What happens in Dubai, stays in Dubai
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- ninjasavant
Well, not really but I’ve had a few requests to compile my UAE stories into a thread so here we go. 3 posts to follow.
- ninjasavant0
First, general experience:
It was kinda intense actually. The streets are always packed and its insanely busy. There are plenty of places to drink but you don't want to get caught drunk in public. Basically when it comes to that part of society you don't have all the freedoms available in Europe or the states but if you comport yourself with a modest amount of decorum and live moderately compared to the excesses of what they would consider Western culture you will rarely find yourself on the wrong side of anything.
They are a Muslim country, but nothing like for instance Saudi Arabia. They are very open minded and tolerant but there are some vestiges of the muslim law apparent from day to day. For example there are speakers that call everyone to prayer 5 times a day out in public. Beaches are segregated male and female. Stuff like that but there's no morality police like they have in SA unless you go to a place like Sharjah which is more strict. Basically if you have respect for them they will have respect for you.
On that note, people were amazingly friendly there. Everywhere I went I was offered the best chair, the best food, I drank so much coffee. My art director's friend let me stay at his place rent free just because he was being hospitable. I find it hard to reconcile the images the news shows with the people I met there because I never met the people they show on the news.
Safety? Forget about it, I spent most of my time in Abu Dhabi while I was there so speaking for AD I felt safer there than any place in the US. Would walk home through downtown at 4 in the morning after work some nights and the only people I ever met were on their way to prayer. Never even a hint of a problem.
It isn't all sunshine and smiles though, there are a couple of issues I ran into:
Its hot like fuck in the summer and humid as anything. Seriously, 105 (50) degrees and 80% humidity was not pleasant but I guess you get used to it.
They are very into class and status over there. If you are doing work for a client they view you as beholden to them. Worst example I had was that we had a meeting with a client for a furniture catalog we were designing. They showed up 8 hours late. Seriously. That was the worst but clients would show up whenever they pleased and expect us to drop everything for them. Not cool.
Chicken shawerma in the middle of the day gave me food poisoning.
All in all it was a positive experience and I'd do it again if the situation were right.- Sound OK, not to sure about the client part turning up whenever they want, but as you say, it's part of there culture.roundabout
- ninjasavant0
Second, how I left.
I had moved twice, staying with a family and then my art director’s friend who had an extra room. I was scheduled to leave after 3 weeks but I extended my ticket out indefinitely because I had found the job. Right around 15 July the phone rings at the ADs friend’s house. I was the only one home so I pick it up, the conversation went like this:Me: Hello
Guy: Hello, we are looking for (says my name), may was speak with him?
Me: Um, he’s not here, can I give him a message?
Guy: Tell Mr. Lee he has to be out of the country by the 19th.
Me: I’ll let him know.I left on the 22nd. I never did find out how they tracked me down. Also interesting is that the guy I went there with disappeared after a month and happened to be on the same plane back to the US, that was kinda cool.
- what do you mean he disappeared? not like goodfellas disappeared right?Meeklo
- He said he was gonna go see about a job in Dubai and I never heard from him again until the airport.ninjasavant
- ninjasavant0
Lastly, the attempted murder in a brothel story. Editor’s note: I do not support the sex trade, I find it reprehensible and now that I’ve gotten out of my never say no to an experience phase I look back on this with a bit of embarrassment but it happened so here it is.
Bored one night on our way to Dubai my friend suggests we check out a brothel. Some Indian guy finds us wandering around the brothel section of the city, offers to take us somewhere and we follow after paying him 15 Dhr.
We follow the guy down successively darker alleys to a black door in the middle of a dark alleyway. Our guide knocks on the door and an eye level slit opens up. Some words are exchanged and the door opens to a pitch black room. Now I’m scared and am wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. Somewhere down this dark corridor is a light and as we get closer to it I realize the room we’ve been in is full, FULL, of those half desks you sat at in high school. They’re stacked as high as your head just to add a sense of surrealism.
We get to the light source and there’s an old man sitting in front of an elevator and 2 staircases that spiral up around the elevator. We take the elevator to the 3rd floor. On the ride up I start to pass out from a combination of nerves and more nerves but decide I don’t want to be unconscious in brothel in Dubai and force myself to remain conscious. Its also at this point that I hear my friend say “America” to the guide in an otherwise Arabic conversation. It was then I realized this probably wouldn’t go well.
So the door opens to the busy third floor. The staircase continues up and down and men of all ages are running its track. There are 6 rooms in this hallway and there’s a girl standing in front of each open door. Apparently we’ve come to the Russian floor, or at the very least, the Easter European floor. My friend looks at me and I vigorously shake my head. Nothing against Eastern Europe but these women aren’t exactly anything to get excited over. Also at this point I want to abort the mission but everything happens so quickly I was never really able to communicate anything but yes or no answers to questions. So we go up to the next floor.
The Indian floor, or at the very least, the central Asia floor. Same setup, different continent. According to my friend the girls saw that he was lebanese and turned us down. As far as I can tell we’ve dodged a bullet and we can go to Hard Rock Dubai or something. No such luck.
We go back down to Eastern Europe and my friend makes a selection and then he and the guide look at me. I just stare back at them and then my friend pushes me into a room, pays the guy 100 Dhs, and heads in to do his sinful business.
Now I’m in a room that has a dresser, a bed, and a 250 lb (roughly 125 kg) woman wearing a dirty, red velvet dress with matted salt and pepper hair, and tarnished gold-capped teeth that look like brass. She’s dancing with/on/at me and telling me how pretty I am and taking change out of my pocket. All I can do is giggle nervously.
