Muscat, Muskrat, candlelight . . .
We declared some time ago that we had mastered the art of speed tourism, but it was a premature and boastful claim. This we learned at the Muscat Museum, overhearing another tourist firmly instructing his guide that he was to be shown only the most important items. And they were off, the total museum seen in the time it took us to examine just one of the dozens of beautiful cartographic 16th and 17th maps of Arabia and the various gulfs that touch its coasts. Each maps a work of art. Almost as fast, busloads of what appeared to be mainly Italian passengers from a visiting cruise ship whisked past us as we took time to absorb the displays of ancient weaponry, clothing and jewelry, paintings, and photographs of Muscat through the centuries. We have learned that an entire museum can be viewed fully in less than fifteen minutes, and it is clear that we will have to sharpen our act.
The Arabian Peninsula was originally dubbed Felix Arabia, loosely translated as Happy or Fortunate Arabia, and so it was for us. No sane person would have contemplated leaving Abu Dhabi, driving through this region without compass or map, and into Muscat, a city of between 1 and 2.5 million people, depending which guide book you read, each one with a reputation for erratic driving. But we did, and to complicate matters we learned en route that the person whose offer of accommodation we were going to take up was in Dubai and not due back for a week. But as luck would have it, we found a tourist map and, without a single complication, the Hotel Golden Oasis in Al Wadi al Kabir recommended by one of Jade’s workmates. At less than half the tariff it easily out measured the Sohar Beach Hotel in all facets; the room, staff, all a delight.
Muscat is described well in one reference as a “string of towns forming a sort of necklace sandwiched between the sea to the north and a very rocky, primeval-looking range of barren mountains to the south”, its harbour protected by a series of Portuguese forts perched high on the hills. Our first foray, towards old Muscat, found us at some very well maintained and obviously important buildings which turned out to be the Sultan, Qaboos bin Said’s Palace. Here’s us, wandering around, looking for a pathway to one of the forts, only to be told by a uniformed person where we were and that it was not the general practice to use the palace grounds for entry to a nearby fort. So we moved on, found a road tunnel through a hilly outcrop of rock, only to then find ourselves at the back entrance to the palace grounds. Snookered.
In two days it is only possible to scratch the surface of such a city, but scratch it we did. The Muttrah souk, alleyways of stalls of local handcrafts, jewelry, clothes, and spices, described in one travel site as appearing to have materialized straight out of Arabian Nights. We are travelling light and buying little, but Kaelene managed an Indian top and Marty a traditional Komah, an Omani cap which looks like a fez.
Also to see, the harbour and bays, white houses nestled against the hills, the Omani-French Museum, mosques and parks, and exquisite buildings along the waterfront.
Muscat certainly lived up to the imagery of some exotic far-away place. Just being there was enough.

Footnote: We have lost, inexplicably, more than seventy photos taken in Muscat, and so the accompanying photo display is not a good representation of the journey.

Sohar so good
We don’t know what the locals would have been thinking. While dozens of young Omani boys were on the beach playing soccer at a frenetic pace, two nearby New Zealand tourists had discovered and were carefully photographing a giant sea turtle rolling in the surf. Although well known that turtles are slow, this one seemed extraordinarily passive, its movement consistent with the rippling waves rather than its own propulsion. In fact, it had as much life as John Cleese’s parrot. It was enough to drive the tourists back to the poolside bar of the Sohar Beach Hotel and reconsider their careers as still-life photographers.
More unusual, when we got up the next morning, the tide was in and with it a carpet of dead fish. Literally tens of thousands of small herring-like corpses as far as the eye could see along the shoreline. No-one could explain the reason, other than it was uncommon, perhaps the result of an explosion at a nearby construction. Who knows?
“Sohar so good”, the logo on the hotel’s complimentary box of matches read. We left Abu Dhabi late, then got lost finding the crossing into Oman at Al Ain, the Western border of the Emirates. There was no way we were going to reach Muscat by nightfall, so we decided to stop en-route at Sohar, the town where Sinbad the sailor was born. It has just three hotels, all of which charge a fortune. That is a common theme in the newly developing parts of Arabia. Because there has been little tourism, the new hotels are all capital-intensive ultra-luxury resorts, the older ones able then to price themselves a margin lower but still very expensive. There appears to be no back-packer or similar type accommodation. Thus it was that it cost a little under $NZ500 for a room with two small single beds and fraying towels, although breakfast was part of the package. We made sure that we stayed poolside next morning until the very last moment before checking out at noon.
The drive to get from Al Ain to Sohar is through mountains of rock, volcanic in look, ranging from scoria-like to sulpherish colours. It is huge country, giving a similar impression of vastness as when driving through the Southern Alps in New Zealand, only it is more barren and the mountains more craggy and inhospitable. There is almost no vegetation save for date palms around small villages, and the occasional fort lookout. The roads are excellent, the benefit of oil money and apparently lots of assistance from the Emirates looking to build Oman as a side-destination for UAE tourism. Neither would the roads be so good without the hundreds of migrant workers who toil away in the hot desert sun.

