CATCH UP: dodgy dealings and desert drives...

Since we began "the great villa hunt", we've had a few calls from randoms living in squalor and a heard a fair few horror stories on the expat housing scene. None of this has, so far, left us feeling particularly confident. Rent has risen drastically in Dubai over the past few years. There never used to be a cap on how much landlords could increase it, so they just got greedy, milking the "rich" expats for everything they could get. Of course, now it just means there's no cheap housing alternatives anywhere. It's just 'expensive', 'extortionate', or 'bedspace' - which is basically a mattress on the floor of a hovel, surrounded by Filipino mothers.

I know I've lived in some hell-holes in my time (the most note-worthy being a warehouse apartment I shared with a bi-polar Brooklyn chick, who had a penchant for naked roller-blading). And I might be ahead of myself, but I kind of think that as an educated 27 year old who left a perfectly reasonable, two-bedroom Bethnal Green apartment just days ago, I automatically bypass the cockroach-ridden bedsit situation.

A viewing last night, our first one, was the miraculous result of a recommendation by a very nice boy I met in the karaoke bar on Saturday night. We've been sending the odd email back and forth and he actually called this afternoon to say there was a massive room to let in a shared villa a colleague of his lives in.

We met this landlord at McDonalds near Al Safa (an area on the map that seems to consist of a road junction, two hypermarkets and a Boots. Yes, there's even a Boots here). He turned out to be a frighteningly tall, well-spoken guy from South Africa, who also happens to be an eye-surgeon.

We drove with him to the villa for what seemed like an eternity and finally pulled up in an enormous driveway, next to which was an extremely well tended garden and a lovely swimming pool. The place was huge. I think he said there are about nine other people living there. Inside, the room Tracy and I were to share was the size of the entire flat I just vacated in east London. This included two beds, a dining table, a sofa and armchair, a dressing room with built-in wardrobes, an en-suite bathroom (with bidet, thank you very much) and a balcony. We'd also have access to a huge shared kitchen and a living space with yet more sofas, and a gigantic roof terrace on which to sunbathe and sleep under the stars. Everything was included in the price, too - cable Internet, bills, free purified water from a cooler - perfect.

The only drawback, aside from an entire South African family (including young children) occupying the space downstairs (thus banishing us to the, albeit massive, upper level), is the fact that it's so far away from anywhere we'd ever need to go. And the fact that neither of us really drives would be a problem after a while.

It might well be located in an area of Dubai that's growing so rapidly you can hardly navigate your way home amongst the buildings springing up each day, but at the moment, it's so "new" that there's literally nothing there, except incredible, amazing, multi-coloured villas, and a whole heap of sand. There are no landmarks from which cabs could identify our home - if they would even travel out that far to collect us. There are no shops, the metro won't be open for three years, the roads are literally dusty tracks and the only green things around are a few trees, perched on dirty mounds. They've left them there, apparently, for some religious reason, standing tall above the ground like withered hands in a desert that's been flattened around them. All to make room for this man-made sprawl of what's bound to be, I've no doubt, total luxury. We just arrived twenty years too early.

Still, we just saw another villa in Jumeirah, which we've pretty much agreed to take. We'll be sharing a room, but there's a story behind this one...