Dune Buggies in Boomtown Dubai

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Teatime at the Burj, the World’s Tallest Hotel. It looks like a spectacular, massive yacht, built on reclaimed land, and towers above Dubai’s oceanfront skyline. The Burj bills itself as the world’s only 7-star Hotel, pure marketing gobblygook, even if the Royal Room goes for US$10 000 a night. Inside it is all red, green and golds, deliberately kitsch as determined by, I would presume, the World’s Most Pretentiously Expensive Designers. From the lobby, you stare up and rub your eyes, for it looks like a dream, a video game, an illusion of grandeur. Drink a cup of Arabic coffee, and its still there. Outside, white Rolls Royce Phantoms are ready to shuttle away guests. Andre Agassi played tennis on the heliport. Rose tea with scones in the restaurant at the top, with picture windows over the city and sea, gives one the distinct impression of being in a spaceship. The bill will give one the distinct impression of being someone’s bitch.

It was time to hit the dune buggies. A company named Desert Rangers has it down - 18 buggies to live out the video game. Strapped into the roll cage, the buggy is fully automatic and built to bounce and fly over the dunes. It looks like a rebel fighter in Star Wars - all it needs are lasers to shoot obstructing shrubbery. Driving out about 45 minutes into the desert, I gripped the wheel and gunned for the Death Star. Sliding and slipping at full speed, I have to confess that of all my extreme sport adventures, these Dune Buggies drove straight into my heart. Too much fun, as the pictures will testify. The desert sand was starting to pile up in my ear, and at 10am the temperature was pushing into the 40’s, so we headed back, passing three wild camels, suitably bemused.

In Dubai, the outdoor patios are used in winter. Want to snowboard…they’re building an enormous indoor ski-slope, with ambitions to hold world championships. Play golf inside on a computer simulated course, because it’s too hot outside. Today, another announcement in the Property Weekly, which is the Wall Street Journal for Dubai. The neighboring emirate and capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi, has announced a colossal development to rival Dubai. While the emirates originally co-operated on Dubai’s recreation, its explosive and lucrative growth have inspired the other sheiks to compete, offering tax breaks and incentives to foreign businesses and tourists. “I read somewhere that 7% of the US GDP came from the Saudis, and what with everything that’s happened in the USA these days, they’re pulling out their money and pumping it here,” says Costas. Dubai is like a magnet, drawing in the young and hungry, the rich and restless, the greedy and desperate. I saw human folly, a property bubble that cannot hope to sustain itself, and the extreme allocation of money to pleasure, when it could be allocated to worldwide progress, health and education instead.

In Dubai, perhaps it is money and ambition that is turning the desert green.

The Greens
Dubai

Ps: Special thanks to my hosts, Arthur and Maureen, for going above, beyond and where no man (or woman) has gone before in the call of duty to show me the wonders of Dubai.

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