On project in Dubai...Part 6...

I'm awake with the alarm, but as usual, switch on Sky News for a while to see what's happening in Libya. That's about all that's on the news these days. It's like nothing else is going on, not even football results are getting as much coverage. It's time that fuckwit Gaddafi took the hint and disappeared in a blaze of 9mm hollow point smoke, splattering his brain cell over a far-off wall. Either that, or take off to Zimbabwe to visit his buddy Bob Mugabe, taking his millions along with him for more facelift surgery, before his people lynch him.

Showered and dressed in shorts, t-shirt and sandals, I head down for breakfast. I have the usual bowl of diced fruit and yoghurt to start with and the I strike gold!! I find the "Pork Corner" as the buffet. As everyone knows, pig products are taboo to Moslems, but the UAE is quite liberal in a lot of respects. Wise move from the King if he wants more western tourism dollars to come in now that his oil is finished.

Anyway, along with my toast, fried egg, baked beans and hashbrown, I pile a pork sausage and a few strips of crispy bacon on as well. What a great way to start a day, and even take my mind off the chafed thighs for a while.

Finished and satisfied for a while, I head upstairs to pack a backpack with camera gear, suntan lotion, spectacles, wallet and watch, grab a cap and head to the concierge for some suggestions for sightseeing...not the usual tourist crap.

I settle on a shortish taxi ride to Bur Dubai, on the creek, for a wander around the souq and a ride on an "abra" across to the gold souq and back.

I pick up ten grams of Iranian saffron and a bag of coffee beans (also Iranian) for ZAR200 (bargain) then after a short walk around the streets, back across the creek again to find a couple of pashmina shawls for SWMBO.

On the way back across the creek a dirty bastard raghead seagull hits my leg with a flying squishy shit. Luckily it missed my camera otherwise I would have hunted it down and blown it out of the sky with my pocket RPG-7. Bastard.

Tired of walking around and being harassed by vendors selling "copies of Brietling, Rolex, Citizen watches" (exact words), I grab another taxi back to the hotel for a bit of a chill-out, ending up online on the fishing sites, checking work email and trying to change my hotel booking so that I can stay another night in Dubai, then travel to Abu Dhabi on Monday with the PM, saving the project the transport fare. It should be a simple enough request and, if I'd made the booking myself, wouldn't have been a problem. but I didn't make the booking, and the client representative who did make them is the only one the hotel will allow to change the details. And nobody works in Dubai on a Friday...nobody that counts, anyway. Fuck! I pop an email off to the PM and I know he'll try and get hold of the client but he is unsuccessful and will try again on Saturday morning.

I upload a couple of photos to my blog and notice, 30mins later, that the entire posting has vanished. That means that the UAE government has someone who can hack into my blog and delete MY shit!! Fuck that!! there are only tourist photos, nothing else, so they have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to fuck with my blog, not that they have any in the first place. I didn't give them permission and it's my intellectual capital on the postings.

Later, I notice that an image I posted of Prince William and Kiss-me-Kate christening a new RNLI lifeboat has come back on my blog. Obviously, not of great concern to the paranoid government official who's monitoring my postings.

At 7pm, I go down for a burger at TGIFridays (ironically, it is Friday), which is okay and relatively cheap at about ZAR60.

Now I'm writing this from Barbera's coffee place, having just finished another of their great Turkish coffees.

I'm about to head up to my room and fall asleep in front of the TV, for a change. TV programs are crap here - 74 channels of shit, one of Sky News, and another of Arabic music. They need DSTv here, like they have in Saudi Dryland.


Part 7 on its way...