Sleep for four days to make it go faster and then come home.

Back from my few days in Dubai

A very interesting, conflicting, bizarre place.

It is a homage to everything that is on one hand brilliant about what humans can do, and everything bad that humans can do.

We wish we had gone sooner with our son when he was younger as there is plenty for young kids to do, and it is a very safe clean place to be. I have never seen so many security cameras and security staff. You are watched everywhere and you could sense being followed at times.

It is impossible to walk anywhere, I couldnt see anywhere you want want to ride a bike. I managed to go for a run on the outer edge of the palm and admire the pollution over Dubai, but even then its on man-made manufactured decking board.

However the pollution was terrible, the environmental impact of all the city was visible, there is no thought for the environment whatsoever. Drinking water is created from large desalination plants run on diesel, and air conditioning is provided by big plants run on diesel. These buildings are probably every half mile or so throughout the city.

People – we couldn’t work out where are on this one. There are very few Arabs. Most people are Indian or Far East. All shipped in by bus for their 12 hr shifts (well actually 14hr shifts once you factor in getting to the hotel / building site) No sick pay, no time off etc. Most chose to work 7 days a week as there is nothing else to do in Dubai when you have no money. The chauffeur who drove us to the airport said he had worked in Dubai for 13 years. Since COVID he hasn’t been able to go home as his boss has said there will be no leave for 2 years.

Is it exploitation, or actually giving people opportunity? The ones we spoke to saw it as opportunity for them and their families.

Dubai feels like it is on the verge of completely crashing, all the money just appears false when you scratch the surface. We were convinced that most of the supercars outside our hotel were ‘hired’ by the hotel to make it look good, and thats how Dubai feels.

With global warming and rising sea levels the hole place could just disappear (although I am sure they will try and build a big wall around it ! )

Would we go back? Well yes we would as a winter vacation for a few days, purely for the sun and beach and maybe head into Dubai once or twice.