T RAV E L Shift in

n the mists of time and in the sands of Arabia I once sat having coffee with a man called Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the biggest property development conglomerate in the region and beyond.

He said: “Blaise, I have 100 metres in my pocket.”

I said: “Wow, Mohamed, I thought you were just pleased to see me.” We laughed, a lot. But his comment said it all for Dubai’s mind-set.

What he was really saying was that the glistering tower he was building (Emaar means “to build” in Arabic) would be the tallest in the world and only he and the architect knew just how tall. The world’s media was sniffing and the man in the blinding white thobe was saying nothing.

That building, now called Burj Khalifa, started life as Burj Dubai but the new moniker was unveiled at the opening as a tribute to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, which just happened to bail out its flashy cousin to the tune of US$20bn in its time of need.

Opened in January 2010 to much fanfare and firework power in spite of the more sombre economic times, the tower is the symbol not just of folly but of ambition — 829,8 m of chutzpah, steel, concrete and glass that simply declared the future was so bright, nothing could stop it.

I stood on the site with the American architect in 2003 before a shovel of sand had been turned and asked: “How are you going to clean the windows?” A taciturn man, he said: “I haven’t the faintest idea.” That was the no-tomorrow attitude at the time.

Dubai has been home to as many as 30 000 South Africans at a time, working in all walks of commerce and industry. In the noughties it became a symbol of freedom and ambition for a disenfranchised demographic. Here, old pale males could work, earn well and call the place home. Voetstoets.

The mighty dirham, the local currency, was plentiful. Shiny cars, glorious condos at Burj Khalifa Tallest building in the world