Dubai - the pitstop before Glasgow

I was warned that the flight from China to Dubai was going to be awful.

My sister had prepared me for the impatient customers and chaos due to language barriers. What I wasn’t prepared for was the constant smell of fart and B. O. in the cabin. Nor was I prepared for the passenger beside me who thought it was perfectly ok to spit on the floor beside his feet. Yup, he spat on the floor, right beside me, and thought nothing of it. Thankfully it was a night flight, so I downed a miniature bottle of red wine and stuffed myself with the on-board meal. Armed with my eye mask and neck pillow, I pulled up my blanket, faced the wall and blocked myself away from the chaos of the cabin. Eight hours later, we had thankfully arrived in Dubai; Not of course forgetting the pushing and shoving of passengers trying to get off the airbus, even before the Seat Belt signs had been turned off.

Dubai:

I was so happy to be back in Dubai with Aoife and my sister. I missed Kirsty a lot and I was so ready to go home. Having been to Dubai three times already, I decided to keep this trip short. Aoife’s pal also worked for Emirates so I was free to leave early while she stayed for the week. I hopped on the familiar Dubai metro in the direction of the Burj Khalifa. I had ridden the metro before.

The airport was the first couple of stops. We had landed early in the morning so the carriages smelled of the sweet lemongrass scent that is omnipresent throughout the city. This soon turned to a smell of sweat as the carriages started to fill. With my massive backpack and rolling hand luggage, I looked an eyesore in chic Dubai. It’s not exactly a top backpacker destination. But I didn’t care, I was homeward bound! Kirsty had finished a flight around midnight and had kindly offered to pick me up from the metro stop at around 7am. She was a Godsend as walking in the dessert heat with all my bags would have been a killer, even if her apartment was only 10 minutes away.

We got in the flat and I was so thankful to finally be in somewhere homely after all those weeks of living out a bag in hostels. We stayed up chatting for an hour or so before crashing out in her (cough) king-size bed with a fluffy duvet and multiple pillows. It was a dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. At around 1pm, Aoife had messaged. Her friend had to work a turn-around so I told her to book a taxi to the apartment block to have lunch with us. We ordered from a Persian place near the flat. We got chicken kabab, rice, hummus, nan bread and salad. It was amazing, but far too much! (I saved it for later).

Kirsty’s boyfriend, Jamal, came round and we all set off to do the one activity that I had been dying to do in Dubai all year – Horse-riding in the desert. Thankfully Kirsty had a car and could drive us to the stable that was in the middle of nowhere. We got suited and booted, and helmeted (? ) then waited for the rest of our group to arrive.

I was shitting myself. As a kid, my siblings and I had been pony trekking, with a trainer holding the reigns. I had never ridden a horse alone. I had to use a little ladder to get on the horse and I was too scared to hook my leg up over it. What if it ran off or kicked me? Once on-board the horse, or rather straddling the horse, I calmed down a little. It took a while to get everybody going and Aoife’s horse wouldn’t stop eating the grass. It was hard to control them, especially around the Stallions who just wanted to fight everyone, mad bam.

We set off towards the desert in the sunset. It was the perfect setting despite the ache in my inner thighs and the hair sticking to my clammy face. We trekked in the sand, getting to know our horses and its movements. Soon the trainers were getting us to “trot”. It looks easy in the movies, but f**k me it is hard. After gently kicking the horses’ sides, it begins to hurry up a bit. A trot really isn’t that fast but when you can’t master the motion, you end up bouncing up and down on the horse looking like a right tosser with the never-ending fear of falling off or getting lost with the horse as it sprits off into the horizon. The two-count up/down rhythm is bloody difficult to say the least. You have to squeeze your knees and thighs in order to push yourself up off the horse in a kind of hovered position so that it’s just your feet in the stirrups. Impossible, I know!

After repeatedly failing to trot, I gave up and decided a nice trek will do for the rest of the journey. We stopped to take group photos before heading back to the stables. I attempted the trot again but after nearly losing all control of the reigns and my feet falling out of the stirrups, I called it quits. I was helped off the horse with I was extremely thankful for as one of the ‘regular’ riders (a slim girl in tight clothes and pristine hair and make-up) fell off her horse in the most unladylike way. HA!

My legs and abs and arms and fingers were all aching. Who know horse-riding was such a physical sport? It was worth the pain. I was so glad we did it. We rewarded ourselves with a trip the the grand Dubai Mall with a table at the Cheesecake Factory. I ordered a virgin cocktail (no alcohol in Dubai) and a Nutella cheesecake. It was incredible and not a hint of guilt was felt, even if Kirsty and Jamal had ordered salads.

I couldn’t finish it, so I got it to take-away and enjoyed the rest of my cheesecake for breakfast the next morning. I slept like a baby due to the exhaustion and food intake. Kirsty had booked me on the flight the next day as she was working and I had seen most of Dubai anyway. I wanted to give Aoife time with her friend and I was so eager to get home that I was happy with my 24-hour pit-stop in Dubai. I was packed and ready to go, so called a taxi to the airport early. The loads on the flight were great as the plane was practically empty. I did run into a bit of an issue at staff check-in when they told me that my skirt was too short and that I had to change. I was pretty humiliated but nothing could ruin my mood before going home. After a quick costume change, I was through security and customs, on my way to end my Asian adventure. It had been a wild 9 months, of great ups and downs. But I had learned a lot and could not be happier about seeing Iacopo, my family and friends again.

Little did I know that it wouldn’t be long until I was out the country again on some other far off adventure.

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