Eat at Leo's

At 6 pm on the 19th of December there was a dish of fragrant curry before me and I was at the crossroads.

It looked good. At least six different vegetables I could see, as shiny and brightly colored as a bag of mixed buttons. They slouched inside a crisp raw cabbage leaf, which in turn sat in a metal pot that reminded me of my mum's original 1970s fondue set.

It smelt good. A tiny candle flickered beneath, lifting aromas off the curry and into my face - coconut, mustard seeds, curry leaves, cumin, white pepper and some other spices, maybe cardamom, fenugreek and coriander. The chef refused to tell me what was in it, resting smugly in the kitchen like Colonel Sanders and protecting his 11 secret herbs and spices.

"Leo's Vegetable Kadai" was all the menu read - the rest was a mystery. But that's not what was holding me back. I didn't really need to confirm what was in it, but what had been left out - namely those tiny bacteria that can completely mess up your holiday. It was day three in India, six days until Christmas, and my first meal out of the hotel.


My friends (let's call them Lucrecia and Julerie) were already indulging, but I'm a bit delicate in the guts and was still talking myself into it. I made myself start with an onion kulcha - flakey stuffed bread that has been cooked at a million degrees, and has big bubbles all over it just like my favorite kind of pizza base. It has to be safe - not much could survive the tan door. It was soft and crunchy, buttery and salty, and the onions inside were dark brown and sweet - toasted to the point of disintegration. Finally I couldn't handle it any more. The smells were too much, and that little bite of bread opened the floodgates. My appetite was freed and knew no bounds. The Vegetable Kadai tasted even better than it looked - rich creamy and served with steaming coconut rice. I couldn't get enough of it. We ordered more - a potato and tomato dish and an okra marsala. Soon we were sitting back like three fat Buddhas, unable to do anything but utter sighs and watch the passing traffic and glorious sundown.
* * *

In sunlight the Kovalam Lighthouse Beach strip is full of cloned, brightly painted, terrace style concrete establishments, all with white plastic garden furniture draped in striped towels that look like they have been pilfered by the Kempinski Poolboy. All the restaurants have titles that include the word "palace" or "garden" despite the obvious lack of either, or share the particularly un-Indian name of the proprietor - e.g. "Leo's". 

How does one choose the "safe" restaurant in this row of identical siblings? By accident of course! We selected this place out of the many  because at that very hot and sticky moment in the middle of the day it happened to be right next to us when I demanded beer.
 
The proprietor had swaggered up with a grin.
"Are you Leo?" I had asked
"Yes, yes, that's me!" he replied, "But you can call me Bob"...Of course...."you are eating lunch today?" Lucrecia had eyed me and we uttered simultaneously,
"no, just beer. Maybe tomorrow," we had by now realised that the easiest way to defend against the sales pitch is to defer the exchange.
"You must come back, this will be your finest establishment in Kovalam for eating dinner!" I love the way many Indians use English in the future tense, it makes me feel like they are all growing into something. "Ooh, yes, I have everything good for the ladies. I will give you the finest quality of the Lobster, the crabs, the mans..." Did he really say that?
"...The mans?" I asked. He raised his eyebrows several times and waggled his head a little but said nothing.
"Oh, no, no, no!" gasped Lucrecia, "We came here to get away from the mans!" Julerie and I sniggered into our beer - we had realized on our road trip with Delboy it is assumed that women over a certain age traveling without men in this area are after a little spicy Kerelan lovin'.
"Ah well...." he was a little downcast,  "You will have my finest Indian wine." mmm, sounded tempting
As soon as he left the table, the street traders had found their approach unhindered, and we were offered a procession of goods - tablecloths, sarongs, perfume, cigarettes, fruit, oil and baby soap stone elephants with babier baby elephants carved inside the bellies. We realized that it was not necessary to walk the shopping strip - it would come to us. I was quite happy with my 250 rupee silk sarong until I bought an identical one later for 100. Julerie attracted a highly theatrical tablecloth trader who carried his wares folded on his head, and with the slightest encouragement unfolded each and every one with dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. 
One caught Lucrecia's eye, and he offered it to her at the "very good price" of 4000 rupees. She screamed a death rattle and clutched at her throat, and we got to see a true bargainer in action. She finished up with three for 3000. The death gargle became code in our little group for almost anything, and I am sure that it will appear again at dinner parties for as long as we all know each other. But for this week it just made everyone in Kovolam think that we needed to huck up a very big lurgy.

