> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://vaughan.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # No dessert in the Desert - URL: https://vaughan.ai/blog/no-dessert-in-the-desert/ - Published: 2000-11-30T21:55:09.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-07T23:19:18.000Z - Author: Vaughan Fergusson - Tags: Dubai, #medium-import Well you will all be pleased to know Mel and I made our flight out of Bangkok to Dubai in plenty of time. We got the last of our Bangkok shopping in and then found ourselves waiting in the airport for our flight, realising this would be our last hour in Thailand. We were both very excited about moving onto something new, Dubai for 4 days, but it suddenly hit us that should the fancy take us we could no longer jump on the next train south and hit the beach and we would no longer be surrounded by Thai people. Two months is a relatively long time and we were starting to feel a part of the furniture. Thailand was starting to feel like home in many ways, it was no longer a strange country. We knew the country now better than most Thai people do. We could hold conversations in Thai and knew when we were being ripped off at a market. We knew what all the buttons did on the train and how to drive on Thai roads. Now we were about to get on a plane and we would not be seeing Thailand for a very long time. And then almost as if someone heard our lament the plane was delayed an hour, just so we could spend an extra 60 minutes in the country we were about to miss very much, sitting in the stupid waiting room at the airport gate. Of course we didn’t know we were being delayed until after the fact. This is something that every airport in the world does very very very badly. When the flight is delayed they do one of two things. 1\. Don’t tell you. They make you sit there looking at your watch wondering if you had the right time in the first place. When you are sitting there for an hour a certain frustration can build up. 2\. Announce the obvious and lie. This is where you sit waiting for 20 minutes after the plane was supposed to have left to hear an announcement stating the plane will be delayed. No shit. They then continue to tell you that boarding will commence in ten minutes. 20 minutes later they continue to announce the plane will be delayed but will be boarding in another ten minutes. This goes on for an hour. Here is my alternative. It took me ages to figure this one out, really! Plane is to leave at 1am. 1am arrives and plane is not boarding. Announcement — “This flight will be delayed momentarily but you will have enough time to go get a coffee and visit the toilet.” This is a good indication of the timeframe you will be waiting or alternatively, “If you have a good book we suggest you read it” is another good indication of how long the delay will be. Lastly, and here is the important bit, “We are sorry for the delay.” ![](https://vaughan.ai/content/images/2026/11/d9a790d156ea.jpeg) We boarded the plane eventually and I stayed awake all night watching the in flight movies, as you do. Hell you paid for them so you might as well watch them. We touched down in Dubai at sunrise and headed for our hotel somewhat exhausted. Dubai is a metropolis in the middle of nowhere. A clean, well-organised, fresh city, straight from the box. The city itself is only really 20 or so years old, one of the youngest cities in the world. And the ruling family owns the whole shooting match. A handful of sheiks own everything from the land to the roads to the plumbing. Its great to have money isn’t it? Dubai, being in that part of the world where oil seeps from every edifice in the ground and is poured into barrels and sold to the rest of the world at very exuberant prices, has a lot of cash. Unfortunately the oil is due to run out, very very soon. The sheiks realising this decided to invest their money into sensible things like airlines, buildings and infrastructure for the city. This way when the oil runs out they still have cash flow and can live the lives of comfort they have grown very accustomed to. The other big thing Dubai is investing a lot of time and money into is tourism. The city is quite beautiful and there is an increasing number of things to do in Dubai, well if you have cash that is. Later on that day Mel got in contact with her cousin Mike who lives in Dubai skippering a launch. He picked us up and took us for lunch. What we didn’t realise when we arrived in Dubai is that it was Ramadan, a religious restriction meaning you could not eat or drink during daylight hours. So from 6am to 7pm everyone fasted. This made it a small problem for us westerners to wander down the road to get a bite to eat. However Mike took us to the yacht club where the launch he skippered was and we sat down to be presented with the most fabulous menu we had laid eyes on for the last 2 months. It was 100% western food and we knew it was going to taste how we expected it to. We even met the chef who was a Brit so we knew that this guy knew exactly what a chicken sandwich should be like. He definitely knew what a club sandwich was judging be the tower of bread before me and the mound of fries on the side. As we dined in total ecstasy we learnt how seriously the sheiks took their Ramadan over here. If you were to walk down the road with a bottle of water in hand you could be locked up in jail. Chew chewing gum? Locked up. Eat a chocolate bar? Locked up. So most of the eating establishments were shut up during the day and you had to really hunt for the discrete restaurant that was open but pretending to be closed. After lunch we explored a little of Dubai. First stop the boat yards. We pulled up to see a row of monstrous wooden boats lined up on the dry dock. These boats are called Dhows. Each one over 100 feet long and made totally out of wood and made totally by hand. The dhows on the dry dock were having maintenance done to them, all done by hand. Entire slabs of wood were being replaced, by hand, and new ones being shaped and nailed in, all by hand. Sanded down and tarred by hand. You get the idea. These boats were damn solid too. We chatted to a couple of guys performing maintenance on one dhow about where they have been and where they were going to next while we stood in the shadow beneath the towering boat above. We learnt that one of them had literally almost sailed the world and his English language reflected that. However he did not know where New Zealand was but as soon as we mentioned Richard Hadlee a smile of recognition streaked across his face. A very big cricket fan. We watched some wire fish traps being woven, by hand, and admired the speed these nimble weavers wound wire around and around