Dubai. Part One – is here.
If there’s anything horrendous about travelling, it’s city sightseeing – and roaming, of course, but Dubai has free SIM cards for that.
However, we couldn’t skip the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Mall, even though the whole idea of going to look at the tallest building in the world makes little sense. Afterwards, I was doing my best to explain this trip to myself, though the idea of just ‘the tallest building’ still seemed awkward and twaddle. I’m still trying to picture the conversation behind what had led to the plan:
– Let’s build the tallest tower in the world!
– Why?
– What do you mean “why?”? The biggest. Every man and his dog will be there, every evening, and to get there they’ll be spending their lives in traffic. Then we’ll build the biggest shopping mall.
– Why? What about just big enough?
– Honestly, what are you, a mathematician? People always like big awkward things.
– Like Moncler?
– Yeah, or Maguire.
We spent about an hour and a half in traffic to get there. I didn’t grasp what religion our driver was, but he seemed to earnestly believe that if you beep the horn often and loudly the traffic’ll disappear. Definitely not Buddhism.
If you thought that after getting into the Mall life was going to be easier, you’re as mistaken as Napoléon aboutCampagne de Russie. To move about the place, you’ve got to allow hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if the place had an underground metro, or, at the least, those rickshaws from Covent Garden and at Oxford Circus.
Honestly, the whole idea of the grandest jumbo-shopping centre isn’t rational at all unless it’s totally unbearable outside, like Croydon. This isn’t the case for Dubai, except during the boiling-hot summers.
All of these biggest things can make one suppose that Dubai’s somewhat compensating. The biggest mall, seven-stars hotels, the longest tube line, the largest number of sex workers… but let’s not jump to any conclusions. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how big your Burj al-Arab is, what matters is how effectively you can put it to use.
These people, having been vested with enormous funds and possibilities, hadn’t wasted them. Instead of spending everything forthwith on London property and Chelsea, they’ve invested generously in the national economy. And only then bought London property and Man City.
Besides, it’s indeed impressive how much they have done by building an entire city and industries from scratch in the middle of the desert. It’s also promising – If today people can live and work in +50°C in the desert, perhaps tomorrow people could live in -50°C or in Croydon.
Hopefully, though, after the first Emiratis’ investments prove successful, they will engage in other issues, from which Dubai is not obviously aside.
***
The following day, we woke up exhausted, believing strongly that Dubai was indeed beautiful but best watched from the outside.
So, we hired one of these yachts in the Marina – a big boat to be more precise – and roved across all of the major photo spots – from the Dubai Eye to the Atlantis and the Burj al-Arab, over the Palm and arriving back at the Dubai Marina. All of this in one go was impressive, as if Instagram were a real place.
By the way, if you feel like the London City has the most ridiculous post-modern-post-ironic architecture, you’re actually right. However, in Dubai, you may sometimes feel like you’re in the middle of a Bible story – where people rebelled against nature, built artificial islands and the Dubai Mall and are soon to be punished by the gods.
That aside, yet, after the boat tour we had dinner at home, having bought the groceries at a local Waitrose. This was like a normal Waitrose but without alcohol and where the goods were of lower quality. Basically, like M&S.
Prices for groceries are generally higher than in London, although, as many people know, in Dubai there are almost no taxes. So, if you, like many, are fed up with paying HM Revenue & Customs, and prefer paying Waitrose, Dubai’s the place.
After dinner, I came down to the pool and looked around the large plantation of skyscrapers surrounded by the desert and the sea. People were mostly indoors, working and living their lives remotely, detached from nature, or at the least loosely relying on it, as if inside of some life-sustaining station on Mars. This is how our world may soon look like, one of the consequences of environmental changes, population growth, the advancement of AI and the Trump administration. Like the Matrix or Back to the Future 2.
Perhaps, I thought looking at all this, we are right now living in a Belle Époque yet failing to recognise it. In the future, new generations will be recalling our time in history as the best balance of all the achievements which hadn’t yet been spoiled by overuse. Archaeologists will excavate the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa in the same way that we discovered the Pyramids and Stonehenge, and then they will be baffled by the question what the fuck these things were built for?
– Worship. Our ancestors liked watching big awkward things.
