A Dubai Desert Safari

Following on from the tour of the city, the other excursion we were looking forward to was a desert safari.

The day dawned to news that the United States supported by the UK had, overnight, bombed strategic targets in Yemen. It was in response to continued pirate attacks, sponsored by Tehran as I understand it, on shipping in the region. Great, I thought. WTF, is what went through my mind. Do you have to do this on the day my wife and I are to be delivered into the hands of local Arabs for a trip out into the shifting sands of the desert? Thank you very much, Joe and Rishi, much appreciated.

The first thing I did was to hold a little conversation with my phone. It went something like this.

“Hey Siri. How far is it from here to Yemen?”

“It is about 819 miles as the crow flies.”

Okay, I thought. How far away is the south of France from King’s Lynn? The answer was about 900 miles as the crow flies. Not sure if it is the same crow or a different one! But, Siri did say “The crow” and not “A crow!” Maybe, I continued to think, the Emiratis might think Yemen far enough away not to be bothered by it. Would I care for the south of France? Good question. Then, why do we always refer to a direct distance as the crow flies? My basic research shows, that if a crow were to fly between the aforementioned locations, it would take an age to complete the journey, they only seem to fly about fifteen miles at a time!

As someone who tries to eke out a living writing fiction, I have, I am afraid to say, a fairly vivid imagination. Alarm bells were set ringing when our lift turned up an hour early. Clearly, this man was an imposter. I kept this thought in my head. Didn’t share it with Jane as I don’t expect she had even considered this as an option. I didn’t let on that we were less than the flight of a Cruise Missile away from Yemen. What good would it have served? Keep the visions of our impending life as hostages inside my head, until it became a reality.

I considered what sort of torture I might be able to withstand. I knew that I had a pretty low pain threshold but, then I thought, grow a pair. That was it, I would fight anything they threw my way but, then I started to sweat, as an image of a Turkish barber came to mind. No, not the nose waxing!

What would I do, I thought, if they took Jane off to a nomadic harem, and what duties would she have to perform? I dwelled on it for a moment. God, I came to the conclusion that she was too old to be a concubine. Relief flooded through me. It’s a bit like getting a bus-pass, sometimes age has advantages. I tried to erase these images and thought the best way to deal with anything was to cross any bridges when we got to them. It was fair to say, I didn’t have a contingency.

We motored on through the vast emptiness, except for the ribbon of tarmac we were following and the parallel striding pylons carrying their power across the landscape, there was nothing. It reminded me of Holkham beach when the tide goes out, sand as far as the eye could see or, at least, mine could see anyway.

It occurred to me that, in these conditions, surely, it would be cheaper to bury the powerlines, rather than tie them up to tonnes weight in structural steel, after all, a digger was needed to excavate the pylon footings anyway. Knowing our driver did not have a great command of English, and my Arabic was only the few words I had picked up from Peter O’Toole’s T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, I asked the obvious question. “Why don’t they bury the cables underground?”

“Ah. That is simple my friend…”

Let’s get one thing straight here, I thought, I am not your friend. I might be simple but I am not your friend, especially if you have an AK47 tucked away somewhere.

“They use the pylons as markers in case of a bad sandstorm, they are quite often in the desert, so that we know where the road is.”

Really, I thought, thinking of the snow markers across the Pennines. It could be true? I cannot find evidence to back his claim up but it, sort of, makes sense, doesn’t it?

Out of the blue or, in truth, the red, the colour of the sand, a type of roadside house manifested itself from the now crepuscular light. Dust had been thrown up by all the vehicles heading to this modern oasis. This was it, I just knew it! I expected our guide’s confederates to appear from around the nearest corner, bristling with weapons. We all know that the British Government will never negotiate for the release of citizens abducted abroad. Trust me, Mr Sunak, if you refuse to secure my release you will not be able to depend on my vote, ever again. I suspect you might need everyone you can get.

It turns out that the purpose of the stop was only to deflate the tyres so that they would offer improved traction on the desert floor. It wasn’t long before our driver pulled off the road, revved the engine of the Land Cruiser to a deafening level, hit the gas and we were on our way.

I must say here that our driver, who to date had appeared to be a little bit laid back about driving, suddenly clicked into gear with the vehicle. For starters, he stopped picking his nose! He showed off his incredible skills as he threw the four-wheel-drive from side-to-side, traversing almost impossible inclines and descending into troughs of such breathtaking steepness that it was like riding the most vicious rollercoaster ever known to man. Christ, it was exhilarating. At times, I felt like I could do with retracing my steps to collect my stomach but it always seemed to catch up.

He swirled the steering wheel around with such deftness that it appeared he would lose control at any moment and we would plunge into oblivion. I was not sure how long this went on for but it probably, once we became used to it, lasted much longer than it appeared. Unbeknown to us we had crossed from the more liberal Emirate of Dubai into the conservative Sharjah. Whilst alcohol was freely available in Dubai, Sharjah is a different kettle of fish. As we were experiencing, though, the state was dry in more senses of the word than just the one. There was sand as far as any well-sighted person could see.

