By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
Sandcastle. ‘Get lost in the world’s largest Mall’ threatens an airport billboard. Those exquisitely laundered Emirati, crisp sheets blowing over immaculate sandals, botox and burkas in one stifled breath. Arabian gulf pearls planted in desert hands, seeds that grew a seaside town. But those impossible pillars of modernity holding the sky, strange silver shapes. These grew overnight, fertilized by Jurassic oceans of oil, pumped from the desert’s black womb. A moloch oasis nesting, exposed in endless sand which still blows and swallows the grandeur into mid-morning mirage. There is a monstrous fragility here. Man-made everything. Man-made idea of the future, idea of wealth. Man-made sharia law. Man-made broken record of broken records. I search for plants and birds. Barbwire Bougainvillea thrives, of course. Olive trees, token pottings. No bees. A bird! Thank fuck. There are palms stapled throughout, though you can choose to discern fake fronds. Strangler vines of pretty fairy lights whipped around even the smallest freedom of a tree. I throw my gaze to those instead of the men whom here are forbidden to one another. Some are incense smoke, emerald eyes resting in camel lashes. Pastel princes shepherding sack tucks through spice souks, Wrapped, unexpectedly, in one-another’s arms. Those bougainvillea blooms of masculine intimacy where gay taboos reign. Not flowers but leaves, adapted. Above, the Burj Khalifa punctures the skies belly. “Three Eiffel towers high!”, it simply makes the rest seem slighter. Children carry its keepsake from giftshops like shiny weapons. I’m air conditioned into awe from my hotel room window, but looking down a strike amasses in a slip of desert sand revealed under the slow placement of a final silver puzzle piece. Pink and orange safety vests scattered together in foreign cheers are more fallen bougainvillea blooms from up here. Labour from Pakistan and India. Lost in the mall. I crossed the creek on a one-dirham boat into the old towns herb souks. Between fortunes of saffron and menthol crystals, behind mewing spiders casting webs of scent, I found a rose of Jericho. Dry resurrection weed, aching for desert rains to ignite its green rebirth Its prospering of impossible speed before the inevitable sun withers it back to sleep to blow about the sand another lifetime. Suppose it’s been waiting, dormant in death, long before the city’s silver. On the way home, from my taxi, I can hear the call to prayer smouldering from hidden Mosques calling from the feet of Dubai.