ULTIMATE AIRPORT DUBAI

Good name for a TV show. It sure is one hell of an airport. From the time I got out of the taxi till the time I fell out of the plane in Seattle, I felt about as significant as a single, solitary baked bean in the Heinz factory. Got off to a bad start when the dame at the check in counter told me one of my bags was 2kg over the 23 kg limit, and I had to unlock my luggage and make a transfer. She got the death stare, big time. I was allowed 2 pieces of 23 kg each, ie 46 kg total. When I checked in at Adelaide, I had one bag with 30 kg in it, well under the total. The guy said that was ok, and put a "heavy" label on it, but warned me it might be a problem in Dubai. So I bought an extra bag, a small one, in Dubai and split my luggage. This increases the chance of losing something important, and I don't like doing it. That's why I take a big cargo bag, which I have used three time across the Pacific, and twice to Thailand already, without anyone bitching. Anyway, she nitpicks about 2kg in one of the bags. Ok, I understand you don't want to give a baggage handler a hernia, but if I was flying business, I would be allowed 2 pieces at 32 kg each, and they can lift those ok - and then some. Has anybody ever seen a 90 lb weakling working as an airport baggage handler ?

Anyway, airports are not good places to get cranky in, so I sucked it up and joined the multitudes to jump through the usual hoops, and eventually got to head towards Terminal 3, gate C11, following the signs. After what seemed like an eternity, looking at monitors with destinations all over the planet, and clocking people of all sorts milling around, I didn't seem to be getting any nearer to my target. I started to think I better pitch a tent for the night and finish the trek the next morning. But at least I thought the security was pretty tight. I lost count of the number of people I had to show my boarding pass and passport to. A terrorist would have a hard time getting anything dangerous onto a plane around here. It would be easier to get Stephen Hawking to take up line dancing. Or so I thought.

When I took my seat on the plane, after kicking out some guy who was already sitting in it, I opened my backpack only to notice a near full 500 ml bottle of water in it. OOPS. I forgot about it, and nobody picked it up!! Later on, when the meals were served, they came with metal cutlery! Compare that with the security protocols in Australia and the US. Jeesuz! Even in South America they give you a random final baggage check in the departure lounge just before you board. So now I say Emirates and their flash new mega-airport better lift their game before they make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

However, it was an interesting flight in as much as it went over the North Pole, or as near as dammit. We headed due north from Dubai, crossing Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia. I was actually able to reminisce a bit about previous journeys. We flew right over the top of where in 2008 Chris Phillips and I sweltered through the east of Iran on our bikes in 50 deg heat, with a police escort and a belt fed 50 cal machine gun on a tripod in the tray of the truck. Then a little later, right over the Trans Siberian Railway where in 1977 Mike O'Donnell and I spent two weeks crammed into a small compartment with no redeeming features as we crossed the then Soviet Union from East to West, fearing we would never be heard of again. Kind of neat, I thought, and definitely more comfortable than both previous occasions. This time I was reclining and listening to decadent western head banging music like Black Sabbath, while swirling the ice in my drink.

I was busy checking our progress with the compass on my Protrek watch, and also the much more reliable projection of the head-up display showing the aircraft's vital statistics on the on-board channel. What a world! Anyway, we maintained a heading of almost zero degrees (ie due north) until all of a sudden, we were heading about 180 degrees, (ie due south) with no discernible change of direction. That's the top of the planet for you. A little later, I took some photos of the sea ice on the periphery of the polar ice sheet, from 35,000 ft, as we headed south towards the top of Canada (see below). Then down, not too far from Inuvik at the top of the Dempster Highway, and across the vast, flat expanses of northern British Columbia, over Vancouver and into Seattle. Again, crossing the route Roger Knapp and I took in 2012 on our way up to Alaska. Neat, huh?

Not the place for a plane crash. But what is? Right then, time to get organised for the next chapter. That won't start till the bike gets here, and its running late. So I'm sitting here burning money until such time as I can ride out of here. Bring it on!

WILL THE REAL DUBAI PLEASE STAND UP.

As I write this, I am in a Seattle motel, its 1.20 am, and I'm only semi-conscious. After a feral 14 hr flight from Dubai, I arrived here at about noon local time. By the time I got to the motel, I had been up for about 24 hrs, and was feeling the effects. I had immediate computer issues, and really started getting cranky. Nothing for it but to get some sleep, which I did. Then got the computer problem sorted, at least for the time being. And so here we are.

I had a very busy day yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, in Dubai. I did an all day hop on, hop off bus tour. The previous day I had suffered from the heat, it was stifling, especially in the late afternoon. A harsh reminder of the 50 deg C encountered in the Pakistani and Iranian deserts in 2008. Well, it was bad enough then, and now I'm 8 years older, and my thermostat now fails at about 40 deg. So my bus tour consisted mostly of rapidly darting from an air conditioned bus into air conditioned shopping malls. Any suicidal thought of wandering around outside in this furnace was just not on. It didn't take me too long to tire of shopping malls, but I must say they are truly impressive.