Soon after we had looked over our frosty Kingfishers in coffee cups, and the fishermen hauled in their mammoth nets and crowds gathered to watch and help, mainly watch. Westerners paid for sun loungers and beach umbrellas and shared the shade with flea-bitten dogs that kept on sneaking under the loungers despite "shoo"s, faux hits and newspaper missiles. There's a little more swell on this beach than our one over at the kempinski, and in the shade of the point kids jumped off rocks to join compatriots on surfboards in the glittering backwater and wait for a wave.

We met an Australian girl who had been staying in the strip and had eaten at Leo's several times. She was not turning gray in front of us or conducting her half of the conversation from the toilet seat, so we figured Leo's might be an OK bet. The decision was made.

* * *
Nighttime is even more peaceful, and as the bottle of terrible Indian wine at the table leg was replaced with another, we welcomed the darkness. With it came a different set of street sellers - men with black plastic bags stuffed with dinky LED light toys that can be shot into the air with an elastic band and pirouette down like Christmas fairies. 
Adolescents interchanged masks of Arjun and Santa and give 5 rupee pantomimes in front of each restaurant. They got most of the words to "We wish you a Merry Christmas" wrong, but the lead kid had stuffed his belted red t-shirt with a pillow, so he got a tip for effort. The cigarette man went upmarket and brought cigars of many varieties - coffee, grape, chocolate, and two ordinary cubans which we snatched up for Julerie's hubby, and a packet of Double Happiness cigarettes as a Secret Santa gag present. 

Westerners gone native and in some cases utterly ferel, roamed the beachfront, either in stoned bliss or weirdo-step. One man, at least sixty, in just orange yogi pants and a set of monstrous headphones came past singing something at the top of his voice that could have been The Who, but he only seemed to get every third word and then go off on a tangent. Be-dreadlocked Aussies walked behind eight year old boys who carried their surfboards back to the cheap shacks off the main drag for a couple of rupees.

Lights twinkled out at sea, but there's no town between Kovolam and the coast of Somalia - just fishing boats by the hundreds, full of "the lobster, the crabs and the mans" I would imagine. The lighthouse would occasionally sweep the sea clean with it's blinding light, only to reveal even more upon it's passing.

People walked the strip in its bold flourescentness or retreated to the sand for a more gentle interlude, only to be quickly herded back to the boardwalk by the marauding canines that had taken ownership. It was solely the Stoners that were brave enough to stay on the beach - making sand angels, cuddling the dogs and smoking joints in relative private.

After our beers we bid Leo-Bob goodbye, promising to call in on his nephew who is "big bar captain" at a Palm Jumeirah hotel in Dubai. We hired a rickshaw for 50 rupees and a promise to the driver that Lucrecia would not sing. It struggled under the weight of three western housewives with belly-fulls of curry, sounding like a Hoover with a giant furball stuck in the pipe.

We re-entered five star paradise and decided our bravery should be rewarded with a digestif and a couple of rounds of 500. When we got the bill and it was three times the cost of our entire dinner and drinks at Leos, Lucrecia spluttered another death gargle and tried to bargain the bar captain down. He was not amused.

I have another blog where I put my most special photography - please pop over and visit (here - the sandpit diaries) - there is more on my experience at an indian wedding.

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Stop and proceed - a story of roads in India


I just passed a roadsign that reads "Stop and proceed", and I wondered for a moment if it was one of those times where the literal translation has lost it's true meaning and instead left the reader with words that signify something else entirely. But as I have now been in India for a few days I appreciate the simplicity of it. Anywhere else the sign would read "give way" or "proceed with caution", but in this land of the lost it is an advertisement for Indian life. Not only because it succinctly describes the conflicting and chaotic nature of the daily grind, but because all road signs are systematically ignored.

Today I travel with Delboy. He has been standing outside my hotel gate for days, flashing his sparkling white choppers at me whilst bathing me in cloying politeness. I finally gave in and allowed him to take me and my friend to see his friend at the Elephant Sanctuary. It turns out the polite and pristine front is a cover for a cheeky degenerate, but more of that later.

My initial introduction to Indian roads was mild - an arrival at 4am and a hotel taxi meant I saw little but rows of paper stars lit from within by Christmas lights, silhouettes of coconut palms and midnight wraiths roaming the roadsides. My first foray into India is also what my friends and I have termed "India Lite" - because we are in Kerala on the beach at Kovalam, where population and poverty are present but manageable. Perhaps it should be called "ultra-lite" because we are staying at the five star Leela Kempinski, have been wrapped in a dysentry-proof balloon, and instead of cockroaches and crowds we have yoga and tranquility.

