Long, long ago, in some lands far away, I followed a typical backpacker's itinerary around Australasia and some of the countries between there and the UK. Blogs were few and far between and I still used Hotmail: the digital landscape was sparse and uninspiring for much of the time. Undeterred however I put together regular emails to friends and family. It seems appropriate to post them up on the new blog, if only so I have the excuse re re-read them. I can see already that the first couple are pretty short and pretty uninspiring, so I'll rush out numbers one, two and three in separate posts. Alas dear reader, I'm pretty sure that the lack of capital letters is a common theme through all 19. sorry about that. First up, Dubai...