constructing huge fish traps in the shapes of domes. They would stand in the middle of the inverted dome and wind the wire around them. I wondered how they got out of the woven domes, as they would weave them 5 feet high. Mike dropped us back to our hotel and we caught up on a little more sleep. The next day Mel and I decided to wander around Dubai by foot. We wandered 30 minutes to the souks, the markets, and specifically the gold souks. We walked down a lane with gold shops on either side selling their gold wares. There must have been 100 shops and the lane literally glowed gold. We explored the textile souks and the electronics souks until we were all souked out. Mel even had to sneak into a toilet to drink an orange juice she bought we were that pooped. There were electronic souks and textile souks. We headed back to the hotel after exploring the creek a bit and being ripped off 10 buck to go from one side to the other. Later that night we went out with Mike to an Aussie sports bar to watch the Barbarians rugby match against South Africa. It was such a weird experience to be in the midst of the Dubai expat community watching rugby in and Aussie sports bar, surrounded by Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, English, Welsh, and Irish. The barbarians being all of the above meant everyone was happy and had someone to root for in the game. Its just a shame that those nasty South Africans didn’t play nice and didn’t give the Barbarians a chance to come back. Being an invitation game I didn’t think it was very nice. We had several beers and several cheers at each try. It was a really big novelty for both Mel and I to be surrounded by so many familiar accents watching friendly faces from home on the biggest TV screen you could imagine. The next day was the day I was really really looking forward to. Doing a desert safari in four by fours. We were picked up at the hotel in the afternoon and taken to a camel track to meet with the other cars on the safari. There were four other people in our car, not including the driver. A couple from Sydney and a couple from London. Mel sat in the very back next to the Sydney Lady and I shared the middle seat with the English couple. Eleven other four by fours arrived shortly after we got there. Every car identical and full of other tourists eager to get out on the sands to do some dune hopping. Sam, our driver, drove us 20 minutes up the main highway out of Dubai to a secluded bid of desert. The highway was straight and had big fences on either side to keep the camels off. We pulled off on to a sand bit and waited for the other cars. Sam deflated the tyres (for maximum traction) and then hopped back into the cab and said to the tourist in the front seat “did you have a big lunch” “No actually I haven’t eaten yet” the aussie gent replied Sam smiled, “Great and that’s why your in the front seat cause I don’t want you making a mess on my dashboard”. We were off, the leaders of the convoy across the sands and up to our first dune. Sam turned around and asked “Everyone fine?” and before we could even answer we were off up the first dune, taking the top off it as we went over and spun sideways down the other side and off to the next of what seemed an infinite amount of sand. Up and over, around and sideways and every which way we went. Always leading the pack. We would stop every few minutes to let the other cars catch up and watched them crash over the dunes and you could see the white knuckles of all the other people in the cars. We slammed around the dunes for what seemed like hours with classical music streaming out of the stereo. I suggested a change of tune to something more suitable for the expedition. Some dance. This was really one of the best rides of my life. Being in the middle of a desert with dunes every direction traveling at what seemed breakneck speeds over and through the sand dunes. We stopped at a camel farm for a much needed rest and drink. We patted the camels and watch the sun sink lower in the sky. I was itching to get back in the car and hit some more slopes. We headed up the top of a mountain of sand and watched the sun set. We tried to find any sign of where we had come from and where Dubai was. You really have no idea and you could so easily get lost in the sand. Mel and I played some roll down the sand dune and get sand in your pants games. And then we were off down the mountain to a camp for dinner. We had the greatest feed you could imagine and lots of wine. Mel and I went for a moon light walk to play in the dunes. The sand was so cool and soft. We ran our fingers across the dunes and watched the patterns that flowed out of the sand as it ran down the slope. The stars were up and we watched yet another new star-scape twinkle above us. We headed back to the hotel and Sam told us how great Dubai was to live in and about how he teaches four by four driving professionally. We told him about New Zealand and the places we have been and he shook our hands as we got out at the hotel. During the trip he had made us feel so at home, except when on the dunes, that it was almost sad to see him go. We slept very well that night. On our last day of Dubai Mike picked us up again and took us over to the coast to see the ocean. We drove over rock mountains totally barren. In Dubai you leave the desert for rock mountains and then across the mountains your have another desert, the ocean. We watch some sardine fishermen pull in their loads. It is really quite interesting. You get a boat and a jeep and a really big net. You attach one end of the net to the jeep and the other to the boat. You drive the boat out until it is a dot on the horizon and then hang a right and travel a couple of kilometers up the coast. You then bring the boat back in and attach its end of the net to the jeep. You throw the jeep into reverse and tadaa. You have a mass of squirming sardines in a net. The net was packed and was alive. Fish heads poking out of every piece of the net trying to escape. We watched them load the fish onto the back of the jeeps as was it seemed half of the local neighborhood. Everyone came down to the beach to watch a haul and to grab some freebies. It was getting late in the afternoon and Mel and I had to be at the airport to head off to London. Mike drove us back and dropped us at the terminal. We said our goodbyes and went through to our plane. This was it. The end of our holidays as such. No more beaches, no more sun. We were ready to face the cold world of London in winter and from what we had heard from everyone it was not going to be nice. The plane was on time and we just managed to squeeze in some duty free shopping before we left. Next installment, LONDON!