15 November 2024

I slept fairly intermittently last night. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before and having my body clock adjust to the new time zone. I nodded off several times during the day and got very tired at about 11 at night and went to bed and slept until about 1:45am. Then I woke up as if my body clock was on it’s usual evening time. I read for about an hour and then went back to sleep again.

I slept very deeply until about 8:30 this morning and woke up fresh as a daisy and ready to walk the streets of Dubai. And that’s what I’ve been doing today.

I had a large substantial breakfast which consisted of chicken sausage and beef bacon. Not quite the same as good old pork sausages and real bacon. But I guess because of religious traditions here, pork isn’t on the menu. And that’s OK, I get that. When in Rome etc etc.

Dubai has an excellent public transport system and it’s fairly cheap too. As most of it is above ground, some elevated, this seems a really good way to get a good view of the city. I bought a daily ticket for a few euro and that got me around the whole city on all public transport for a full day. It’s very good value. So I made a list of all the interesting places and I’ve been hopping on and off the Metro most of the day.

Interesting. I noticed that there is a separate carriages for women and kids so nearly everybody in the courage I was in was male. They also had a carriage that’s at the end of the train and called a gold carriage. If you pay extra, you have luxury seats and a lot more space. I chose not to go for this option because I wanted to to see what the regular people of Dubai were like.

I was surprised at the number of different sorts of people there. There were the traditional people from the Middle East itself who wore traditional Arab dress, the long white gown; I can’t remember the name of it now. Some had the head scarf as well.

There’s also quite a lot of people look like they’re from Pakistan and they all had the clothes that you expect from people in Pakistan and that part of the world. There were lots of other races as well and I guess most of the the hospitality and service work is done by non nationals. At least that’s why I understand from reading a bit about what it’s like here in Dubai.

Surprising numbers of Chinese people here as well working in service industries in hotels restaurants etc. Customer service is exceptional and you can get on almost everything here. One of my stops on the Metro was the Museum of the Future.

The heat is quite fierce but there is a nice wind blowing which helps. I’ve got my my tropical gear and my Tilley hat from past travels so I’m ok with the heat. I think I have a temperature muscle memory and can adjust quite fast to new extremes in temperature. Long may it remain.

I am tired and and sweaty now from all the walking so back to the hotel to have a nap, a shower and something to eat. I’m heading out this evening to meet some old friends on the far side of Dubai. It’s about an hour away on the Metro. I’m looking forward to that. Please feel free to subscribe and to make any comment below. Hugxxx

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