BEETLE ON FIRE

It was only a matter of minutes, and the whole car was on fire right in front of our office. It wasn't like a 20 year old car, looked like a rather new VW Beetle. Poor girl couldn't do anything else than watching her car go up in flames...

WALL COLLAPSE

Well, I'm not really surprised by this. Things like this eventually happen if everything is done in such a rush. You didn't hear much about this in the local news, such incidents are rather kept quiet. The crane was 30 meters tall and collapsed when the water filled the site, only the top bit reaches out of the water.

Newspaper Report:

Lucky escape for 100 workers
Nearly 100 workers at the site of the 'tallest building with a twist' had a lucky escape yesterday as a wall holding back the Dubai Marina waters breached and flooded the foundation site.
Excavation work on the 80-floor Infinity Tower was nearing completion when there was a sharp and loud sound, said a worker. "We then saw sand pouring down the sides," he said. The workers were ordered to evacuate immediately, said the foreman.
The Dh700 million 80-floor tower is to have a 90 degrees twist.

CAMPING

A much needed break from a very busy week at work! We headed into the omani mountains in the Hatta region, about a 90 min drive from Dubai away. Not the first time to this camp spot, and definitely not the last time either. Wadi driving can be really good fun except you hit a sharp stone. Nye had the experience and blew a tyre. Not the only loss for the weekend, after some night driving i discovered that i lost the front suspension bushings. Collateral damage. But hey, no risk no fun!

RISING HIGH

The 'Burj Dubai', eventually the talles building on the globe and currently standing at 380 meters, is now the tallest structure in the Middle East and Europe. When I moved to Dubai two years ago the structure was only just about to get out of the ground. The final height is a closely guarded secret, but it will be more than 800 meters topping 'Taipei 101', the currently tallest building, by 300 meters plus.

The building under construction in front of the Burj is one of ours; originally designed by Foster & Partners. It went within only 18 months from schematic design to the 27th floor on site! However, this is only one third of its height and after completion 'Index' will stand 328 meters tall.

CAMEL TRANSPORTER

It's actually not a very unusual sight to see camels loaded on pick up trucks and then doing 100 km/h down busy highways. Though this must be the smallest transporter I have seen and they still managed to strap two camels onto the tiny platform. We first saw them at a petrol station and you kinda feel sorry for the camels. But once we overtook them on the highway they somehow seemed to really enjoy the ride...