Dubai has lost the Arabian Sea

With the frenetic building spree and headlong rush into converting the desert and the sea into shopping malls and hotels, Dubai is in danger of losing its best assets.

My ticket with Emirates Airlines routes me back to the UK from Thailand via Dubai, a stopover I once loved. But coming through Dubai ilast December, | was aghast at what the developers had wrought in what was once one of my favourite cities.

The beautiful,acquamarine Arabian Sea, in which I'd swum and snorkelled, on whose sands I'd relaxed soaking up the sun, has changed beyond recognition. It has been ruined by the insertion of too many man-made islands. The Palm, the first off-shore development, was truly visionary at the time of its inception and I cheered the vision of the designers and architects that allowed this to be built. Then came The World, and I wondered, and waited. Then they announced other islands in the sea. In December I saw for myself the damage they had wrought upon the Gulf of Arabia.

Less than half a century ago, Dubai was still a pearl-fishing village, its crystalline seas producing some of the finest pearls in the world. Today it may produce a lot more money in the form of hotels, condominiums, and living quarters for the world's rich, but Dubai, and the world, has lost something precious in its making.

Not only has the sea been changed beyond recognition, the whole coast road and beyond is now one vast building site - crane city the locals call it. Even the locals no longer seem to have time to sit and drink strong black coffee as once they did - even if recently, the coffee came courtesy of Starbucks! The rush to the mass-consumer society is well under way, and nothing is going to stand in its way. Pretty soon, I feel, they will fill in Dubai Creek to make another highway. After all, it serves no purpose other than to carry workers up and down the waterway in the beautiful traditional abras and to give pleasure to people who like to just sit and look at this unchanging scene.

I have two days in Dubai, but the contrast between my tranquil haven here in Thailand with its smiling people, and the mess and traffic jams of Dubai is not something I look forward to. So, I've opted to stay at the Hotel Dusit Dubai (Dusit means heaven in Thai language), a Thai hotel offering traditional Thai hospitality in a calm and soothing atmosphere where I shall hole up for my spell in the city and be soothed by Thai staff until it's time to quit Dubai.

I shall visit Dubai another time. Maybe when the cranes have all gone and it resembles any other high-rise city in the world I shall not mind so much the loss of the lovely Arabian sea. And I can always show my photographs to my grandchildredn and tell them of the wonders that were lost.