Further to my previous post on Dubai, how best to characterise the place for those who have never been there? The answer came to me after my fruitless quest to organise a trip to Oman. When several e-mails to tour operators failed to elicit a response, I decided my best bet was to visit the Dubai branch of the Oman Tourist Office, located in Room 106 on the 1st floor of the Reuters Building in Media City. Despite the fact that I had read an article dated barely a week before extolling the virtues of Oman and mentioning this address, I could find no trace of the Office in the building, only a vague recollection on the part of the present occupants that there might indeed have been a tourist bureau at some point in the past. As I walked out of the building, I was reminded of the old truth that nothing is quite what it seems in the Middle East and that eastern promise is rarely fulfilled. At the same time it came to me, as in a blinding flash, that Dubai itself is not so much a town as a gigantic film studio and/or an amusement park of biblical proportions.
Why the Sheikh should want to go to such absurd lengths to create the illusion of reality has yet to be revealed, but if his purpose is to attract tourists he has certainly succeeded. Most tourists, pouring forth from the bowels of a Costa Cruise ship, take the place at its face value and it is only the likes of me, raised in the ways of spycraft, who see beyond the intricately orchestrated facade and charade, and note that only 40% of the offices and flats in the breathtaking skyscrapers are actually occupied - enough to fool the casual observer, but not me. And no more than 100 yards away from the imposing townscape of Sheik Zayed Road lies another world of windswept, sand-filled alleys and ramshackle dwellings.
