2. Drama in Dubai

Wow, what a city. It's a great example of what can be achieved when you dare to dream big. Huge, sweeping curves and lines. Architectural bravery on a grand scale, massive strokes on a canvas thousands of metres tall. Look at the beauty of these two towers.

This pic also shows, in the foreground, the metro transport system that is being built - our taxi driver said nonchalantly that it will be in operation by the end of the year. As hard as it is to believe, it will. It's another example of the "can do" attitude. Multiple teams of workers, all over the city work 24 hours of the day. They only started it just over a year ago.

Let's talk about the drama quickly and get it over with.

On our final morning, we decided to take a taxi into Deira City Mall, and do some last minute shopping before being taken to our ship at 2:30.

Those of you who know me well, or have had the misfortune of travelling with me are well aware of my absent mindedness with what seems to others to be important things like tickets, passports and so on, and the resulting chaos which inevitably arises when I get into a panic after these objects wander off. I am probably understating it when I say, this happens quite a lot.

Well we arrived at the mall at 10:30 and went into Carrefour - Rose and Jen one way, me and Rory to the electronics department - which is to me as good as a Buddhist retreat for relaxation.

I picked up what I wanted - a memory card for the camera, and went to pay - guess what - no wallet. Of course, the wallet contained all of our cash dollars, all of our credit cards, our "travel wallet" card loaded with all of our travel allowance, and all of our local currency. Without it, we

were penniless.

I don't know what we would have done if Rory and Jen were not with us,but Rory lent me 20

dhuram (R40) and Rose and I shot off back to the hotel, to try to track the previous taxi down. All's well that ends well, with the help of the video footage of the taxi collecting us, the driver was contacted, and returned the wallet, intact and complete (just as I expected, don't know what all the fuss was about).

One weird coincidence though (another common thread in my life) - the wallet had been found and handed in by a South African Peter Linde from Liberty Insurance! Thanks Peter - this is not the first time a Capetonian has handed in my wallet - on the last occasion it was found in the car park at Cape Town airport.