The road to Moreeb Dune, Liwa, UAE some 400km away from Dubai
These are pictures of what we did on New Year’s Day last year. Last year’s theme was, I felt, better. This year’s theme would have been ‘New Year with Shingles’ as I was down with the sickness from 29th December onwards. I’m just about recovered now. Shingles is the common term for herpes zoster or ‘snake’ in Chinese.
Anu's pre-mummy days
Tell somebody you have herpes whatever and the first thing you’ll notice will be a curious look (like a look wondering what you did to get yourself a herpes infection), or an embarrassed look, as if herpes is the scourge of the earth. Herpes zoster as I found out, is not the sexually transmitted disease that people commonly relate to as herpes. Shingles is caused by the chicken pox virus and resides in your nerve cells. When your immune system is weak, the virus comes up to the skin and creates a rash with blisters much like the chicken pox blisters. That’s my doctor’s story anyway. The best thing to get the body back into good shape is a good rest, and that’s why I was on sick leave for about a week. Anyway, the shingles have left a string of pock marks on my forehead so that I’ll look more rugged and manly the next time you see me.
Gary's pre-shingles days
Shingles or not, we celebrated our little baby’s one month old birthday by distributing red eggs and Fried Chicken (no, not KFC, some other local fried chicken) to my Malaysian colleagues and had a nice Chinese dinner on New Year’s Day with a friend here.
Our trusty old company pickup that brought us to the Moreeb Dune (Tal Mireb) and back, in one day, about 800km all in
Camels amidst the sand
