Dubai

During the sandpit trip we called in at Dubai for 12 hours of crew rest, I spent the time in the Hotel but I took these photos on the approach to the airport.

The above is part of "the world" the reclamation project where you can buy a "country" and build a house on it. this project was started at the height of the Dubai boom and whilst it is complete there are no houses on it. it is without doubt an amazing vanity project just like Dubai its self. There is some concern, which I share, about what it has done to the eco system on the seabed of the Gulf.

As we were flying directly over it, I cannot be certain which bit of “the world” I have photographed. I think we were flying “south” over “Africa” and the picture is of the “Far East” and “Australia”

Dubai still has a ship repair industry, but its not the sort of thing that Dubai is proud of as it does not represent their new image.

The QE2 now resides in Dubai, it was supposed to be the center piece of a new area of Dubai but the “bust” in the enviable boom and bust came before the area around the Queen could be developed, it appears to sit forlornly on its own I don’t know what if anything it is used for. I expect it may well just be rotting away slowly.

Yet another example of the “bust” there are large areas where the road infrastructure has been built and then abandoned, although I did not take a photograph the area round the hotel in the Silicon Oasis was littered with abandoned construction sites and tower cranes. At the height of the bust Dubai was cancelling 1500 work permits a day for South Asian construction workers. The “bust” in Dubai came quickly and there is evidence of this everywhere you look.

The National sport of the UAE is camel racing. The races take place on a Friday morning after prayers. The jockeys’ used to be children who were attached to the camels saddle by Velcro, there was a bit of an outcry about this a few years ago and they have now developed a radio controlled robot jockey that is controlled by trainer from a 4WD vehicle that runs alongside the track. The Camel “stables” are in the desert outside Dubai, this is the first time I have seen them.

Also out in the desert are the bits of Dubai they don’t talk about, This Picture is of some of the "labour camps" where the South Asians live. The labour is "imported" on contracts. Often the workers don’t get home for a year or more and are expected to work 6 day weeks of 12 hours or more a day with just the Friday off. They are bussed into and out of Dubai every day. South Asians flock to the Middle East where wages are tax free and much better than back home. The down side is that there are virtually no employment laws and no employee protection. If they can’t work or there is no work then their visa is cancelled and they are sent home.

And finally the bit of Dubai that they want you to see and everyone talks about, this is the downtown area which is quite impressive in a “Las Vegas” sort of way. Personally as you might have guessed I prefer the old fashioned Arabia which has a culture of it’s own. There is no need to try and mimic the west, the Middle East has so much of it’s own to offer. Dubai has destroyed its own history and having realised this has built a “Dubailand” theme park based on its own history. I kid you not!

The Sandpit

I haven’t done a trip to “the sandpit” for some years; “the sandpit” is generic slang for the Middle East within elements of the military. On this occasion I was acting as a loadmaster on the aircraft, this role requires me to complete the balance calculations on the aircraft. We started out from the UK with a couple of hundred troops going back to Afghanistan after two weeks leave. A commercial aircraft takes the troops to an airbase in the Sandpit where they transfer to a military aircraft for the final leg into Afghanistan. The military aircraft then returns to the airbase with the troops that are coming “out of theatre” These troops then either fly back to the UK direct or via a stop at a “warm” location for a 24 hour decompression which is an opportunity to have a beer or 20 with the other troops.

below photos are some I took as we passed down the gulf and at the airbase.

The desert comes down to the sea, it is reall quite dramatic, you can often see single roads that appear to come from nowhere and go nowhere.




as you fly down the gulf you see the Oil tankers mored off shore, they dont even need to dock to pick up the oil, they just moor up to a jetty with a hose and pump the stuff onto the tanker.


this is one of the ramps at the base, all transport aircraft. the troops deploy for several months at a time and rarely leave the Base or get a day off.

Lost in Translation

Not a food one this time, there seems to be some confusion in Poland between a staircase and a lift! “Schody” is Polish for a staircase so it’s not just a case of someone who did not understand English, it’s a case of someone who did not look where the arrow pointed.

The other half

Occasionally I get to work with an aircraft that is Just outstanding and this is one. The aircraft is an A319 (Easyjet operate them). It has a VIP interior including a bedroom and a bathroom with a shower. If you have to travel then this has to be the way to do it.

my piece of paradise

I travel all year, 79 flights between January and the end of July and this is a slack year. When it comes to holidays I don’t want to see an aircraft. Fortunately my in laws live in Scotland on the banks of a sea loch. Getting away from it with the family is just fantastic

A safe as houses bet with the children cost me £20 this year. After five years of only ever seeing Mackerel being caught I bet them £20 that they could not catch anything else. On the last cast of the holiday one of them landed a Pollock. On the positive note once it was gutted and baked with a small amount of butter it was very tasty!!!

The house is near HMNB Clyde, there is often something interesting going on I suppose I should be glad they only caught a Pollock.

A tale of two attractions

I use the word attraction with caution as in the first case it is clearly inappropriate. Whilst following the path of the wall I came across the Documentation centre. This building is located on the site of former Gestapo headquarters and documents the third Reich the building itself is of a stark design just like the subject it houses.

http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/nc/1/


The second attraction is “Check point Charlie” its every bit as brash as the documentation centre is somber. all of this is is laid out on a public highway, it must be a nightmare to drive down the road, one moment of inattention and you have bagged a tourist that stepped out in front of you to get the "perfect" photograph

The Berlin Wall

Berlin is one of my favourite cities, there is a real sense of history about the place, recently they seem to be trying to preserve and recreate the cold war history. It seems that they are rebuilding significant parts of the wall. The photo below was my John Le Carre moment. I can’t imagine what it must have been like when the city was split. The meeting I had to attend was with a colleague from the Czech Republic and he recalls visiting East Berlin when he was a teenager and looking over the wall at the western tourists looking back

The plan it to mark the path of the wall through the city with a double reow of bricks