After a few minutes of this she steps back and says “you me? you me?” I say “what?” And then she reaches down and removes her dress to reveal all her collagen glory. Since I’m now in a state of horror induced fear and shock she pushes me down onto the bed (fully clothed mind you) and sits on my thighs and tells me about how she’s pregnant and then starts slapping her thighs announcing repeatedly “we fuck now” to which I reply “No!” She becomes more insistent and repeats her intentions to which I again reply “No!” and this time push her off of me, stand up, collect myself, leave the change she took, and leave the room to go back to the hallway. Not sure what I was going to do once there but at least I was out of the room. All in all around 5 minutes. Meanwhile my friend is still off in what I can only assume is paradise.
I go and sit on the stairs and start chain smoking with the intention of developing and dying from emphysema right then and there since I didn’t know where I was, no one spoke English, and the only person I knew who spoke Arabic was god knows where. All I know is I’m gonna sit, smoke, and rock back and forth until something happens. Our guide was still in the hallway and still very friendly looking. He sits next to me and says “Good time?” I say “ good time.” He goes and talks to the girl for a few minutes. I smoke. He comes back, sits next to me, and repeats his question, and I repeat my answer. Now his face changes completely and he very seriously says “more money.” My reply is “no more money.” He steps up the urgency and repeats his request to which I reply “no more money, I have no more money.” Now he’s pissed.
He gets up and starts pacing back and forth in the hallway, keeping his eyes on me, and occasionally confirming that I had no more money. At this point I also realize that the commotion in the halls from just 5-10 minutes ago has all but died down completely and a group has gathered in one end of the hallway and our guide occasionally walks over to the group, says something in Arabic and finishes with the word “America” as everyone looks in my direction.
At this point I decide I’m going to die. That was it, I was going to be murdered in a brothel in Dubai, buried in the Desert, and my friend, if he escapes, will never speak of it to anyone since he would have to admit he was at a brothel. I’m fucked and I don’t want to be sitting on stairs for what I assume is about to happen. I stand up.
There was no life flashing before my eyes. I didn’t cry. I didn’t plead. I didn’t plan a futile escape attempt. My mind was white. Blank. I had probably achieved that level of meditation for the only time in my life no matter how hard I try to actually do it. I was just ready and the group approached me while I stood and continued smoking. The guide approaches me at the front of the group, gets a half smirk on his face, looks me in the eye, and half says half laughs “more money?”
I don’t know what made me think of this but my immediate response to the question that time was to point at the door my friend went into and say “he has more money!” So the group rushes the door, which is locked, and starts banging on it demanding he come out. I knew that “yell la!” meant “come on!” and thats what they kept yelling. About a minute goes by and my friend comes out, has a rushed conversation with the group and gives them another 15 Dhs. We are permitted to leave.
As we run to our car and drive to a gas station bathroom to clean the stink of what we just did off of us I make my friend vow he’ll never tell anyone about what just happened. About 2 months later I decide that this is the best story I have from the whole trip so I got over it. My friend tells the story completely differently (for example, he swears we were never in any danger) and time may have embellished some of the details but everything happened basically the way I described them. My advice is to avoid brothels in general.
And that’s the Dubai brothel story.
- so ninja... did you get a hard on while shitting for your life? i hate dubai!!!e-pill
- I only got a hard on in case I needed a weapon :Pninjasavant
- i have read everything.. that was an amazing story.. clap clap clapMeeklo
- fucking classic. i woulda pooped. i can imagine my borther doing something liek thisblackspade
- great writing style...CGN
- mistermik0
can you summarise in 3-5 words?
- olli1010
You are my hero. Would love to hear more about this as you wouldn't believe how many people I run into that are considering moving out there.
- The place is 70% immigrants with a ton of UK expats.ninjasavant
- ninjasavant0
5 word summary:
was ok but avoid brothels
- hahamistermik
- +1000airey
- That advice holds up most places,no?TheBlueOne
- ninja your awesome..sort ofCGN
- slappy0
Haha great story!
- neverblink0
loved the brothel story!
- DaveO0
Didn't sound like attempted murder though.
- fodcj0
Can't be arsed to read all that!
- toe_knee0
So in the end not much happened except your paranoid illusions
- autoflavour0
so in a nutshell, dont pack a spliff in your luggage..
- benfal990
great story. thanks!
*wow! i still can read more than 12 words and keep the focus! Iam a m a z i n g!
- Mojo0
Well told ninja :)
I'd hate to be in that situation man, eeech
- zaq0
you should start publishing books.
I've been through a similar situation in Burma. Looking back I smile, but I was terrified at that moment.
- 23kon0
great story and well written.
its rare for me to WANT to keep reading something but your story had me engrossed to find out the outcome.
thats funny your friend swears you were never in danger, i guess he maybe felt safer as he spoke the language and knew the crack and possibly more in tune with their customs and way of thinking.
yous are always going to have different points of view - the stories I have of dodgy exploits would probably be told differently by my friends.
- utopian10
Fox News would love to air your story, NOT.
I could see Bill O'Reilly slamming you for not being a patriot and he would encourage the U.S. Government to declare you as an enemy combatant and to be place on the list of know terrorists.
- GeoStar0
Great story mate, have had past experiences where friend felt no threat whatsoever (due to his/their comotose pleasures...lol) and myself sitting on the outside semi sober thinking "shit is going to happen here soon"
Yes it is when you are completly "off ya face" you feel higher than thou! Spare a thought for the sober man...LOLThinking of doing some work in AD so i will steer clear of the brothels...LOL...i am older and wiser now BTW ;o)
Geo
- inhaler970
no money... hahahahaha glad youre alive.
- SoulFly0
Hey- I didn't understand why they tracked you down and told you to leave the country? Was it because of expired Visa??
- I have no idea why or how they found me. Kinda freaked me out.ninjasavant