Many of my friends and colleagues are out of town right now, mostly abroad on summer holiday. Because of the school break, it’s a convenient and sensible time to go on a family trip, or return home to see relatives. But a lot of others with no such restraints – childless couples and singletons – are also taking time off, and I don’t quite understand why.
“Because of the heat,” one of them told me.
“Really?” I replied. “You live in an air-conditioned villa, you travel by air-conditioned car, you work in an air-conditioned office. Your whole life is spent in a controlled climate; you wouldn’t have a clue what the temperature is outside.”
Nevertheless, many people from this part of the world are now ensconced in their holiday homes, relaxing on a pristine island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean or strategically driving their supercars in London’s more fashionable streets for the appreciation, or otherwise, of the locals.
I don’t have any official figures about the number of absentees but my guess is that it’s a lot. Every day for the past few weeks I have been able to step out of my apartment block, cross the car park and get straight into a taxi. The roads are less busy, with a minimum of tailgating, sudden speeding and erratic swerving on the part of my cabbie or other drivers, so I arrive at the office in a more relaxed frame of mind.
The general mood among my colleagues also seems to be calmer.
I suppose I should be grateful for the relative peace and quiet, but it still confounds me as to why people who don’t have to do so choose to leave the UAE at this time of year. So, I asked around.
“Because the UAE is boring now,” somebody suggested.
“Really?” I replied. “What exactly is it that you can’t do now that you can do at other times of the year?”
For example, my friend who likes to run can run just as easily at home on his treadmill – and watch television while he does so. My friends who go boating still set sail – although they go a little later in the day and they take the big beach umbrella and plenty of sunscreen with them. The payoff is that they don’t have to fight for a spot on the sand of whatever tiny island they decide to inhabit for the afternoon.
My friends who seem to spend their entire weekends shopping or at brunch – and yes, I do fall into one of those categories, I’ll let you guess which one – still do that.
And, of course, there are the summer movies. This is the best time of year to go to the cinema, with the biggest blockbusters released one after the other. Suicide Squad not your cup of cinematic bliss? Well, there's always Ice Age – Collision Course, Ghostbusters, Tarzan, Bad Moms, Finding Dory, Jungle Book, Star Trek Beyond or Dishoom (for the latter two there is the special added attraction of playing "spot the UAE location").
Let’s face it, this is the UAE, so there’s a place to do just about anything you want to do whenever you want to do it. Any desert nation that has a year-round snow-skiing slope and an indoor roller coaster doesn’t let the weather get in the way of having a good time.
So, those who insist on going to Europe or America during the high tourist season, I say: good luck negotiating your way through the crowded attractions and the choked public transport systems, and paying those inflated summer prices. Give the exasperated hotel staff, waiters and shop attendants my regards and tell them I’ll be over when things have quietened down and normal pricing structures have been resumed.
In the meantime, if I want to enjoy a summer holiday, I’ll quietly hum that old Cliff Richard number. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m now going to crank up the AC and take a nap – which is one of the many things I can do here on a summer’s day without breaking the bank or bursting a blood vessel.
bdebritz@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @debritz
