Fun in the Sun

It is not the first time I went to Dubai, but it was the first time I progressed passed the airport. “A bright new culture to be experienced first hand” I thought. During the short dash from the airport to the taxi parked outside, the heat hit me like a hammer when I got outdoors. I took off my jacket, a relic from the winter in South Africa, and got into the taxi. The taxi was cold, freezing cold, and I had to put the jacket back on for fear of freezing in this weather. “That would make me look like an ass” I thought. It was just after 09:00, and the temperature gauge already showed 36°C. The taxi driver offered, “It’s still cool, will be nice and hot this afternoon”.

After checking in at the hotel, I had to do some personal maintenance to rid myself of the look and smells of flight. I was ready to go, and dressed for summer now. I went to the lobby, and asked for directions to a market, “No tourist place or mall, I have those in South Africa, an old style place will do” was the specific request. The person got out a map of the Metro, and made some marks to indicate where I am, the best Metro station to go to, as well as a place to get off, really efficient. He assured me “This is in the old city”.

Outside the hotel, I got into a taxi and indicated my intentions. The taxi driver said “The metro only opens at 2 pm today, it is prayer day”. It was 11 am. “I’ll be going there with you then”, came my quick response. I felt very cold; the taxi was again at meat freezing temperatures. The other attribute of taxi drivers became very clear, they drive like being possessed. There was no real traffic on the seven-lane highway, but the taxi driver drove like a horny dog smelling a bitch in heat. In no time he stopped at the market place 40 kilometers from the hotel and pointed at it. I was still amazed at all the buildings we passed, and decided I’ll go back with the Metro as it is elevated and I could enjoy the view better that way, but first the market had to be visited. I got out into the blistering heat.

Already the mosques started their prayer calls. I do not understand the language and thus was robbed of the message spread by the echoes as competing mosques argued about the direction to go. I was ejected from the taxi about two minutes earlier, and started oozing sweat and assumed the look of a glazed doughnut. “I have to get out of the sun” I said out load and headed for the market. My nose in particular turned out to be a final gathering point where droplets would grow until the force of gravity plucked them away to race to the ground.

I got inside, and relief from the heat was not found; only the sun disappeared. I gasped for air, it was a fish market. In this heat, the smells ejected by the fish and fish butchering hung like smog in the building. What made the taxi-driver think I am going to buy fish? I rushed out to the back of the building to discover a runny bloody fluid and some bins filled with rubbish and fish guts. The heat was no joke, and there were no flies to appreciate the stench. This shocked me as the smell could not be missed. I was sweating, melting like jelly in an oven.

I progressed down the street, taking in the wailing from the mosques. There were other shops in other buildings, selling clothing, crockery, figurines, and anything else imaginable. Most shops were closed, or about to close for the prayer time and I took this as my queue to leave. I was in desperate need for a beer, in a Muslim country where those are not easy to come by, and I let the thought go.

Walking down the street, I continued melting into the pavement. I was looking for the Metro, to get out of this heat; to the safety of the hotel. I turned around and was shocked when I found I am not leaving a trail like a snail. It surely felt like there had to be a trail due to the rapid loss of fluid. I reached the Metro, and the doors were locked. I thought of the taxi driver, “Nice and hot this afternoon, my arse, this is unbelievable”. I decided to walk in the shadow of the Metro-line to the next Metro-station. What a bad idea that turned out to be. It was not a long walk. I could see the next station from the start, but the heat was something I could not get away from. My body clearly did not understand what was going on. Normal procedure would be to sweat when heat was experienced. However, no matter how much water the natural systems poured onto the skin, there was no relief from the heat. Even the flies were cleverer, they stayed away completely. The locals looked at me, obviously worried about the amount of liquid I spilled on my track. "Humans are very adaptable", occupied my thoughts. Clearly they adapted to this heat. Maybe not completely comfortable, but at least not turning the place to an inland sea with their combined sweat.

Burj Khalifa - tickling the
gates of heaven

I was rewarded when I arrived at the next station. It was open, no trains ran yet, but the air was cool. Air-conditioners with gale force ability were blasting in full force. I stood there for fifteen minutes, soaking up the cold air. I started freezing up again, I was not going to disappear into a pool of sweat after all.

The trip on the Metro was better than I imagined. The metro was air-conditioned too. The view was unrealistic. The number of high-rise buildings in a single view was unbelievable. The tallest one is called Burj Khalifa, and is a breathtaking 828 meters high, and seemed to disappear into nothingness. It did not seem to be planted in the ground like a normal building, it seemed to hang from an invisible sky-hook, too high to see from the ground. “See if you can build that”, seemed to be what architects said to engineers with growing complexity during the past decade. It looked like a battle between architects and engineers were being won by engineers, because they built it. The buildings rose into infinity, and had curves, arches, holes, pins and needles of every size imaginable. There were so many buildings featuring architectural design challenges that I got off the Metro a couple of times, but never wondered far from the air-conditioned entry halls to observe the wonders. Some buildings were spiraling rectangles, others rounded and bent shapes, and yet others seemed to be slashed with a huge sword at a strange angles. “It is architectural heaven this place, built in the harshest environment imaginable” I thought. Buildings were not boring blocks that fell into the ground from the heavens, and people then hollowed those out to live in. They were designed, strange, unimaginable sculptures, exclaiming human might and riches on a grand scale in the desert that want to burn people alive.

I got off at the indicated station 39, the name did not make sense, to get a taxi for the hotel. By then I had enough of the heat, it was 3 pm. As I was recuperating next to another frustrated taxi-driver with no traffic to be frustrated about, my mind was stuck on the heat. The people living there now seems to be coping well with the heat, but only because any space occupied is cooled to sub-zero with the most efficient air-conditioning money can buy.

I wondered about those highly contested biblical lands with detailed battle descriptions in the deserts recorded by the men of the Book. It is very similar to the deserted wide empty roads, but the taxi-driver still had to express frustration, but to what? In biblical times there were no air-conditioning units running. Is it possible that the ancient contests were fuelled by frustration about the heat, and since nothing can be done about that, they found an alternative outlet and had a little war? They sure as hell had no axe to grind over the fertility of the desert sands, and the taxi-driver had no convenient outlet of a mild war like the ancients.

Friday 21 June 2013