Five signs you need a Dubai detox
August 26, 2015
I don’t know about you, but every two months or so I have what I call ‘a Dubai wobble’. Much like when I need my hair cut and decide one morning that I must have my fringe chopped IMMEDIATELY, the Dubai wobble sneaks up on you, then suddenly you realise you gotta get out of this place before you have a Michael Douglas-style ‘Falling Down’ moment.
Even if it’s a last-minute mini-break to RAK, a change of scene can improve your mood immeasurably, and stop you making any rash decisions e.g. quitting your job, selling your car and calling your mum to tell her to make up the spare room because you’re moving home. Tonight.
Here are five ways to spot the impending Dubai-induced meltdown so you can get on booking.com before writing that resignation letter.
1. Road rage. Let’s face it, the drivers here are consistently appalling, but when it’s all getting a bit much every tail-gating, non-indicating moron who doesn’t know how to use a roundabout is a personal affront. You may find yourself doing some, umm, meaningful gestures under the dashboard or screaming at volume from the safety of your car.
2. Technology is against you. The internet is on the blink, your phone is a piece of tat that runs out of battery by 10am, there’s nothing on television apart from ‘Say Yes To The Dress’ and you’ve seen the one with the basketball-playing bride who needs an extra-long dress three times this week. Enough, Dubai, enough!
3. Everyone else is away. Oh, look at those lovely photos of Santorini/the non-chav side of Ibiza/vineyards/another damn water villa in the Maldives. How fantastic. It’s still 45 degrees here in Dubai, you’ve already been on your ‘holiday’ back home and have nothing to look forward to until Christmas. When you’re going home again.
4. Money. DEWA is costing you the same as a small nation’s GDP, school fees are going up, rent is laughable, and a supermarket shop is the same as your car payment. When a Dubai wobble is on the way, you seemingly haemorrhage money with no sign of that cash influx Susan Miller from Astrology Zone promised you at the beginning of the month.
5. Weather. Is it just me, or has this been The Longest, Hottest Summer In The History Of Summers? First we had Ramadan, then another two months of temperatures hotter than the sun. And everyone tells each other to cling to the fact the weather ‘will be just amaaaaaazing soon’, while hopefully claiming that ‘it felt a bit fresher this morning’. It didn’t. And if one more person posts a photo of their car thermometer or over-heated iPhone…
Do yourself (and your family) a favour and head to a hotel if you nodded along to the above. I hear Fujairah is lovely at this time of year.
Yep, agree and after only being back for two weeks I need another one
Great read! I do love it here but, even after 15yrs, I’ve never got used to the summers. It makes me get very twitchy, very fast and getting away for a bit really rekindles my love of the city.
I went back the UK end of May and I am already getting itchy feet. Not being able to get outside and see some green is taking its toll!