Tea for the Tillerman
The Musandam Peninsula is certainly spectacular, but getting there can be fraught. First, feeling our way through the smaller emirates, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, in the absence of clear signposting, and then the border control between United Arab Emirates and Oman. We had an urgent text message from the car rental company when we were about 250km out of Abu Dhabi to say that we lacked the necessary insurance documents to get entry into Oman. Perhaps they should have provided them before we left. Even when faxed through, there was still an interrogation at border control about the car documentation. But we did get in, the upside being that New Zealander tourists don’t have to pay the usual $NZ50 entry visa fee.
Musandam is remarkably mountainous and remote. Right at the northeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, it faces Iran, and looks out on to the Strait of Hormuz which separates the Persian and Arabian gulfs. The region is part of the Sultanate of Oman, split from the rest of the country by parts of the Emirates. The main town Khasab was only linked to the rest of the region by road in the 1980’s, until then reached by foot, donkey or boat. It has just recently been opened to tourists, although as yet the town shows few visible concessions to the twenty-first century.
We did the recommended dhow trip, through the fiords where the barren Hajar Mountains plunge into the sea, watched rare white-sided dolphins, drunk sweet tea, and passed (at a circumspect distance) remote fishing villages and cave dwellings to which there is still no road access. Then Telegraph Island, described as a “desolate lump of rock that rises from the heart of one of these cavernous inlets”. This is the place from which the saying “going round the bend” originated, referring to the psychological state of mind of some of those stationed there during the British Empire’s attempt to run a telegraph cable from Bombay to Basra. As for us, we anchored the dhow, and plunged into the ocean depths for a lunchtime swim, mad tourists no doubt providing the tillerman with wry amusement and a living far more lucrative than fishing.
A journey is often as interesting, or even more so, than the destination as we travel to places such as the Musandam Peninsula. The mosques, the domes of which seem to have regional colour variation (purple-blue in this area), forts, signposts and such things as the speedboats which come over the Strait from Iran to trade. There are the date palm plantations in walled compounds, the old towns with rutted streets and crumbling buildings, goats foraging looking for edible traces among discarded plastic and cows wandering aimlessly on roadsides. Along the Emirates Road heading north, camel enclosures and, in the dusk silhouetted against the setting sun, Arabs hooning on sand dunes in four wheel drives or quad bikes, and sand tobogganing down huge slopes of brown-red sand. Unforgettable too the sweet smells of Shisha, as groups of men sit and smoke their fruit tobacco through hookah pipes to while away the evening hours.
Tomorrow for us, off by road to Muscat, border control permitting.

It may be some time, but we shall return
There was a commotion on the buses yesterday and it was down to one thing. The previously free service now costs 1 dirham (around 53 cents) per ride and, from the animated conversations between passengers and driver, we gather the change was unanticipated by others than just ourselves. We had earlier been told that the free service had been due to end in December, but had been given a three month extension. That took us until March at least, or so we thought. We wonder how long it will be until the priority seating for ladies becomes a victim of the times now that passengers pay for their ride. Will a blow be struck for equality?
Kaelene has observed how fortunate Marty is to travel with her, as he is often prompted to sit in the ladies’ section on the bus if there are seats to spare. Lucky too that he is allowed on the ladies and families section of the beach. Our now-regular treks to the public beach have been enhanced by the discovery that entry to the ladies and families section costs 5 dirham per head, rather than the 10 dirham for the area which allows entry to single males as well as others. As the old saying goes, what we lose on the buses we make up for on the beach.
There are a couple of observations we should make. One is about the source of the food we have been buying: lettuce from Jordan, spuds from Saudi Arabia, local cucumbers, Syrian tomato, Egyptian herbs and, for a treat, meat from New Zealand or Australia. Truly multi-cultural. The meat is all Halal, not a pork product in sight, and the real find a drink made of freshly squeezed lemon blended with mint. Perfect when chilled.
The other observation is about the excellent quality of Aljazeera news on cable television, particularly pertinent given that Sky Television in New Zealand refused to add that channel on the claim that there was no consumer demand. Instead, it added Fox News to its repertoire.
We have booked a rental car and, on Thursday, plan to head to some of the Northern Emirates, Sharjah, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah, and to the Musandam Peninsula of Oman, and then down the Gulf of Oman as far as time permits.
There is no telling what internet facilities will be available so, as Captain Lawrence Oates once famously predicted, “we may be some time.” Unlike Oates, however, we intend to incline towards General Douglas MacArthur’s refrain, “we shall return”.

