I lived in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for nearly
four years, which by the time I left was half my life. At the time the city was
rapidly developing through the money coming in from oil and other new industries.
There were a growing number of expatriots like myself, but everything was and still is
predominantly Muslim. During Ramadan eating and drinking in public was not allowed
before the six o'clock cannon, and naturally the call to prayer could be heard five
times a day.
Today Dubai has become a top tourist destination, bringing in more
money from that than oil as the government has cleverly invested in the tourist trade,
realising that oil money is finite. I think Aberdeen should do the same thing to avoid
turning into a ghost town when the oil runs out...wait a minute, does anyone want
to go on holiday to Aberdeen?
Not surprisingly this is what most of the land
around Dubai looks like - can you spot the camel in the photo? The further inland
from they city you go the redder the sand gets, then you reach the Omani mountains
and the town of Hatta, a desert oasis.
Things don't get much different when you get to the
sea, there isn't a discernible line between the end of the desert and the start of
the beach, funnily enough. The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea in the world, partly
helped by its being the shallowest too. It's not all idyllic though, I remember
my Dad scraping the tar oil off my feet when we'd come back from the beach, washed up
from tanker spills of years previously. This picture was taken near Ras al Khaimah.
Our family lived in one of 48 houses in a small
scheme off the Al-Wasl Road, called "The 48 Villas". It was a short hike across the
desert to Spinneys, the nearest supermarket, and 10 minutes by camel to the
school.
The trading ships of the Arabs are known as Dhows,
here are some examples with a shrewd Arab tradeswoman keeping guard at the dock.
This is Dubai creek, an inlet from the sea which looks like a river in the city,
but peters out within a few miles. You can cross the creek on an Abra, a smaller
boat which ferries people between Dubai and Deira. Or you could take the bridge,
but that wouldn't be any fun now would it?
The old fort in Dubai is about the only thing left
which was built before 1970. It is about a century old, and now contains a
museum on traditional Arabic and Bedouin culture.
This is a shot of the land across the road from
my house. There were often wild camels roaming, not to be tangled with, and occasionally
my Dad would rip up the sand on his dirt bike.
This is the view from the top of the Dubai Trade
Centre, looking west along the Abu Dhabi road to Jebel Ali. The buildings in the
foreground are the Hilton Apartments where we lived for our first few weeks in Dubai.
If you were to look at this now you would not recognise it, the road has been moved
and modern offices have been built all along it, along with two 1000 foot towers in the
large patch of sand in the distance.
The palaces of the Sheikhs of Dubai are open to the
public, to display their lavishness. The common conceptions about Arabian Sheikhs
are mostly true, they are rolling in it and they do have 100 cars. This particular Sheikh
also owned horses, and he liked them so much he built a fountain in their image.
My sister and I having a splash around in the
kiddie pool at the Dubai Petroleum Company pool, my Dad's office in the background.
We would come here most Saturday mornings, before the sun got too blisteringly hot.
Not that it would have much chance getting through my bowl cut.
