But yeah, I’m with Lolita. I hear people raving about Dubai, and my head meets desk.

Yeah. Not so much. The place is a nightmare. I was there only briefly and hated every blazing hot minute of it. First and foremost, you’ll be lucky not be mowed down by one of a thousand crazy drivers clogging the roads. Secondly, don’t even try to surf the net. You can’t. Everything of any interest is blocked.

If you want to rent a house or get basic utilities or cable or internet, you have to have signed documents from your employer. When my friend, T, told me this I was stunned. So if you have a boss who likes to procrastinate, well, good luck getting electricity. Same thing for obtaining a liquor license. Your boss has to provide you with the documents. And you need a liquor license to purchase a beer to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.

The extravagance is sickening. Behind that glitzy flash exterior it’s a cesspool of sex trafficking (lots of Russians, Ukranians, and other Eastern Europeans.) Workers basically live like indentured servants or slaves. Employers hire poor folks from shitty areas to work on multi-year contracts. The second they land in Dubai, their employers confiscate their passports. They rarely pay them and house them in horrific tenements. The suicide rate among workers is astronomical. Seriously, when I was there, it was so bad that these workers would jump out in front of cars for diya. And the government corruption is outrageous too.

Every time I hear someone excitedly chatter about their upcoming honeymoon trip to “exotic Dubai” I just want to slam my forehead against my desk. That extravagance comes at such a terrible price.

Sure the law is draconian and there’s no way in hell i’d go near Dubai or any country that grotesquely repressed and oppressive…

But I do think they should be slapped upside the head with a wet fish for sheer stupidity (of I want blatant stupidity to be a crime punishable by slapping)

Oopsies!