Dubai: Castles in the sand

Dubai. Does any other destination elicit quite so many diverse, emphatic, one-word reactions? Fantastic, alarming, surreal, insane, awe-inspiring, odd ...

The truth is that Dubai is all of these things, which also makes it one of the coolest, most fascinating places to stop over on the long haul between New Zealand and Europe.

So, with a 24-hour pause in this desert oasis, how best to spend it?

The first thing that becomes clear, arriving at 5am when the temperature is already 30C, is to plan your activities around the heat, especially if you're here May to September when temperatures have been known to top out at 50C.

One of the things that makes Dubai a little surreal at times is that, while this is a fairly densely populated area, with 1.5 million people in 2400sq km, you just never see them during the day. The heat drives everybody into the air-conditioned comfort of office blocks and shopping malls.

If you're wanting to do anything outside do it before 10am or after 6pm. That includes hitting the beach.

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