Posts tagged "dubai"

Scenes from a Lifetime Ago

In 2007, I moved to the United Arab Emirates for my first full time job out of college. I was working at a publisher that specialized in trade magazines. I worked mainly on travel titles, as a deputy editor and also staff photographer. It was a pretty good life (tax-free, high salaries, lots of adventure).

It was not a long term place for me to be in because, well, I'm queer. My long term partner at the time lived in London: it was reasonably easy to go see her, and we also fancied meeting 'in the middle' (Istanbul was a fave).

It was an incredibly lonely time. While I met some lovely people, Dubai and I didn't quite get along. I had some wonderful memories of the people and places I got to see, and it was a launch pad for me to go to all of the other places in that region that I adore. I got to see places like Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, pretty much because they were there, and I could get there for a hundred bucks or less (Middle Eastern budget airlines were my best friends).

It was a weird time. When I got there, Dubai (and many global economies) were booming. A few months later, once we got into 2008, it became a ghost town in some parts. Some of those countries I visited regularly soon plunged into civil war and other turmoil. I hope that I can visit Syria and Yemen again one day in better times. It's awful what's happened to those societies and countries. Truly the most remarkable countries I've been to in so many ways.

I had a reasonably charmed life as a privileged Dubai expat with a powerful passport who got to travel anywhere on the weekends (which were Friday and Saturday!). It was just as easy to get to Europe as it was to get to South Asia, and also to the countries in the region, and I rode that wave for the whole time I was there. Outside of my day job as a staff photographer, I was also writing and taking photos for an assortment of travel magazines and newspapers in India, Singapore, Thailand and the Middle East. When the financial crisis came all of that work dried up, which is also partly why I stopped working in the field.

Still, I got to see so much and do so much, all at the age of 22.

I lived and worked in one of the newer parts of Dubai near Media City that were still under active construction. It was a weird time. There was no train then, and sometimes literally no roads to cycle on. In hindsight, I should have lived in the old city, which I much preferred for culture and food and people. That part of Dubai was, at that time, very alienating if you were not the right type of expat.

I tagged along on a camping trip to Oman one weekend with a bunch of architects. It was beautiful, but I don't know if I'll recommend peeing in the desert for women (it steams your butt).

I LOVE CAMELS. Always have, always will.

Dubai, like Singapore, is a cleaned city: cleaned by other people. Also built by other people. The reliance of these city states on foreign labor, especially from South Asia, and the propensity to severely mistreat them with poor labor practices and living conditions, is appalling. Being there opened my eyes to similar practices back home in Singapore and Malaysia. Later, I would work in migrant worker advocacy in those countries.

I am glad I did what I did at the time, but that's probably not a life choice I would make again. In my 30s, I am less accepting of living in environments where I cannot be openly gay, or be able to advocate politically in that space. However, that experience showed me a slice of the world that I deeply love, and also helped to imbue a certain amount of cultural understanding about some of the challenges in that region. When you know a place beyond the politics, and have met, dined with, and lived with the people, it's hard to see them as just passive figures in newspaper reports.

All photos taken on Canon 350D. Or 50D? One of those.

And All The Roads That Lead You There Were Winding

I came to the Middle East to do just one thing: see a part of the world that I felt I needed to learn more about. Its language was alien, but familiar – many Malay and Hindi words have roots in Arabic. Its customs and food strange, but not dissimilar – much of the Indian subcontinent that I love and call home was influenced, for the better and the worse, by centuries of Mughal rule. Dubai and Singapore had many things in common, and then not at all.

My months through the region are coming to an end. As I travelled through Dubai I fell hard for the United Arab Emirates, but not for its most famous, brashest city. I loved Abu Dhabi and I loved Al Ain. I loved the weekend drives into the desert, and camping trips to Oman. I discovered the lengths people will go to for bootleg alcohol, when liquor licenses and hotel drinking start to dry up (driving to Ajman to get bootleg supplies etc).

And as I embarked on my quest to see the real middle east, after giving up on Dubai – I was in for a treat. Yemen, bombs and all, shook me; it was like nothing I had seen before. Then my ambitious overland journey, beginning with Beirut. That’s now drawing to an end.

The last month or so that i’ve been properly on the road, I’ve navigated my way around Lebanon through Syria through Turkey, without once knowing how to drive a car. I’ve met ridiculously awesome people. I’ve had countless cups of tea with strangers. I’ve seen some sights.

And the sights I’ve seen, I’m amazed by the opportunity – and good luck I’ve had in seeing some of these wonders. From a castle built by one man, still alive, in Beiteddine, to the phenomenal Kraks des Chevaliers in Syria (the embodiment of all childhood castle jousting fantasies, says Theroux, and he’s right – again). The ancient cities of Damascus and Sana’a. The friends I’ve made all through Beirut, Damascus, Palmyra, Aleppo, Antalya, Cappadocia and Istanbul.

The long bus rides. I left Damascus last week and 36 hours later arrived in Antalya, but not before being stranded in Adana with too many Syrian pounds but no Turkish lira – and no money changer or warm clothes in the freezing cold of an eastern Turkish morning.

Done with my last bus ride (12 hours from Goreme to Istanbul), I now sleepwalk through Taksim Square at 7 in the morning, pleased to be back to one of my favourite cities in the world. One that makes me thankful for the beautiful people I call my friends, who last shared this city with me

But journeys never end, only their chapters do. It strikes me now that for all my complaints and grievances about the middle east, this region is truly special and needs to be seen to be understood. And I’m glad I had the chance to see it while I could.

If I could do it again, I would do a few weeks in Iran. But that will have to wait.

For now, long Turkish bus rides and what’s left of my Istanbul days – one filled with lots of ‘midye dolma’, wet hamburgers, fish sandwiches, Bosphorous views and raki when the sun goes down, I’m sure.

Then London. Then moving into my new pad in Kuala Lumpur. Then a new chapter in life, love, and adulthood. I think I have airtickets booked or planned for every month from now through January, though, so the adventure doesn’t end – it’ll be the last of the middle east and Europe for some time, but more awaits.

Time to finish breakfast, put on my heavy backpack, and walk the last 1km to my hostel. It shall be the last hostel in awhile – I’m not giving up backpacking, I’m just… Upgrading. Life, travel, trading in my hobo life for the chance of getting to own things beyond my baggage allowance for the first time in a while.

I’m happy.