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.
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.
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.
2 comments:
So its Dubai creek! Where does that put the River Torrens rotflmao? The tilers prob pinched those tiles for the malls at the rate they're growing them
Gave some more thought to the planks poking out of the walls. Medieval shopping lifters to the 2nd and 3rd floors?
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