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The Tranquilo Traveler

The Tranquilo Traveler is a celebration of voluntourism, slow travel, and other interesting ways to see the world. Travel writer and award- winning Moon Handbooks author Joshua Berman created The Tranquilo Travel as a resource for world trippers and international volunteers, a window to the author’s travels in Nicaragua, Belize, and beyond, and an update of his books and articles.

Archive for the (b) Dubai Category

Pass the Sheesha to the Left Hand Side

June 27th, 2005 | Username By Joshua | Comments 2 Comments »

dub_sheesh1.jpg

A creamy lump of hummus and olive oil, a silver pot of Moroccan mint tea, and a fat hookah packed with sweet apple tobacco–this was how we ended our first and only night in the city of Dubai. At a breezy table on the bank of Dubai Creek (actually a wide river that snakes through the city), we listened to tinny Arabian music, watched Oriental-shaped boats go by, and snuck pieces of pita to half a dozen emaciated cats.

And we sipped, snacked, and smoked the sheesh.
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Category: (b) Dubai

Too Much Hot

June 24th, 2005 | Username By Joshua | Comments 1 Comment »

A blast of thick, wet, heat met us as we de-planed; my glasses were instantly fogged, my mind too, 6:30 a.m. local time, not much sleep, and finally in a place that was utterly foreign. We found a hotel, near the Gold Souk; it was more than we wanted to pay, but the view ain’t bad:

dub_city1.jpg

We closed the red curtains on the view, slept awhile, then awoke to the midday calls of the surrounding mosques and went out to look for food; I asked the guy at the front desk where we should go, a mix of sign language and isolated English words. He shook his head; “You call, food come, plenty good. Not go out, too much hot. You stay.”
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Category: (b) Dubai

Saudi Arabia Sunrise

June 24th, 2005 | Username By Joshua | Comments No Comments »

Maybe it was an illusion, a trick of the airplane’s thick window, but the long, jet-black horizon looked slightly curved. Even through the tiny oval, it was massive, the land, and it pushed up against a fire-orange strip which turned to yellow and faded darkly upward into cobalt blue with stars in it, giving even more of an outer-space feeling, a curved-earth vastness as the plane dipped southward, the orange strip red now, on our left; I closed the window and tried to sleep just a little more.
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Category: (b) Dubai
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