The UAE are more than Dubai. There are the great sand dunes of the Rub-el-Khalil (which I once rollercoastered up and down in a 4WD in the company of an Emirates pilot friend), there is ambitious Abu Dhabi and its beautiful, strikingly-white Sheihk-Zayed mosque and of course there are five other emirates. But honestly – the UAE – it’s Dubai, stupid! When I came to Dubai for the first time in 1996, its times as a minor pearl fishing port still lay not too far behind. The construction site of iconic Burj Al Arab was the southern city limit (nowadays the city limits extend 30 kilometers further south). We stayed at one of then still few beach hotels, an unassuming 3-floor-building in Jumeirah. In its cosy beer cellar, a German accordion player offered one of the few entertainment options in town. The desert just began behind Dubai Creek, the port-like estuary which was in 1996 full of smuggling dhows from Iran. I chatted with some Iranian sailors who came from – where I came from: Dubai had become our R&R station from our then home in Tehran. For an Iranian friend Dubai became the el dorado to become a millionaire: She‘s in real estate, of course.

Since then, Dubai has developed into one of the constant anchors of my wonderful intercontinental life. When I was working in Afghanistan and needed to shuttle in and out, Dubai was the point where the first world ended and began. Later, while living in Colombo, Dubai was our regular transit point on our way to Europe. It feels like I have been there 20 times, while never being the final destination. Just to recharge, smoke bubble bubble in the old Deira part of Dubai, eat Dim Sum at the Shangri La, or watch the world going crazy when shopping. A place where you don’t need google maps any more to find your way around, feels a bit – like home. 

Even when it feels a bit home, Dubai means – and needs – permanent change. Growing, not being. It might be a bit soulless but it is also a bit mad and even a bit, a little bit, like my favorite city in the world – New York. Every time I happen to come back to Dubai, there is something new in the air. The first indoor ski hall in a desert (I love the Aspen ski chalets in the adjacent hotel which offer views on a winter wonderland), artificial islands which picture the entire world map, the highest building on earth and the highest infinity pool, the world’s largest frame and, for sure not concluding, the Museum of the Future (ostensibly a low carbon structure, which does not mean a lot in Dubai…). My so far last Dubai visit in 2018 led surprisingly to a new discovery for my palate: Egyptian Khidri dates from Bateel, used to wrap pistachios from Iran. Mouth-watering and utterly healthy. The United Nations might meet in New York. However,  the united nation of tourists and expat workers meets in Dubai: Russians and Ukrainians holiday side by side, as do Iranians and Americans, Indians and Chinese. It’s the dream destination of my Kenyan as well as of my Srilankan friends to work,  and a favorite destination for my Brazilian friends to splurge.

Dubai is a miracle  Since all this happens in the Middle East, in the midst of the world’s most unstable region, where most of the world’s wars have been fought in the past 50 years. A place where locals and visitors have to stand summer outside temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius, where even the crazy pools need to be cooled down. For me, everything falls together with a song of English songwriter Black which Emirates airline used to play each time in their cabin shortly before touch down in Dubai:

Here I go out to sea again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
Gulls in the sky and in my blue eyes
You know it feels unfair
There’s magic everywhere

Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine

No need to run and hide
It’s a wonderful, wonderful life
No need to laugh or cry
It’s a wonderful, wonderful life