All that glitters may not be gold
Like souvenir magnets to a fridge, we cannot resist being drawn to the excesses of Dubai. There is a powerlessness that compels us to see and marvel at its glitter, the very things we should be repelled by. The biggest, the best, the most lavish, and the simply grotesque, they are here and we flock to them willingly, perhaps a voyeuristic look at a monument to capitalism.
The Jumeirah Palm, the first of the three palm-shaped constructions jutting from the Dubai coastline into the Arabian Gulf is now open, and at its end the Atlantis Hotel. Inside the luxury 1500 room hotel (including underwater suites with floor to window windows offering a spectacular view into the Ambassador Lagoon with its “cornucopia” of exotic marine life) , a mall, Plato’s Way and the Avenues, houses exclusive shops, at its centre a huge indoor aquarium boasting more than two hundred a fifty varieties of fish, including sharks and stingrays. Within its 150 acre setting, Aquaventure, where you can be taken by “ziggaraut” through shark-infested waters or, for more a sedate experience and $NZ400, touch, hug or apparently even hold hands with one of the hotel’s thirty Solomon Island dolphins. For $NZ200 you can simply look at them.
There are others. The Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall ( 440,000 square feet in area with 1200 shops spread over three floors) alongside the yet-to-be-completed Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest tower, boasts a similar aquarium with stingray feeding shows twice a day. The Burj itself is due to be ready for occupancy in September this year. The Marina, with up to 200 multi-storied luxury apartment buildings, skyscrapers and hotels surrounds the world’s largest man-made marina and, of course, it houses aquatic real-estate to match
But all is not as it at first seems. The Guardian reports that half of the UAE’s construction projects, totaling $NZ 1,117 billion, have either been put on hold or cancelled, leaving a “trail of half built towers on the outskirts of the city stretching into the desert”. The hop-on-hop-off bus tour no longer features commentary on The World, another man-made construction in the Gulf, where each country is an island accessible only by boat or helicopter, and where Rod Stewart reportedly paid 20 million pounds for England alone. This is an indication of the extent to which the recession, or Carrot Crunch as Ali Moodie has dubbed it, has hit. The Jebel Ali Palm has been constructed but building not started. It is doubtful that the Diera Palm will proceed and The Waterfront, a single development billing itself as being bigger then Manhattan and twice the size of Hong Kong, and adding 400kilometers of new coastline, must surely be destined to be put on hold.
To illustrate the sort of dead money involved, one of Jade’s friends worked for three years at development company which has just laid off 500 staff; all of this without a single project actually being started.
A silver lining is that infrastructure will, at last, have time to catch up. A monorail running alongside Sheikh Zayed Road towards Abu Dhabi will be completed this year and make access to the ribbon-like growth of the city more accessible. The bus system, the main means of transport for migrant workers, has been expanded and modernized, and routes now boast air-conditioned bus shelters, complete with water dispensers. So nice, they’d be vandalized within moments in New Zealand.

Desert Storm II
There are some things you expect will be complicated, simply because they exist. When we left our passports and visa applications at the Indian Embassy late last week, the arrangement was to retrieve them after three working days at Emirates Post in downtown Abu Dhabi. It seemed an invitation for something to go wrong, more than just a little bit of anxiety in handing passports to a foreign party in another country. Our concern was needless. Allowing for a margin of error, we turned up at Empost after three and a half working days, an assistant immediately (no queue) took our tracking receipts and was back within two minutes with passports intact and visas for India. All done, like clockwork. What a system.
The irony is that, since then, we have decided to delay our travels to India and explore more of the Middle East. The prospect of Oman has captured our imagination, Time Out saying of the Musandam Peninsula: “It’s a place where time has not so much stood still but gone slightly awry. Abandoned coastal towns, Persian smugglers and cave dwellers still roaming the mountains, it’s an adventurer’s idea of ‘old Arabia’ that remains blissfully unaware of itself.” Jade’s friends all say it is beautiful country and not to be missed, treasures such as Sohar, the birthplace of Sinbad the Sailor, the old town of Muscat, tropical reefs and turtle colonies. We will drive, even though the guide book warns that driving can be pretty rough and ready, “so keep your wits about you”.
The other morning a thick fog kept the sun at bay until around midday, so we were not surprised when we woke to what appeared to be another pea-souper today. It was not until we got outside did we realise that we are in the midst of a desert sandstorm. Visibility is down to 600 metres, the sight a thick haze of dust; the road verges too are building up with sand, the inside of the house silting up as we watch and everything feels just that bit grittier. Al Jezeera news tells us that the storm has caused Formula One testing in Bahrain to be abandoned
The forecast is that this weather will last for two more days; it is likely we shall get the bus to Dubai for the weekend.

