Fire & Ice

Dubai is a land of extremes. Let’s start with Friday. It’s the holy day for the locals, but that just means that its time to go to the mall, and by mall, I mean small city under glass. The Arabs understand two things very well: bigger and taller. There are already a dozen enormous malls in Dubai, and I hear the next mall on the building blocks will be the size of Lilydale. Our Local even has an indoor ski slope, chilled to negative four degrees.

ICE

Dim, Georgie, Dom and I spent the holy day together and took on these extremes starting at “Ski Dubai”. Two hours of swooshing down the mountain, drinking hot chocolate, and watching Georgie smear herself across the slope made for an unforgettable experience. Ermm…. By mountain I mean a 400m indoor slope, complete with chairlift and ski school, and an alpine lodge. The less adventurous locals gather at the bottom and pelt one another with snow balls.

FIRE

The step from freezing cold to the generous warmth of the car park (39 C in the shade) wasn’t enough. We needed more. The only answer….. QUAD BIKING! So it was off to the desert. In about the time it took for my frostbitten toes to recover, we were at Big Red. (Big Red is an enormous red dune that lies within easy striking distance from the city. 4wd driving is almost the national sport, and it can get kind of crowded in the desert.) 40 dirams later and we each had our own quad bike, and were racing pell-mell across the dunes. Hot dry sand spraying, the smell of two stroke acrid on the lips, and a grin that would split a watermelon.

DRIVERS BEWARE!

A few notes about Driving in Dubai, and in particular Indicators… firstly be aware that some drivers indicate left when they really intend to go right, especially likely if the vehicle is a bus. Up until this point I had not been aware how useful the hazard lights can be. They are regularly used on the freeways, and can mean any thing…. I mean anything. In general they mean: stand clear because I am about change lanes violently, but I am unsure as to which direction to choose. According to the local rag, there are 300 accidents daily. So far our taxi drivers have failed to hit a thing… but it has not been from lack of trying.

DRSC

I have been training the squad at the Dubai Rowing and Sculling Club. They are highly motivated rowers of varying experience, but are lacking in coaches. Hence I was very popular. Have been training the doubles mainly, and have been out with a one legged man from Copenhagen, a delightful Australian woman called Jeanette and her husband Fred. These are the founding members of the club, and are very motivated… as you must be when the weather is so hot. Fed and an Englishman named Ian were out in training this morning. I have been helping them prepare for a local race. They are to race 4 nautical miles in ocean going double sculls. Apparently the event will take one and a half hours. The row went swimmingly. (well they almost went swimming.) To great surprise I was presented with a club cap and t-shirt….. ermmm… plus they have now called one of the spits of land Nick point. The damage from that particular collision should be fixed by the time I arrive back in August.

Well off to Casablanca tomorrow morning. Gee… this hot weather is just miserable..