In the daylight however, when the rest of the country is awake and bustling around in all it's crazy glory, I get to see the true India, and it is so completely different from not only my sheltered little western world, but also my Arabian expat experience, that I now wonder at my own raison d'être. Do I really live life? And considering there are more than 1 billion people here in India, do I know at all what life is all about?

Firstly I am struck by the squalor. Everything is still coated in monsoon's muck, even though it has been over for more than six weeks. But it is not just the latest monsoon's remnants - the decay, mould and moss reveals the abandonment of all attempts at restoration for more than a few years. Trash litters the ditches beside the roads, not just in wispy cachets of waste paper, but knee-deep troughs of plastic, rubber, coconut husks and rotting food. And here the conflicts start; Although their homes and businesses are filthy, men sit or stand idly. Nobody sweeps up the garbage, rakes over the pothole, cleans the scummy wall, puts the rubbish at the front door in a bucket - it is deemed more important to observe the passing world, and really, who am I to judge? Last night I took a thirty second exposure on the main street of Kovalam at 9pm. I can count 14 men in the frame that are not blurred - this means they did not even twitch, shuffle or scratch their balls for at least 30 seconds. I couldn't even do that in my sleep.

Apart from the men, I see women in sarees or every colour I can imagine (except beige), adorned with sequins, metallic embroidery, spangles, and yellow gold in excess. They have jasmine and marigolds in their thick thigh-length braids, and they step delicately over refuse and broken pavements and around the male statues to clutch hands and giggle with their equally stunning female friends.

Under the brown and green damp stains the houses mirror the colours of the women. It's almost as if the chief designers of india are three-year-old girls. I can imagine them saying "I want the world to be pink with lots of sparkles! Everyone should wear long dresses and floaty scarves and all the ladies should have very long hair and men should have mustaches because then they look like men.... Oooh, and I want cows and goats and chickens everywhere because animals are really cool!"

Political slogans embellish the brick fences in the form of brightly colored hands, lotus blooms and the communist sickle with hammer. It's nearly Christmas, and although the greater proportion of the population in the area is Hindu, they have embraced it like Martha Stewart gone troppo - filling all remaining gaps with paper stars, baubles, tinsel and fairy lights. All these colours fight the war against the murk, and although they don't obliterate it, they do strike a balance of sorts.

Washing hangs before every home like an inverted rainbow, somehow managing to remain clean in the face of great adversity. Goats stretch at their tethers trying to eat it. Holy cows are given homes at the end of ropes in garbage trenches, and if they treat sacred beings so, I wonder where they put the mother in law.

Delboy guns his Nissan Sunny past rickshaws, bikes and ancient windowless buses with apparent ease. The hard work is being done by me and my companion; we are expending all our energy just gripping the handles to remain upright and keeping our curses in. The road appears to be two lane - one going this way, one the other. It is in fact four, and sometimes even six. Driving is a race and occurs in fits and starts. If the accelerator is white and the brake black, there is no grey. I'm being shaken up like a surprise Christmas present, and although rattled I realise the driving style in India explains to some degree the erratic driving of Dubai taxi fleet. A beep of the horn means anything from "I'm behind you", "get out of my way" or "the light turned green a nanosecond ago" to "thankyou", "moron!" or "check out the white-knuckled tourists in my car, I'm just about to totally freak them out", all depending on the accompanying hand or facial gesture. I'm deafened, blinded, petrified and embarrassed all at once, but enjoying every moment.

We fly past shops that are little more than four sticks, a palm leaf roof and a box. Oranges and apples are arranged in wonky pyramids on the dirt and bananas  still attached to the stem hang from the roof. The seem to love hanging things; crisp packets and fanta bottles also dangle everywhere like pint-sized plastic corpses. Coconuts are strung up in bunches attached to roadside trees, and traders hack them off on request just like they have already done hours previously, but this time at lower altitude. Fish lie in the sun on palm leaf mats, and defying reason actually look fresh. Mussels are heaped in rapidly eroding mountains, being snapped up in byo buckets and stinking up a storm.