Swim at your own risk
A designated rule for entering the public beach in Abu Dhabi is that you swim at your own risk. If you do not abide by this rule, “Action will be taken against you by the court of law”. We have been pondering this. Imagine next time at the beach insisting that we swim at the risk of the Abu Dhabi Municipality which issued the rule. The court of law would determine the action to be taken against us. Force us to swim against the tide?
The pace of life here has slowed somewhat and we are generally limiting ourselves to only one or two things a day, including domestic chores. Yesterday it was the Mosque, today the beach, and tomorrow trying to retrieve our passports from Empost, hopefully complete with Indian visas, and then exploring the shops. Jade needs new furniture, so that will be a priority. Earlier in the week we tried to find the Iranian souk, or market, by the Dhow harbour. We had left our map at home, so worked by instinct and Number 5 bus in an unsuccessful attempt to locate it, only to find later that we had been right past it, twice.
There are treasures in small things here; the local shops look like they are right out of a 1950’s Arabian movie set, stark concrete structures surrounded by dust and sand, washing strewn from balconies and old cycle frames lying around among a few straggly trees. It is here we get the washing done, beautifully so, although the launderer has it in mind that Marty’s name is Ratty. The hair saloon is run by a Pakistani, the cut-throat razor comes out for a careful final sculpting of a number one haircut. Sideburns are trimmed precisely, checked and rechecked, the eyebrows manicured and, finally, ears and nose removed of rogue growth. And as we rest at the end of the day, the call to prayer rings out from the local mosque, a small, modest mosque.
This life ain’t too bad.

A swarm of mosques
There are 2,300 mosques in Abu Dhabi, all connected to one central broadcast system. Thanks to Sony and Panasonic, only one imam, or Islamic leader, is needed to call followers to prayer each day, the same voice booming out from loudspeakers positioned high in the minarets, or tall spires, of each mosque. The call comes five times each day, today the first at 5.35 in the morning, the last at 7.43 in the evening, and it is obligatory to pray. Those who do not may not fare so well on judgment day.
We have been back to the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque, or Grand Mosque, in Abu Dhabi, and have made a connection. The 96 Roman pillars in the main prayer hall are constructed of marble inlaid with New Zealand Mother-of-Pearl and the carpet in the same room constructed in Mashhad, the hometown of our friend Anousheh Moodie.
The carpet is the largest hand woven one in the world, more than 7,000 square metres in area and weighing 30 tonnes. So large and heavy, it was brought here in nine sections. The main prayer hall also has three huge chandeliers, one being the largest in the world, weighing more than 9 tonnes. As we sit under it our host reassures us that we are safe; it is suspended by three cables, each capable of holding 18 tonnes.
This Mosque is extraordinarily beautiful, more beautiful than most. Usually they are plain, to minimize distraction from prayer. In this case, however, Sheikh Zayed was given dispensation to adorn it with jewels and gold, the richly patterned carpet and the chandeliers, apparently to encourage more people to the faith. And lavish it is. More than 1,000 columns, each inlaid with jewels, surround the exterior and 80 domes both perfect the acoustics and assist with ventilation. Practical and good looking, but unlike us, each adorned with gold
We had attached ourselves to a guided tour, through the courtyard (capable of holding 30,000 people, all of who can be lined up in perfect order in 3 minutes given its grid layout), down to the ablution block (with green marble fittings throughout) and on to the main prayer hall for a discussion on the architecture and building of the Mosque (13 years and still going), and an introduction to Islam with questions from the crowd. Our host tells us that, while Muslim men can have as many as four wives, he feels that one is more than sufficient, regaling us with the story of his friend with three wives. So sick of their noise he says that the friend has moved into our host’s apartment and left the wives to it. He believes in arranged marriage so will let his four sisters and mother make that choice. So far they have not; given his good looks Kaelene cannot understand why.

