Georgia to Dhaka via the UAE & Qatar

Good news! you can get Viagra in Dubai!

We left Georgia in a cyclone of rushed preparation, cyber-shopping, grant applications, inverted sleep schedules, beer brewing, allergies, family time, and playing with dogs. Hopefully, someone will take on the task of training Zico, Mary Smith's border collie, to 'speak' when asked (more of a howl growl hoot combination, really). Alternating between working on Lauren's Rhodes Scholarship application and amassing a full Walmart pharmacy department within our luggage, we managed to push a batch of beer almost through primary fermentation and bottle conditioning in an unheard-of two weeks. It helped that I agitated the bottles on a daily basis during bottling to help the yeast out a bit, oxidizing the beer and reducing its shelf life in the process. Unfortunately, amidst the chaos there was barely time to drink any of it, which means that there's a 24-pack of fresh beer that won't last long sitting in Lauren's house in Augusta, GA. Imbibe! Probably the best summary of our hurried departure came in the last-minute injection of Japanese encephalitis vaccines we received, huddled between two cars in a church parking lot on the way to the airport. It looked like a whole-family drug deal, no doubt.

My first impressions of Dubai enforced my conception of the city as a confused, cultural mishmash revelling in arbitrary displays of wealth; the décor of the airport was flush with 20-foot fake palm trees, walls in the harem style, identical video advertisements every 5-10 feet or so. Thompson and Thomson (of Tintin) would be at home here in their stereotypical middle-eastern garb as airport staff wore traditional arabic/bedouin style of white thobe (ankle-long robe), kufiya (scarf for the head) held in place by an igal (headband), and a modern twist: crisp black dress shoes. Customs were a breeze, as was finding a taxi to take us to our hotel and checking in. The hotel gave a first taste of some of the standard toilet amenities in this part of the world: a switch to activate the water heater for hot water, and a showerhead near the toilet for paper-free, left-handed operation. Restaurants were all closed when we went out for dinner, so we decided to try the UAE's take on Chinese food, and ended up with a pretty interesting broccoli almond soup. Unfortunately, we weren't in Dubai long enough to experience much beyond our neighborhood and a quick trip to an old wooden tourist trap bazaar.

Some highlights of our outing include: sleek, clean subways air-conditioned to freezing and individually themed (see hanging jellyfish lights), baskets of colorful and diverse spices, oddly standard from stall to stall in the herbs market, and the abundance of gorgeous street cats. A little museum devoted to the modernization of Dubai showed pictures of the city (if it could be called that) in the late 50s, along with a film on its development. A collection of one to two-storied wooden and stucco structures to a metropolis home to some of the largest and tallest buildings in the world in less than 50 years... amazing. Please take a moment to consider that all the streets and cars were switched from left-side-of-the-road to right in the 60s.

After a snack on cheap, delicious, Pakistani food, we rushed to the airport. The stopover in Doha, only a few hours long, gave us opportunity to stock up on duty-free alcohol and chocolate, as well as counterfeit US dollar bills. The airport coffee chain used these to make change, and when we asked for a different 5-dollar bill they ended up just giving us a better fake. There were also a number of fraudulent wireless networks, all with claims to be “oficial”, that tried some port exploits if you connected to them. Doha to Dhaka was a different sort of flight. Managed by Qatar airlines, it had all the finest amenities for Economy class, including free booze. However, most of the Bangladeshi men spent much of the time standing in or around the aisles, ignoring requests from the flight attendants. The bathrooms were littered with toilet paper all over, with the only possible explanation being that no one was aware the toilet was flushable, with all written language on-flight being English or Arabic. Looking out the window over Dhaka, we noticed thousands of lights flickering throughout the city, almost like Christmas decorations: rolling power blackouts, a preview of things to come!

Pre-condimented individually wrapped hotdogs for your snacking convenience!