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Finally I’ve arrived in Dubai and so far I haven’t lost my passport or broken any bones… although my legs are shot and my neck feels twisted from the cattleclass flight from Hong Kong. Still, now it’s time to explore!

The handsome man on the giant billboard is Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Shiek of Dubai. To be honest I’m not quite sure what that means and what he can and can’t do, but I have driven past his son’s weekend house which looks like it’s worth a few billion dollars alone.
This place screams affluence, with big open roads and new fresh buildings everywhere. I can’t remember who it was, but a queensland policitian once said you could messure a city’s growth by how many cranes you could see. Let’s just say that I’ve lost count how many cranes there are in Dubai. I’m trying to get a good shot of the buildings under construction here but I don’t have a wide enough lense.

Still - not everyone has an income of a Shiek, but that doesn’t mean you can’t live like one here. Petrol is hellishly cheap, prices of general goods seem to be reasonable and new opportunties are vast and wide with all this development. A little birdy told me that Dubai has around about 10 years worth of Oil left before it declines so the wise Shiek is building an economy that doesn’t rely on oil alone. I’m not sure if it will be successful, but I do think Dubai will be an even more exciting place to visit in a few years time.