It's now nearing 5pm and every 10 meters is a bonfire, either in a drum or flat on the dirt. Sandalwood burns in every second one, and together with the piles of Ayurvedic herbs and frying coconut oil they do battle against stenches more malodorous. In a toll-both three men ignore all cars and together inspect the markings on the tapemeasure they have stretched to the roof. "Does that say 55 centimetres or is it time for dinner? My god that was hard work, I think it might be time to look out the window again...."

There is a queue ahead, and I can't see past the ruddy buses - they have managed to get themselves three-across the road, allowing the passengers to enjoy the show below - two western ladies being chauffeured by a complete lunatic. Amazingly the buses are not the cause of the blockage - this is  -->

Somehow can't imagine the Victoria Police allowing that past a front gate back home. There is a Policeman standing in the middle of the road directing traffic, but everybody is unceremoniously ignoring him.

Delboy presses the contract button on the dashboard and we finally manage to get through without a scratch. Most of the traffic here drives on two or three wheels and so all his reckless overtaking has been nulified as the feed-truck clog only allowed passing by rickshaws and mopeds, and he has to restart.

It seems the fewer wheels on a vehicle, the more weight it is able to carry. I have seen families of four, 6-foot stacks of crates, two youths and an old-school television, and even a cloud of what appeared to be 16 layers of multi-coloured watering cans, all on a moped. Again, the women astound me - they all ride side-saddle, except the grannies going solo in punjabis on scooters - they wear pants and a hell-bent attitude and show all the young ones how it's done. Nobody wears a helmet. Trucks are dressed like the women, painted in tropical hues with swirls, plants, birds and gods. Each one carries a name - from the exotic to the inane - Sree Krishna, Aditya, Praise the Lord, German (? what the ?)

It is getting dark, and I am trying to determine if this is better or worse. At least I cannot see my impending doom. There are no street lights, only the fires, stars and happy faces light our way. To combat this everybody switches on their high-beams, and this results in a little swerve towards every piece of oncoming traffic as Delboy finds his balance in the glare.

I manage to see a man with particularly skinny legs and a full-term pregnancy, and remark to Delboy that his wife makes him too much curry. He laughs and tells me about a Sudanese man he drove who had a bigger belly, and who wasn't particularly pleased when he asked how it was possible to enjoy his wife. Apparently he did not leave a tip, but the wife did; "She like me very much!" says Delboy. When we shared his laughter he went on to tell us about his other pre-marital exploits, including Jill from England. "She like me very, very much. She want to marry me, but I say No, no no. She was very fat, and fifty!" It turns out she liked to "enjoy" differently too. We're not entirely sure what that means, because he goes on to explain that he likes European women because they are not shy like Indian women. Whatever the case, the term "Kinky Jill" has now entered the Dubai-ified dictionary.

We finally reach the hotel alive and in much need of a Valium. My companion and I both decline Delboy's kind offers of "Ayurvedic Massage" upon leaving his car, tip him (not too nicely), and tell him we are going home tomorrow. We don't want him "enjoying" himself any more than absolutely necessary.
3 comments:

Pretty Woman

I don't own this bag
There is only one occasion in my life where I feel like Julia Roberts. It's when I am surrounded by mirrors, I have my bewedged heels sinking in white plush carpet, my hand is rummaging in the depths of a handbag that is not mine, and there is a woman that looks and speaks like an evil Bond Girl looming over my shoulder, asking;
"Ken ay hilp vu medem???"

I am in Louis Vuitton, wondering if there is any hope at all of me ever owning a purse with that gold LV emblazoned on it... If only they wouldn't put the prices on microscopic cards stuffed under the stuffing....But then Evil Bond Girl wouldn't have the satisfaction of making me ask her the price; because she knows full well that anyone who has to ask the price can't afford to buy. I give up, leaving the store believing that I have a greater likelihood of growing 8 inches, becoming a prostitute and marrying Richard Gere than ever owning that little brown leather treasure.


There is a happy turn in this story though. I know of a place, a secret, wonderful, welcoming place where anyone is rich enough to own a bag with a gold "LV" emblazoned on it, and it's called Karama. Don't tell anyone, but you can find it on this map. Shhhhh....

 
Karama is a suburb within a suburb, and in the old Retail district of Dubai (Bur Dubai). It has clogged streets lined with shabby once-white apartment blocks. Balconies are adorned with the daily washing and satellite dishes, and skeletal aerials sprout from the rooftops like failed reforestation projects. The paint is peeling, the roads are pot-holed and the footpath is a personal injury lawyer's dream.

