Monday, December 27

We get to Dubai in a sleep-deprived daze. We arrive at the hotel hours early but they promise to find us a room. We get to the room on the seventh floor to discover it is next to or underneath the central air conditioning unit for the entire hotel.

Noisy? It feels and sounds as though we have moved into the middle of a mid–twentieth century factory floor. Irma goes down to request another room and I take the opportunity to photograph Deira from the window.

We will move to room 110, on a floor we know from previous visits, and sit ourselves down in the welcome silence.