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01/06/2004: "Kandahar Chronicles #51 - 20/12/2003"

Note: This Entry Appears out of order due to a technical screw up
My conciousness returned with a thump as the wheels touched down at Dubai International Airport. I'd only just managed to make the three a.m. flight out of Islamabad after nodding off in the departure lounge and missing the boarding call. The early hour of this flight is reflected in the cheap cost of the ticket and the hordes of Indian and Pakistani workers who make their living doing the menial jobs that citizens of the Emirates prefer to avoid. I took advantage of this bargain ticket to make my way to a beach and find a way to avoid the freezing nights of Herat where I had the option of spending Santa's holy day of consumerism with fellow MSF people people in from the projects for a couple of days. Fun as it would have been, I couldn't resist the opportunity to see a Gulf country built on the back of the mighty petrodollar and see a different side of Islamic culture away from the fundamentalist interpretations in Kandahar.

Dubai is to Kandahar as Las Vegas is to Hamish County. Glittering seven star hotels shaped like gigantic dhow sails and cresting waves stand out like monuments to people with too much money to spend. A certain inferiority complex seems to manifest itself in the descriptions of these architectual wonders however, "...more personal servants than the Ritz. Larger bathtubs than the Savoy..." that kind of thing. The need to compare and exceed has rocketed this sleepy port to an Middle Eastern Disneyland. Maybe I was just tired but the need to flee was overpowering. I headed to an MSF recommended hotel, the Panorama, and settled into my room for a quick nap before heading out to give the city a once over.

After a shave and a shower I took to the streets to see this modern metropolis and was not disappointed. As slick and tidy as the buildings were it was the freindly attitude of the citizens that for some reason came as a surprise. I think that because of the wealth of the place I thought that people would be distant or rude but they were anything but. After a walk around with a couple of interesting university students I met by the Creek, which divides the city into two clean sections, I decided a pint and an early night were in order before I took the early morning bus to Korfakkan on the east coast for a spot of diving. I headed into the ground floor pub of the Panorama and was immediately transformed back to a famous Nairobi bar known as Buffalo Bills. Drunken European expat workers crowded and pawed a united nations of hookers. Women from India, Pakistan, Russia, The Phillipines and a dozen other countries worked the room to the sounds of house music ! and the bawdy roar of the drunken mass. It was fun to watch for the first pint but soon the attentions of the working girls meant I had to either join the festivities or fade away. I felt like Dorothy in Dante's interpretation of Oz.

Bugger this, Kandahar might have it's metaphoric tornadoes that sweep people to places like this but at least it comes without the shitty western trimmings found in these kinds of bars. In said goodnight to a sad looking Russian girl that was heading my way and made for my room.

"There's no place like the beach, there's no place like the beach."