If you begin to consider for a moment that this could not possibly be the place to purchase designer goods, never fear - a guide will be with you momentarily, whispering the passwords:
"Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada?" and you follow him to the inner keep. A dingy corridor leads to a piazza of bombardment. You have all senses accosted - Yee Gods, the colour, the spruikers, the smell of incense, sweat and shwarma, and all around there are labels as promised on T-shirts, jeans, shoes, bags and hats. Here in Karama all are welcomed into the bosom of designer labels - no matter what race, sex, religion or income (except maybe the local males carrying a badge that says detective).

Offers of watches and perfume find their way to your ears, but keep to the mission - handbags ladies! In the shady arcades you see stores with blatant counterfeits on display - the same bag made in sixteen different colours can be labelled Jimmy Choo, Marc Jacobs, Mulberry or Dolce and Gabbana. You don't want those, they're fakes. You are after the "genuine copy", the highly illegal counterfeit that is an exact replica of what can be bought from snooty Evil Bond Girls at 30 times more. What price for your soul, my dears?

Of course the genuine copies cannot be found on the shelves with all the fakes. I am unsure as to the laws of copyright and fashion, but it appears that if the item is too ridiculous to be believed then it's not an infringement, a little like slander I suppose. Here one must rely on the guide, let him lead you to the hidden chambers. You enter a store, pass the studded and spangled Ed Hardy shirts, Ralph Lauren Polos and Dolce and Gabbana jeans, and though they are reaching out with every fibre in their cheap little make-ups you do not waver - any sign of interest causes great delays and deviations from the path. The guide leads you to a dead-end in the shop, but you do not despair, and are patient and calm in the face of defeat. He taps on the wall and waits. Magically the walls part to reveal the gatekeeper and the inner sanctum.

I don't own this bag
You ascend with care - the stairs are uncertified and booby-trapped with draped Fendi scarves that coil about the ankles. Heaven awaits at the top. In the first corner there are the 'Chanels' and three Brits in shades if grey oohing and ahhing over a silver patent leather hand-held number. On second base are two local ladies covered head to toe in black, the only things visible their eyes, finger bling and monstrous 'Prada' totes. Third base holds a raven-haired vixen wearing gold heels and a pink velvet tracksuit with "juicy" embroidered across her remarkable buttocks. She is arguing with the gatekeeper's assistant over the price of a 'Valentino' clutch.

I don't own this bag
But you want Louis. Ou est vous Louis? The gatekeeper becomes the new guide, and leads further through. Another false door leads to Mulberry closet with rogue 'Boss' and 'D & G' ties - rubbish, but there to act as sweeteners for the deal - something to let husbands know you were thinking of them as you spent their money on superficial treasures. Then down another staircase about the size and shape of a corkscrew, until finally you find yourselves at the end of the line. But this is not met with depression because here, in this narrow and dimly lit room, with no natural light or exit apart from the scary stairwell there are literally shelves and shelves of Holy Grails. Louis big, small, enormous, brown, cream, denim, leather, furred and blinged. It's hard not to drool.

the gatekeeper hands over shifts to the Merchant and refreshments are offered. You accept - there is still much work to do. Then begins the sorting process - firstly, it must be brown, and it must be leather. It has to fit a phone and a purse, but must go with evening wear. It must go over the shoulder. Every bag but one is eliminated, then you move onto the next girl, for more purchases mean a better price. It takes an hour.

Only once the preferred items are identified is money discussed. You know it will be a good price, "the best price" for the merchant has fended every numerical inquiry with this until now. Of course the "best" price is not actually his best, and after twenty minutes, three bags off the purchase order, one tantrum and two threats of leaving, all are finally happy.

As you leave the Merchant pleads poverty and grimaces as is customary - he has to convince you that he has been robbed so you will think the deal is unbeatable and thus will be loyal. You should do him a favor and purchase some Burberry and Ralph Lauren garb for the kids on the way out, for your children are your greatest accessories and must look as good as the handbags. And then because the kids have been angels through this ordeal of a day, take them to the fake toyshop for fake Barbies and Bakugans.

Pretty mosque in Karama 
At this juncture I must tell you that the entire story above, except for my feelings of inadequacy in expensive shops, is a work of fiction. For if it were true, then one would be guilty of breaking the law, as would any accompanying band of scavenger hunters, the Guide, the Gatekeeper and the Merchant.

