Dubai 01

23/7/2006

Three months ago I didn’t expect I’d be spending the Friday afternoon before last relaxing in the pool of the Radisson SAS hotel in Muscat, Oman. Yep, to quote Ferris: Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

For anyone who’s missed the news, I’ve taken a job in Dubai. I was planning to stick around at my last firm, really I was, but when someone phones you up and gives you a chance to work on world class buildings in the world’s biggest boom town for several times your current salary and asks that you can help make the planet’s least sustainable city a little more so, it’s hard to say no. And so, seven weeks after my phone rang, I rocked up to work in 40°C heat and got to it. My very first project is of a scale that you wouldn’t even dream of in Australia. But it’s confidential, so I can’t tell you about it.

And six days later I was in Oman helping out on projects there, too.

Anyway, the Middle East, this part of it at least, is crazy. (Other parts are crazy, too, but in a different way.) The world’s tallest building is going up down the road. Taipei 101 (current record holder, I believe) is so big it’s increasing earthquake activity in that city. The Burj Dubai is going to be bigger. Europe has a crane shortage because of this town (the machines, not the birds. I don’t know how Europe’s avian crane population is going, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they all came here too). It’s the building concepts that make this place nuts, though. Integrated wind turbines, no straight lines, buildings so skinny you wonder how the lifts can fit in, that sort of thing. But I’ll not bore you with shop talk.

Dubai seems to have taken the bits it likes from other places all over the world and combined them into a unique experience. So, cheap labour from India and the Philippines, skilled labour from the UK, the Antipodes, and the occasional European, driving skills from the Melbourne School of Taxi Driving, cars from Japan, Germany (and even Australia), and, my favourite, electrical appliance plugs from Europe (ie, two round pins) but electrical sockets from the UK (3 square pins).

I’m staying in a (company provided) serviced apartment at the moment which reminds me a little of some places I’ve stayed in China (and Sydney’s north shore), only the guys who clean it do a much better job: the bed has good hospital corners, the extract fans are always left on to suck out the cool air, the AC is turned down to compensate, and they even turn on the vacuum cleaner when I’m there so I think they’re vacuuming. It also comes with a one-size-fits-all saucepan (12”, perfect for boiling an egg), a blunt knife (for cooking safely), a dinner set for four and two glasses (for entertaining people who aren’t very thirsty). There’s even a gym and a pool, and it’s close to work, so all up, it’ll do just fine until I find somewhere better.

Finally, I thought I’d better dispel a few myths before signing off:

• It’s not that hot. 42° today, but not very humid, so it’s probably more comfortable than Brisbane in summer. And the AC is so fierce I often need to step out just to thaw out.
• There are no anti-women rules like in Saudi (well, there might be some, but they’re obscure if there are). Women can drive, walk around unaccompanied, and they don’t need to wear veils.
• It is not illegal to drink alcohol.
• Nearly everyone speaks English (or a heavily accented dialect thereof).

Right, that’s it. Nothing really to report on the sights and sounds around town: it’s too hot to go sightseeing on weekends, and a mall is a mall is a mall (unless it has a ski slope in it, which The Mall Of The Emirates does). (Besides, this place was little more than a hamlet 30 years ago, it’s not like it has any history.)