In fact, with regard to the built environment, I was absolutely staggered at the imagination and scale of the new construction, and impressed by the quality of the finished products. All the more given that it has all happened so recently and so fast. I can't imagine where it will ever stop, but capitalism does have a habit of boom and bust. At the moment, I guess there is no limit to what you can do if there is no limit to the money available. But when the cash stops, its panic followed by sudden death. Sorry, I don't mean to be a killjoy, its a pretty impressive performance whichever way you cut it. Huge artificial islands in the sea, the world's tallest building, probably the world's biggest airport, 75 km of elevated railway operating driverless trains which are spotlessly clean. Wow.

 

Too hot outside? Never mind, let's go skiing at the Mall of the Emirates. Inside! There are shops selling ski gear, and people wearing gloves and parkas. Bizzare!

Atlantis, the megalopolis at the outer end of the Palm Tree shaped islands. Hope that's not an omen !!

Look closely. That ain't no palm tree, its a mobile phone tower in disguise. Complete with "coconuts".

Even the freeways and elevated railway are flawlessly finished off. This is first class construction.

But this is what happens when a Surveyor with one leg shorter than the other is allowed to do the setting out on a building site. (Right Steve??)

 Eeeeerrr, no, let's eat somewhere else, shall we!

This is somewhere else! Seriously, they must be running out of names.

Right, enough of this gay banter. So where are the original bits of the place? Took me a while to find it, but down at the mouth of Dubai Creek. This looked a bit more like what I expected of the Middle East, at least the parts that haven't yet been reduced to smouldering rubble by the religion of peace.

 The old fort at the mouth of the creek.

 One of the many wooden dhows using the creek. These go all over the Persian Gulf, and beyond.

Ancient air conditioning. The structures at the top capture the wind, whichever direction it comes from, and funnel it down into the buildings. Not sure what the projecting timberwork is for. Structural elements maybe, or possibly something more utilitarian, like drying the washing? Any ideas?

This beautiful work is every bit as impressive as the new stuff. Except for the missing tiles above the door. Probably all the tilers are too busy tiling hotels and shopping malls.

Now that's more like it!

So there we are, a curious mix of old and new that somehow, for the moment, seems to work. It looks like the standard of living has been raised out of sight for the locals, without them becoming second class citizens in their own country. They import foreign workers for that, and even they get a good deal with no taxes. I'm guessing ISIS and the Taliban don't like it. Watch this space. But ask the locals if they'd rather live in a mud hut on a sand dune. Whatever they're doing in Dubai, I think they're doing it right. I still don't understand the place though.

THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES AND ME

Well Readers, here I am in Dubai. Dishevilled and somewhat spaced out. My middle Eastern experience has been handicapped already. Its Ramadan, so things are pretty slow. Probably needed to do a bit more research. My first impression of Dubai is that it is a lot bigger than I was expecting. What was I expecting? Again, no idea really. Some sleepy backwater with a few big buildings. I imagine that not too long ago, it was not much more than a sandhill. Well, all that has changed. The whole place is expanding exponentially. The airport must rank as the biggest one I've ever seen. After a routine (ie with all the usual discomforts) 13 hour flight, hundreds of Adelaidians were disgorged onto the tarmac at 0500, when it was still dark, but a balmy 32 degrees C. Where is the aero bridge? Even Adelaide has those now (after a shaky start, as I recall, when our new airport was being built. In about the same time as it took to build the Pyramids). It was just like the old days, I was half expecting to see somebody in Ansett or TAA overalls stacking bags onto a trolley pulled by a tractor. We were relegated to a far flung corner of the tarmac and herded into buses for the trip to the terminal. It took over half an hour, and we passed I don't know how many huge buildings (with aero bridges) and shiny new aircraft, all belonging to Emirates, I noticed. I counted a bank of 8 A380's at one terminal. It was slightly weird walking around these humungous but sparsely populated structures.

Anyway, after dismissing the $50 cabfare to my hotel, I decided to take the Metro train. I scored a day pass with unlimited use for $7. This gave me the added bonus of observing the local populace going about their business. The vast majority of my fellow commuters looked like foreign workers - Indian, Pakistani, Filipino mostly - often the case in this part of the world. I noticed a couple of exotic car dealerships from the train. Lambourghini and Ferrari if you don't mind. You'd starve in Adelaide if you sold these for a living. Not for the likes of me, or my fellow commuters I suspect. The trip took a while. By the time I got to my stop, I could say "Doors Closing" in Arabic. Well, its a start. But admittedly not very conversational. The Hotel is the JA Ocean View, in what looks like the newest part of the new concrete jungle. The ocean is barely visible through the haze, but the hotel has hot and cold running everything. And I mean everything. Check this out!

Well, did I lie??

I can't believe the frenzy of construction work going on. I mean, who is this for?? Just so tourists can visit mega shopping malls?? Did petro dollars do all this? And it must be bloody inconvenient trying to construct foundations for buildings when you strike oil every time you dig a hole. As for the thing they're building outside the hotel window, it looks like a giant Ferris Wheel. Either that or there are bloody big hamsters around here. Again, why?  I'ts so smoggy you can hardly see your watch, so why pay for a view? Well these are my thoughts at the moment. The answers to these intriguing questions and more will be provided in the next installment, after I've done some more scouting. Or maybe they won't. Time will tell.