Times They Are A'changin'

Rostamani Tower, the one arrowed, on Sheikh Zayed Road:

From my apartment at the back of the building I took this photograph:

Of course, that was back in 1981 when it was Abu Dhabi Road and it looked like this:
Photo: Torri Higgins
That's Rostamani Tower in the far top left, and that's how it was when I took the photo.
To get across the road to drive into Dubai we simply bumped across the sand between the two lanes and off we went. There were crashes of course but not like the ones we get now, by far the biggest problem then was speeding cars hitting wandering camels.
In the foreground is the Trade Centre, then Dubai's tallest building and I took a series of shots at a royal wedding celebrated in its shadow:
I found these photos when I was rummaging around in a cupboard back home in Oz last month. When I've posted old photos in the past they've been received well so I thought I'd share these with you too.
I came across some more of the Dubai Highland Games from the same early-eighties period too. Here's one of them, one of the several Arab Scottish Bagpipe Bands which performed at the Games.
The black & white photo by Torri Higgins I found on Len Chapman's wonderful website Dubai As It Used To Be.
(You'll find many more shots of Dubai back in the seventies and eighties if you hit my 'Old Dubai' label).