I spend my next morning on a city tour of Dubai and my afternoon on a desert safari! There is much to see and learn about this place, the most well known state in the United Arab Emirates, so let me transport you there.
Imagine a place slap bang in the desert with some of the world’s tallest buildings and most expensive real estate. It is a place where the expatriates completely out number the locals at a ratio of 4:1. A place where a litre of petrol will cost you $1 but a litre of water will cost you $2. A place where it rains for just a few weeks in a year and where maximum temperatures can reach up to 50 degrees centigrade. A place where you never wake up to the sound of birds singing, where there is no crime because the penalty for petty theft could involve losing your hands!
We pass a construction site where the world’s largest airport is being constructed and will be operational in 2015. We wonder why there is a need for a new one, when the current airport here is already so impressive. Once complete, this airport will be capable of handling 1,400 flights at any one time! Construction workers from the subcontinent will work long hours to ensure it is built in record time! Buildings are constructed very fast as labourers work in shifts around the clock to get things done.
This place has certainly suffered as part of the global financial crisis. We pass construction sites that have been abandoned because the foreign investors ran out of money. Yet the general impression I get is one of immense wealth. Oil, real estate, tourism are some of the industries that have funded this place that has virtually risen out of the desert in the last 25 years.
For the first time in my travels I feel I am in an alien culture, one that is so different and in many ways opposed to my own culture. We pass by the local residential area and I am struck by the fact there is no disparity of wealth here! Judging by the size of these houses, everyone is equally wealthy.
We drive by many famous buildings including the world’s tallest, the Burj Dubai. We check out some of the world’s most famous hotels including the seven star Atlantis and drive around Palm Island although we don’t really get an aerial view of this famous area. My day tour comes to an end and I have certainly got a taste for the city. Now it is time for my desert safari.
I am amazed at how quickly I am greeted by the wide expanse of the desert and how fast we leave the big city behind. The sight of camels by the road side remind me of a very different desert safari I took in what now feels to me like almost another life. Ah…Jaisalmeer…. 
My travel companions this time around are a Muslim family from Pakistan. There are quite a lot of travellers from the sub continent here in Dubai but I don’t really meet many backpackers although there must be some around. 
We get talking and I discover that Farooq (the dad) is also a Civil Engineer who did his Masters at AIT in Thailand. He is surprised to discover that I am also an engineer and that I am travelling alone. He tells me he has specialised in Geotechnical Engineering and in another, “ What a small world” moment, I discover that my cousin Rohan who now lives in Michigan and is also a Geotechnical Engineer, studied with Farook and was in the same year as he, at AIT. We are both completely astounded and I spend the rest of the evening telling him about what Rohan has been up to since those years in Thailand!
We have lots of fun that evening. Four wheeling in the dunes, riding camels and watching belly dancing while sampling a middle eastern feast. We sit around on cushions, chat and eat off low tables placed on the desert floor. It feels very exotic and I can’t believe I finally made it to the Middle East! My time here has come to an end all too soon and tomorrow I will pack my bags once more. Africa is calling! 
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did." T.E. Lawrence
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