We joined with many other Land Cruisers, in a stately column, and headed for the Bedouin camp where the evening’s entertainment was to take place. The curtain wall of the enclosure rose up out of the sand like a medieval castle rising from an English fosse. We ducked through a crack in the canvas, where we were greeted by a man in full Bedouin dress sporting a falcon on his hand. Vicious looking thing; and, so was the bird!

Time for a little aside. Meeting the falcon reminded me of a story I had been told during the previous autumn. I think it is a great tale, but like with most things, I was probably the only person in the world who never knew this. Ever wondered where the tabletop football game, Subbuteo, got its name? If you don’t know, prepare to be impressed. If you do know, just bear with me for a minute, or skip to the next bit. The game was developed by a man named Peter Adolph who wanted to call it Hobby. He was not granted this trademark as it was already registered to another user. Pondering his options, he stumbled across a short biography of the bird of prey, the Hobby Hawk. He then discovered that the Latin ornithological name for the bird was Falco Subbuteo. There you go, that’s one for the dinner table tonight. Have that one on me. Hands up those of you who just thought it a ridiculous name?

We were escorted to low tables set around a raised concrete plinth upon which, later in the night, the entertainment would take place.

As the light fell, so did the temperature, we had been advised to take additional layers. This was a mort of good sense. I am not sure that the temperature went down anywhere near close to freezing but it was certainly chilly. This reminds me, I almost forgot, after the charging through the desert news came through that one of the vehicles in our wake had broken down. Our driver was despatched on a rescue mission, whilst we hopped into another Cruiser. The new driver’s English was excellent, he came from Pakistan. There was another couple in the car with us, much younger and whilst their English didn’t seem as good as the driver it was, nonetheless, more than competent. I am not sure Jane or I could work out where the younger pair hailed from? Maybe Holland?

The driver engaged with us, I mean me really. He laid his trap and like a gullible Englishman abroad I fell right into it. “Where you from?” he asked politely.

“From England,” I answered truthfully. I had considered saying New Zealand to protect us from retribution for the previous night’s events. I mean, who the hell hates the Kiwis? Don’t answer that one!

“What part?”

“East Anglia,” I said thinking there wasn’t a chance in the world he would have heard of Norfolk let alone Kings Lynn.

“Close to London?”

“About 160 klicks north,” I responded calculating the metric conversion of a hundred miles in the split of a second.

“Really cold?” he countered, seeming to have lost all interest in our geographical location.

“Yes,” I agreed puffing out my chest with pride. “It’s due to go down to minus-two tonight.”

He laughed and retorted, “Ohff! That’s cold,” he agreed before addressing our new companions. “How cold is it where you guys come from?”

“Oh,” the girl considered. “Maybe minus-thirty tonight. Maybe colder.”

If I could have seen our new guide’s face, I am convinced it would have been split by the widest of grins that said, “Gotcha!”

Trumped! Big time! Lost for words I started to dig myself out from the pit I had just jumped into. “Cor! That’s cold.” I agreed, stating the blinking obvious. “Whereabouts are you from?”

“Finland,” the pair answered in unison.

“Nice!” I muttered for no-one to really hear. I had been duped into being outdone fifteen-fold.

Still, on the brighter side, relief coursed through my veins. It was at this moment I realised we were definitely not going to be abducted. After all, there can’t be anyone in the world who has issues with the Finns; can there?

The lights dimmed, except for the concrete stage, and a man shot through the audience to take a pose somewhere in the darkness. The light, unfortunately, was nowhere good enough for me. Loud music started to play, the crowd began to clap rhythmically and the performer started to whirl in a Cossack style dance. All I could make out were, what appeared to be, flashing lights attached to his costume. Although I couldn’t see it I was intoxicated on the atmosphere. Nothing to do with the shish pipes. It all built to a crescendo as the music got faster and faster, louder and louder before, suddenly, nothing. Everyone broke into rapturous applause.

A short break was followed with the same man coming back for his second performance. This time it was a fire-dance. Not sure what his secret is? Jane gave me a running commentary and I tried to follow as best I could. Now, as I have mentioned, I am sure, I rely on my other senses to make up for the lack of sight, filling in the picture. Sound, of course, is massively important, and here was no exception. The music, pretty much a continuation of the twirling dance built again. I could feel the beat of the music, I could feel the impact of the dancer’s feet on the concrete stage and, most of all, I could feel the heat from the flaming torch he was swinging about. I could smell the fuel used to keep the torch aflame, it was the same scent, is that the right word, as you get when you walk along an air-bridge to board an aircraft, so the torch was powered by jet-fuel, kerosene! I was lucky enough not to have to use taste but he, the dancer, most certainly did. I was mesmerised as Jane described how he swallowed the fire. I got a sensation, as what I took to be a distant light was extinguished as it disappeared down his gullet. It gave me a sore throat just picturing it. Ah, absolutely gross. There must be easier ways of making a living?

Finally, what all us hot-blooded males had been waiting for… the belly-dancer. Sorry, I have run out of time. Read again next week to find out who she looks like...