But if it were true, then I would be able to walk past Evil Bond Girl wearing my "genuine copy", and give her a genuine smirk, genuinely assured that I was the fortunate one walking free, she was genuinely trapped in a dead-end job that made all the good people in the world resent her. And then I would feel like Julia Roberts when she strode into that Beverly Hills store with swags of designer goodies in shiny paper bags and boxes and said;
"Remember me?" pause for effect..."Big mistake..."
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Lunch with Khan

Filtered sunlight falls in diagonal steaks across the table before me. It doubles the number of hues I see in the mosaics, and isolates me in a little ring of sunlight - one of the few in the room. But I don't feel alone. Fatima has just brought me tea in a scalding silver kettle, and Ali is on the way with puffy pillows of Flat bread straight from the wood-fired oven. There is soft chatter in all corners of the courtyard, but none is in English. It really is time I learned Arabic. Shisha smoke billows in apple and grape-scented clouds, making a slow journey to the heavens through the swathes of canvas that keep the harshest rays from intruding. 

The qanun player begins, then is joined by drummers. All are dressed in voluminous Persian robes and fez caps. The waitress swings her hips as she walks, subtle, but definitely in time. She wears black from neck to toe, but it's not an abaya - it's embroidered and tapered, with slits up the side and pants underneath. Her hair falls like an unravelling croissant over her shoulder, and her dark eyes are trained in that intriguing "come hither/go thither" manner. She could serve me rubbish and I would like it, spit in my face, and I would tip her. She is most certainly in charge.



The bar reminds me of a cistern in a Turkish bath - ancient white marble columns stretch from the bench to a circular dome. Two olive-skinned youths wear loose keffiyeh on their heads, and make coffee with water taken from an enormous copper drum. The surfaces surrounding are covered with silver teapots and jewel-coloured tea glasses, pomegranates and tiny oranges. They rarely look up, and remain utterly silent, while working in unison as perfect as a dance.

Food arrives on giant platters and is thrown in the centre of the table. Iranian lamb in yoghurt and pepper is tender and juicy. Fattoush is overdressed, but surprisingly has added herbs - mint, basil, and something I dont recognize but enjoy regardless. The crispy bread on top is perfect - the salad to have when you don't want a salad. Meat pastries that look like spring rolls turn out to be spiced with cinnamon and even meet approval with the world's fussiest eater who sits opposite me. Even the fries are not just fries, but super-crunchy slivers with the skin intact. It's delicious.

I want to sit there all day. A waterwheel rotates behind me, buckets filling and emptying with no purpose but to sound relaxing. Everywhere I look I am met with beauty. Someone told me this place reminds them of Damascas, and I think it's time I went.

I order baklava - nutty pastry treats dripping in honey and rosewater - and it is the best I have ever tasted. The coffee is perfect. I don't want to go, but my children tug at my sleeves - Santa is upstairs waiting. We leave and meander through the dim and exotic stone souq, trying to convince the children that we are lost, and we think the exit is in the opposite direction. Finally we emerge into the great flourescentness of Wafi Mall. Who would ever believe the treasures of Khan Murjan reside beneath?


-----------------


There are more photos of Khan Murjan Restaurant on my photography blog, the sandpit diaries. It's an incredibly beautiful place.

Ps. Khan murjan souq is named after a famous old Baghdad inn. The restaurant of the same name is in the centre of the souq. The waiter and waitress are not actually called Ali and Fatima - or at least they may be, but I don't know. If they were my children I would have called them that because they are my favourite Middle Eastern names.
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Crapmas

Enjoyment against all odds
1pm yesterday revealed a great disappointment. We had intended to attend the tree lighting at the Montgomerie (swanky golf club managed by swankier hotel chain The Address.) closer inspection to the website had revealed it was on the 11th, not on the 10th as I had imagined. Now WHY would they do a kiddy thing on a school night? Pain in the butt. It left me with two hyped up children hellbent on seeing Santa, demanding presents, candy canes and bouncy castles. A friend had mentioned that the Sheraton at JBR were doing a "Kids Day", starting at 4pm. I was poor for options, and thought "it's 5 star, by the beach, today, licensed....it will be perfect"

We should have turned away when we saw the lame Christmas train display in the lobby; carriages derailed, fake snow sullied, light globes blown, and train traveling no faster than 1km a day, even slower around corners.

We should have re-evaluated when we realised that we had to pay not only for the children, but also for ourselves. 100 dirhams each.

