until they got their food, making rude and angry hand gestures in the meantime. After dinner we turned around and went back to Dubai, this time i drove on the highway. speed cameras do exist in the uae but most of the time they're not on or don't work but just incase, you slow down to a safe 20kmph over the speed limit which is 120kmph, so 140kmph. i couldn't believe it when 160kmph felt slow. we got back to dubai and went to bed. the next day we drove to the other side of the UAE to Fujairah i think that's it. we drove through the desert mountains and got there in no time. we drove around for about 25mins looking for an invisible mc donalds (we were a bit cautious about our food) but had to settle for kfc. a sign out the front said 'all you can eat for 25d everyday but public holidays' (about $6.50) daniel was very keen but was disapointed when the manager said that it wasn't on today.......? so i went with a safe twister combo($2) and daniel got some giant meal pack but was ripped off as he got extra chips which tasted as though they had been refried about 10 times throughout the day, instead of coleslaw. and the chicken was anything but grande.
after a disgusting, fatty, and oily lunch we thought it would be nice to go for a swim at the beach. i needed to get changed into my togs (bathers) and found a toilet. well i wouldn't exactly say toilet, more an enclosed space filled with poo, urine, water bottles, mud, toilet paper and flies. yay for me! i got changed without touching the floor and wrapped myself in towels to shield myself from the increasing number of prying eyes. i think word had got out that there was a white girl at the beach because a crowd of pakkis and arabs were gathering. i ran down to the water and got in up to my knees before i saw all the crabs that were scuttling around my feet. daniel and i were manovering through the crabs with utter most concentration until daniel was pincered (if that's what you say) he jumped about 1m out of the water and i ran out back to the towels and bag. we decided that was enough and drove back to dubai where we went for a hot sauna and swim and then to the skiing. we bought two pairs of gloves for 1d each, that's about 30c and hit the slopes for 2hrs. i attempted to torment arabs who were trying to ski but they proved impossible to chase! all they did was go straight down the slope with there arms up in the air and poles flying everywhere until they crashed. and yes, they did still have their tea towels on. it was the funniest thing i have ever seen skiing. one in particular was funny, he was on the pommer and went off the track but insead of letting go he held on. he fell over let go of his poles but held on to the pommer being dragged up the last bit of the slope, legs going in opposite directions. it was hilarious, and that was skiing. After that we went into a department store much like K-Mart and had a wander. it was massive. I saw an arab man looking down the girls doll section, you know the isle that radiates pink! i thought i'd go have a look. looking along it was just the same as australia, not that i spend much time in those isles these days, until........... Muslim Barbie sat on the shelf staring at me! Hahah. it was fully dressed as a muslim woman - the black robe thingy and everything. the fake tatoos on her hand - haiku and everything else. Her name was something starting with J, i can't remember and on the box it had pictures of all her friends - all these other chraracters, even Ken was represented by an arab version with a tea towel wrapped around his head. So funny, i had to buy her, would have bought the ken version if he was there but must be quite popular because it was sold out. So Patrick has a little present coming to him wrapped in the dodgy t-shirt.
that night i stayed up and packed till about 2:30am and i had to get up at 3:45am. yes maybe not the wisest thing but whatever. We slept in past the alarm and although i was suppossed to be at the airport at 5 we left at 5 and got there with pleanty of time to spare. I managed to get in with 5x the amount of hand luggage allowed and said good bye to Daniel for my flight to Birmingham.
Dubai was truly an amazing place. the scale of the construction is unbelievable. disney land was asked to built there but they said no, so what did the sheik do? Begin building Dubailand, a massive theme park that goes for about 10km. everything is like that. so much money, and they don't make it from selling petrol there it is equivalent to about 7c a litre in some places or cheaper. the moto of dubai must be 'if it's not there naturally, just build it.'
