Dubai – a shishi affair

First stop on the way to living the American Dream…Dubai. A totally disjointed city with more cranes (no, not the living ones!) and buildings-in-the-making than any other city I have ever seen. The apparent contrast between highly religious muslims and the ‘bling’ usually associated with total godlessness also carved a mental note in the bedpost of my mind…

What is this place where every second car has the face of their region’s Sheikh in the backwindow? Silly, if you ask me…

A tax-free haven with all the shopping opportunity you can ask for, I was amazed to see the world’s largest indoor ski slope. Yes, that’s right! Inside a huge shopping mall, you might want to casually place your Louis Vutton handbag to the side and don a big ski jacket over your Muslim hijab (not forgetting to fasten your face cover tightly) and mooooooooooooooove down this steep slope…
or

Let’s not forget that temperatures in Dubai sometimes reach the deep 50′s…Nutters.

Lezanne was the perfect tour guide and host and we packed more fun and giggles into 36hours than what I thought was
humanly possible.

Smoked a Shesha (very shishi!) pipe on my last night, and to much amusement of all around, we tried to get the smoke-coming-out-of-mouth picture just right. It took us about 2hours of constant smoking and regular refilling of the coals required to produce said smoke…BUT, we got it! (What we also got was a head-rush of note…followed by a smoke-hangover of note. Not nice on a jetlag of note…)
And on that note:

Nice…

Very nice…

Maybe you’re being a bit too generous with the smoke, Lezanne

AND PERFECT!

Come, let me show you how!

Burh was a highlight – gorgeous during the day and especially at night.

Ongelukkig kon ek nie ‘n drink daar gaan drink nie, want die Arabiere is te vol strooi – mens moet bespreek om daar in te gaan, maar hulle is vol vir alles, nie dat ons dit nou juis sou kon bekostig nie…So R500 vir ‘n afternoon tea? Ons het dit dus maar van buite bewonder!

Also visited (and got totally lost) in Abu Dhari (one and half hours’ drive from Dubai) to visit Werner – a friend from school – who took us to…wait for it…the Brauhaus. Ja, einste dieselfde ene wat by die V&A Waterfront is. Complete with a drawing of Table Mountain on the cover…To fly 10 hours for a meal that you could have at home? The company more than made up for it, though, and it was part of an experience that in hindsight was totally disjointed, but fabulous.

Dubai is weird…with lots of charisma, but very little personality. Pretty much like some of the men I’ve met before! Ha ha!