Life is a journey of adventures

The Emerald City
Step into a melting pot of old religion and new money, foreign and familiar, history and industry, exotic and ordinary. Ride the desert sands on the back of a camel or drive powerful sports-cars through streets lined with towers of glass and steel. Walk amidst a bustling humanity where men are dressed in rich white robes or crisp designer suits going about their business, while women glitter like peacocks in rich jeweled-tone dresses offset with sparkling stones and glittering gold. This is a land where the East meets the West, where souks stand next to skyscrapers and where mosques and banks are the twin religions. From the moment I step off the Emirates plane onto the sandy tarmac Dubai has already weaved her hypnotic heady spell on me. I am drunk on the scents of rare spices and deafened by the myriad of accents surrounding me. Visiting a Middle Eastern country alone is the ultimate unknown to me. This is my Arabian Adventure. I am Dorothy entering the Emerald City. My first impression is of a riot of culture: the ultra-modern international glass city against a backdrop of praying men in long, white robes kneeling in pearlescent mosques . A rich oasis of wealth and bustling humanity in the middle of endless sand dunes that undulate like red water under a sky blue as sapphire. I drive past spacious millionaire mansions on man made islands bordered by potted green palms next to overcrowded labourers’ one bedroom apartment buildings. This is a place where I skied in a mall and camped under stars next to camels. My mornings are broken by the eery mosque call that brings believers to a halt as they kneel and pray five times a day. My second day in Dubai brings a storm. I watch children dancing in the rain. Men and women praying their thanks while being drenched in the waters of the heavens. The earth is so hot here that when the rain hits it there is a sizzling and steam rises amongst the heavy rain drops and lightning bolts crack the air. The Emiratis charm me with their childlike personalities, unfettered by the manacles of western cynicism, dancing for joy in rain. I run out into the rain and feel the miracle of rain in a desert. The rain is over as quickly as it began and by the next day the hot desert sun has baked the earth once again. Dubai is a modern mecca for the business man, a shopping heaven for fashionistas but it was an adventure for this intrepid traveller. I journeyed into deserts unknown, walked through a glass city, had high tea in a 7-star hotel and enjoyed coffee with Bedouin. I may have left the Emerald City behind but I carry the seven different colours of sand from her dunes and the magic serenity that is the desert within the new horizons of my heart. Dubai broke my boundaries wide open.