We definitely should have asked before we paid if we could get a drink in the cordoned area. I'm not really into fanta when I am surrounded by 400 screaming leprechauns - nerve strengthener it is not. In fact, those levels of sugar and tartrazine only serve to increase the adrenaline levels, which were already stretched to the point of psychosis.

We had been told there was no need to make a reservation. So of course this meant that although we had paid the full amount, there was nowhere to sit. We managed to find a table for four with three chairs - perfect for 7 adults and 6 children. Luckily the kids immediately threw themselves into the fray and we couldn't even see the backs of their bouncing heads within one tenth of a second.

Within two minutes Lion had returned crestfallen. The bouncy castle smelled of poo and socks. Luckily there were camels to ride, and although they also smelt like poo and socks, they spat and were grumpy and bumpy, making for extra excitement. That was good for one minute... Then we found the falcons. But the poor birds were completely spooked and the handlers grumpier than the camels. They couldn't take the shrouds off the birds for obvious reasons (remember the 400 screaming leprechauns,) so that was exciting for about another minute.

The "magic show" consisted of a guy dressed as a clown who was having a really hard time twisting balloons. In fact when I first saw him, he couldn't even seem to get any air into the things. Then Barney arrived accompanied by a ghetto blaster stuffed with annoying high-pitched children. Of course it was deemed necessary to play this very, very loudly. Over and over and over. Shall I remind you that there was no alcohol being served?

For lack of anything interesting to do, my boys turned to painting, where we saw a similar seating arrangement as we did around our own table. Lion succeeded in painting six circles on a paper plate before he was ejected. Goldilocks painted the sky and his own ear.

In our boredom we turned to the buffet, seeking some value for our money. In the land of the perfect buffet that Dubai usually is, we found very mature and gourmet snacks like chicken nuggets, hot dogs, popcorn, mini pizzas and other kinds of cardboard flavored and textured delicacies. Yes, they were lukewarm... I'm sorry - There were some nice desserts there - chocolate mousse, Christmas cake and cotton candy. Goldilocks discovered the latter quite early on, and refused to eat anything else at all. At one point I found a five year old child with his face in the Stollen - doggy style. The Sheraton employees were walking past ignorantly. His parents were nowhere to be seen. I had to stop one of the staff and ask for a knife so I could cut off the tainted area and give it to him on a plate. He happily left with about half a kilo of the stuff. I decided to skip dessert as I lost my immunity to boy germs when I was twelve.

We were counting the minutes until the beach bar opened at 6pm.

Santa arrived at about 5pm. We could just hear the bell over the riot. He came encased in six layers of greedy children aged between four and forty. The Sheraton appeared quite happy with the Santa free-for-all, and allowed the melée to continue, parents reaching into the sack and taking as many presents as they could grasp before being crushed by the fray or ejected by a peculiar centrifugal force that happened to increase as the sack emptied. I'm not sure if this had an effect on Santa, who of course was in the eye of the storm, but by the time I got Goldilocks anywhere near him he was a sweaty Philipino man with skewy glasses, black hair showing everywhere, a beard with no mustache (which he had pulled up under his nose so you couldn't see his mouth), and an empty sack. He had also lost all ability to speak English. I asked the supervisor if there would be more presents, and he stopped typing in his blackberry for two seconds to say yes. I suggested a queue next time, and he agreed that it did seem a good idea. Another mum came over to tell him that Santa sucked. He agreed with her, but said he had been chosen because he was the fattest.

Do you think they changed the gift protocol with the second sack? I'll let you guess.... I had to send Lion in, because he has a remarkable ability to get whatever he believes is his, and will allow none to get in his path. He steamrolled all others to bring Goldilocks back a fake Barbie. Just in case you hadn't realised, both my children are boys. The doll was wrapped in blue paper. To Hambone's disgust, Goldilocks was thrilled with his dolly, and point blank refused to exchange with our friend's daughter's gift, which had been a car wrapped in pink paper.

I then broke my shoe. Of course the ground was damp and I was wearing white linen pants just a little bit too long for me.

At this point my friend and I recalled that Sheraton is part of the Starwood Hotels group, as is The Westin. Guess where we have booked to have Christmas Lunch? We had to pay three weeks ago. It was 6 times as much, and I am very, very afraid...

I also have a blog detailing my photography lessons, and it is full of beautiful images of Dubai (and some of my mistakes). See the sandpit diaries here.
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