You can tell when my parents come to town. They’re past the dirty hotel, smelly backpacker stage (actually, I’m not even sure that they ever went there) so they hired us kids a driver for the day to take us around Dubai. We started at the Dubai Museum: the short film chronicalling the development of […]

Not everything’s been Westernised into the mainstream over here, you know. We found ourselves in an Iranium bakery just up the road from where we’re staying the other day. I had the chicken sharwarma and the falafels, obviously. Oh, and just make sure you’re reading right-to-left to work out the correct price

My generous father treated us all to a delicious meal in one of the city’s premier restaurants, which sits on the 28th floor atop a hotel. Oh and being in the la-la land of the UAE, it revolves. Naturally. As usual, Squiffy ordered the chocolate desert thingo. As it happens, so did I. The desert […]

My glorious family have descended upon Abu Dhabi to celebrate my father’s 60th birthday. We ate, we drank, we chatted, we shopped and then we ate some more. And then we stepped into a seven-seater 4×4 and were whisked-off into the Arabian desert to give my dear Dad a birthday to remember. My poor Mum […]

This is a guest post from Sarah, David’s older and wiser sibling, who he and Claire have been scrounging a comfy bed and hot water off for a month (…only kidding, you two…) Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, is best known for being the time when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. The times of […]

A big thanks here must go to Annie and Martin, our generous hosts in Dubai, for letting us stay with them and for taking us out to show us the city. After wishing them farewell, we took off in a taxi across the desert from Dubai headed towards Abu Dhabi. The drive takes about an […]

According to my observations in Dubai, eighty-percent of the cars on the road that I see are American-style gas-guzzling SUVs. Of the remaining twenty-percent, you are more likely to see a Porsche 911 than a Honda Civic. After spending the last three months of my life around people who had nothing, I now found myself […]

After a day braving the heat to explore ‘old Dubai’ down by the creek, Dave and I decided to save some dirhams and take a cheap local bus rather than an expensive taxi back to Annie’s place. After questioning a few locals, we were pointed in the direction of the bus station and informed that […]

I’m hot. I’m wet. I can’t see a thing and I can’t eat a thing either. The temperature is about 38 degrees, humidity is about 65% and visibility is only about 1.5km, due to a sandstorm that has enveloped the city for the last couple of days. Looking at the sky alone, you’d be forgiven […]

From Cape Town we took a very comfortable Emirates flight into Dubai. Our plan is to stay in the United Arab Emirates for a month, to meet up with Dave’s sister who lives in Abu Dhabi, and the rest of family Bartlett who are flying over for Dad B’s 60th birthday. Before making the journey […]