Crumbs Dubai is hot. I mean really hot.
When we landed here on Monday lunchtime the pilot dropped the ground temperature casually into his welcoming words, 41 degrees, as you do, before wishing us all well.
And all temperatures considered the kids and I are doing well. We are staying with South African friends who have made us wonderfully welcome and today has seen three little Lawrences and I tackle some of the tourist and cultural highlights of the Emirate, a tour brought to us in association with bigbustours.com. First port of call today was the Cultural Museum, where we initially dodged from air-con room to air-con room via a quick look at very old boats too. The displays were very well done, with plenty of video exhibits to attract hot children and fathers who always click into teacher mode when in museums. The main teaching point of the museum was the economic policies of Sheikh Maktoun who, 1824, decided that the small pearl fishing harbour and fledging trading port should not charge any tax on imports and exports. Following that decision and a bit of oil Dubai has never looked back. (My plenary needed some work on.)
On the next stop of the big bus we attempted to explore a buildings museum but instead ended up breaking the law. For Muslims it is currently Ramadan so much fasting is taking place, and Ramadan is taken very seriously here. Finding ourselves in a shaded corner of the single storey buildings we broke into our supply of sandwiches and munched while casting regular glances around the place, just in case. Before today I had never thought that the eating of bread and peanut butter could be in anyway illegal, but I was wrong. Clearly Muslims follow the fast but the commentary on the tour bus made it clear that people were not permitted to eat, drink, play live music or chew gum in public places during fasting hours. Our friends had reminded us that rules here are simply obeyed and but hunger did force us to eat, although eat subtlety and swiftly.
The bus company had made it clear that passengers were allowed to drink on the bus and even encouraged it by offering free bottles of water. By the end of the day we had quaffed 15 half litre bottles between us plus the water that we had taken along.
Our next stop was the Spice Souk, a collection of stalls selling fine spices and herbs, but also many other stalls and shops selling unexpected items too. Being a man, and one who does not spend a great deal of time grooming my flowing locks, I managed not to pack a hair brush for Trixie. I was certain though that one of the shops in the souk would have what we needed And we were almost successful. The first likely looking shop had various household plastic products, soaps and plenty of combs, but no hairbrushes. The next one had various bottles of hair tonics, shoe cleaning brushes and combs, but no hair brushes. Likewise the third place, plenty of combs but no brushes. I started to see a pattern emerging. The fourth place confirmed my suspicions. Three bearded men wearing Arabian white robes sat on plastic chairs and stools surrounded by combs of every single colour, style, tooth arrangement and length. In fact it seemed that the children and I had stumbled into World of Combs. No one else was in this fine shop, a veritable wholesaler of combs, and the three men did not appear to be deep in comb related discussions and dealings, so why were they surrounded by so many combs? Naturally we enquired about hair brushes but these were comb purists who would not sully their trade in precious plastics by lowering themselves into dealing with multi-layered plastic teeth. The simplicity of the comb was clearly something that gave the men a serene charm. "No," one particularly wise gentleman assured me in the tone of a great teacher speaking this student who is about the embark on a soul-discovering quest for knowledge ("Tell me, Teacher, of the origin of combs, please?") "I do not sell hair brushes, but you should have no problem finding one in the souk." Sweating some more we left the shop, Trixie pulled her wide-brimmed hat down further over her matted, un-brushed and un-combed hair and we continued on with our hairbrush free tour.
Our bus route was taking us around the Dubai Creek and one of the main reasons for booking the tour was that it offered a river trip on an Emirati Dhow (otherwise know as a big, old, wooden boat). To get to the starting point of the trip we had to cross the water and that meant a ride on a sort of river taxi. The river taxi was a curious boat, that looked a bit like something designed by an amateur boat builder who specialized in bath-based boats and then sent their design to someone they knew who had a bit of wood left over. The whole thing was shaped to look like a downside-up clothes iron, with a raised platform that trebled as a seating area, cover for the Diesel engine and lower level standing area for the driver. Despite also giving the impressions of having no bottom the boat made it in great shape and slow speed to the other side of the water and we made it aboard the dhow.
Our final port of call was some tall building. There are lots of tall buildings in Dubai, but because they a quite spread out they don't appear to be too over-dominating. However the Burj Khalifa is a big building. 828 metres is big in anyone's book, even allowing for the slight cheating of shoving a ruddy big pole on top of it to make it look bigger.
By that time children were getting peckish again so we ducked inside the Dubai Mall and started to consider how we might break the law again. Every food outlet gave the impression of being both open and closed at the same time in that often the lights were on, but no-one was at work. The signs around the mall prohibited eating and drinking in public areas and yet some of the eateries and cafés had signs saying that they were open for take-aways. But if we had bought a takeaway then where could we have eaten or drunk it? In the end, and after a quick play in Hamleys, I resorted to going into Marks and Spencers and buying a 9 Dirham packet of shortbread. We beat a hasty dash to the tour bus and sat on the upper deck, outside, and ate shortbread as quickly as possible, which was quite quick considering how hungry the three sweaty little Lawrences were.
We celebrated Edwin's 11th birthday with a good meal and slices of chocolate brownie cake, adorned with candles and also enjoyed Happy Birthday sung in five different languages. We were also able to buy a hairbrush for Trixie from a French Supermarket. No combs were for sale.