– Yeah, like Maguire…
***
Having stopped moaning about just global issues, I suggested a day trip to the desert for a safari. A chauffeur picked us up in a Land Cruiser and drove us out to the desert where we enjoyed driving ATVs over steep barchans, and then spent an evening at the camp with sad camels, aloof falcons, and cheerful people.
Beginning the entertainment programme at the camp, the host announced the presence of certain special guests, including a couple celebrating their anniversary. The obvious question was what anniversary was supposed to be in the desert. Perhaps the last one, as they must have tried everything else.
The program begun with al-Ayyala (an Arabian male folk dance with bamboo canes) and Tanoura (an Egyptian male folk dance of incessant fautes), which were followed by el-Compromiso (an International male folk dance with a phone incessantly taking photos of one’s fiancée and of her mother). Then, after a break for the BBQ, there was a fire show – quite impressive, but not as impressive as the belly-dance, performed by a Russian lady, which almost ruined that couple’s anniversary.
On the way back, I asked the driver how he manages to survive the heat during the summer, and he told me that he had no problems with it since he was from Kerala. He then asked me how I felt in the desert being surrounded by many people covering their faces with scarves. I said ‘like in Stratford’.
We enjoyed our trip to the desert more than anything else during the Dubai trip, quite possibly because this was something in good harmony with nature and not against it. Sometimes it is just better not to try to change anything but instead to learn how to live in connection with the place. Much like Stratford.
***
One of our days in Dubai we devoted to culture and visited Al Fahidi and Al Seef, which are the parts of the so-called the Old Dubai – historical neighbourhoods full of boutiques and coffee shops, including what is apparently very important contributor to Arabic heritage Starbucks.
Merchants over there don’t miss people without offering perfume, thawbs, or shisha. Some people find this type of intrusive behaviour annoying, but there is nothing inherently wrong or rude about it, it’s a just different culture. While imposing and foisting things on strangers isn’t a part of the European tradition, it shouldn’t be labelled immediately wrong. Maybe those people are trying to bring something better to your life.
Being one part English and one part melancholy, I found myself mechanically saying ‘sorry’ or ‘thank you’ to every merchant. That paints me as awkward all the time. I am often thankful or sorry to drug dealers and to stolen phone pushers on the street.
Even when I don’t need anything.
This is a joke, of course.
I’m not English, and melancholy even less so. I’m sanguine. That I found on the very first day that I learned about the four types of personalities – having compared them, I thought sanguine was certainly better than the other three, and I therefore decided to be sanguine. That is what we sanguines usually do.
I believe that in general, too – it’s up to you to decide who you are. Like driving a Tesla, if you believe that you’re driving a real car, it doesn’t really matter what other people think.
***
The evening before leaving I spent wandering along the Dubai Marina, on my way back from Waitrose with the groceries for the morning flight. By this time I had of course learned my lesson and took the food for three people.
I saw lots of sex workers sitting along the Dubai Marina Walk, repeatedly asking passers-by where they’re from, so often that one might’ve thought it was a Buckingham Palace charity event. I hadn’t seen them before, most likely because I’d always had company with me, whereas this time I was alone. Likewise, in London, when I’m walking alone, I am constantly offered either drugs or a Bible.
Even when I don’t need anything.
On the way back to London Emirates changed the aircraft to a plane half the size, possibly because it no longer mattered whether we were happy or not.
The service was worse than Dubai-wards, the flight attendants constantly forgetting about hot drinks and water, and the passengers began having this nice, warm, morbid feeling of arriving home.
Initially I’d resolved to keep up the healthy schedule that I’d gained in Dubai, despite the absence of interesting people. On my first morning in London, I woke up at 6.00 am only to find that it was already evening. I then waited for the sun, but it didn’t show up, and it simply got darker again. I kept waiting until Sunday (I can’t see any reason to keep calling that in English) …. but then broke to decide- let’s leave this stuff for Dubai: sunny days, private beaches, swimming pools, good service, sobriety. These things are an everyday routine there, whereas in the UK people value and treasure every single moment that they have such things, because, obviously, you can’t go to Dubai very often.
Seriously, though, one of the things that this Dubai trip has taught me is that you’ve got to appreciate and to care about your place, no matter if it’s extremely hot, unbearably cold or Croydon. Should everyone do that, we’d all be living in a better world, unafraid of global issues or the Trump administration.
At the end of the day, as people in France say: the grass is always greener on the other side.
CORGI IN A PUB 