Life needs frosting
If we could understand Arabic, actually Arabic at speed, we could tell you what was said between the bus driver and a passenger yesterday. A young, dark, woman in a nicely cut suit tried to get the driver to open the back doors so she could get on just as the bus was about to pull away from the stop. The driver let her in the front and what followed was a blistering tirade of what could only have been an expression of displeasure. Body language is universal. Half of the passengers then seemed to join in, everyone with an opinion to share, either side. Once we got moving, the tirade would reignite like sporadic machine gun fire, the driver spending more time glaring at the woman than watching the road. That is, until we got to one place where he simply stopped the bus and told us all that was that, He was off to the Mosque to pray. We picked all this up mostly by an occasional word, hand sign and watching the other passengers. He would be back when ready, maybe 5 minutes, maybe 10, maybe 15, maybe more. Sensing his mood, ready may have been quite some time. And then he was gone, bus keys with him.
Although Abu Dhabi is an island with what it describes as 400km of pristine coastline and beautiful beaches, there are limited places for the public to swim. The resorts have flogged all the best beaches, with the general public confined to a few areas which costs 10 dirham each to get in. Then there are the signs which list all the offences which could get you taken before the authorities; littering, drinking, fires, loud music and "nudit" among them. By contrast to Germany, where people get their full kit off to swim and sunbathe the minute the snow melts, Muslim countries observe strict standards of modesty, even changing for the beach is not done in front of others, each person using a private cubicle. Such are the contradictions of life, however, that hordes of young Muslim men come down to the beach to oogle the swim-suited Western bodies. For them, Marty has donned his best Speedos.
Friday is a day off, when men congregate at the Mosques, in the streets and in parks by the thousands with their families, and it is lovely to see the men playing so affectionately with their young children. In response to the calls to prayer, men throng to the nearest Mosque, coming from all direction and then congregating in groups afterwards, milling around the old shopping areas and just generally enjoying the company of others. It is very social and quite unlike New Zealand.
Going home by bus on Friday evening was as eventful as the morning, but because of the number of people traveling rather than any incident. Noisy groups of men impatient for buses to arrive hail taxis and it appears a sort of auction goes on. Those who offer the highest fare get the ride, even if it means a group who has just successfully negotiated gets kicked out when another group offers more. More action than musical chairs. The buses, when they arrive, are packed and we mean packed. The ladies priority section has 12 seats, with at least two people squashed on each, others squashed in the aisles like proverbial sardines. The men’s section is worse and there are all sorts of colourful conversations going on, not a word of which we can understand.
Earlier, we discovered at the Abu Dhabi Mall an original Cinnabon outlet, Kaelene’s favourite. Their specialty a sticky, hot cinnamon roll with sweet, syrupy and sickly frosting, enough to make a camel hyperactive. Ours came topped with Pecan.
Cinnabon’s curious motto, life needs frosting, made us think of our morning bus driver. He could have done with a double.

Passport to the big house
There is a zero tolerance policy to drinking and driving in Abu Dhabi. Any alcohol reading whatsoever and it is straight to the big house. Directly, no excuses and no insurance, even if someone else hits you and it is entirely their fault. This explains why Graeme the Scot is nursing soda water while we enjoy pre-dinner, dinner and post-dinner drinks with Martin Moodie, who has flown in from the UK via Delhi, and one of his business associates, Dan Cappell. Martin is down here for the opening of a new terminal at Abu Dhabi International Airport, and Dan runs everything there that isn’t to do with aircraft. Such things as retail, property, rentals and parking, the latter now the biggest single money spinner for airports around the world. Graeme manages the poorer side of the airport, the bit that has to do with planes, landing charges, catering and, we suppose, filling them up with fuel.
Dan, an exceptionally generous and gregarious host, let slip that he shares, with Graeme and his wife, a five bedroom villa which has two spare bedrooms, a maid and a driver. We immediately threatened to move in, Jade included, which we think Dan quite fancied. Perhaps if only the parents didn’t come as part of the package.
The only question of the night was why it cost five times the taxi fare to get home at 2.00am as it did to get to the hotel six hours earlier. A question which would still be being hotly and loudly debated had the taxi driver not threatened to call the police.
The house champagne last night was Moet and, despite its fine quality, the hot next-morning sun was not conducive for the short trek to the Indian Embassy. Forms, photocopying, queues and confusion, but it is all done in a couple of hours, the embassy clerks very patient with our inability to intuitively know the rules and what needed to be done. We’ll just have to wait the three working days while they check our kiwi credentials, and then see if the visas and passports turn up.
Weekends in the Arabic countries are Friday and Saturday, and for us it back to Dubai for the weekend to see if we can hear the calls to prayer.

Will that be gold with your cappuccino, m’aam?
At first I imagined that the big grey helicopters hovering overhead in menacing circles were for us. Maybe hoping to catch us holding hands or even nude sunbathing but, no, the military airbase is not far from here. It is just part of the daily routine.
The guidebook tells us that Abu Dhabi is a lush, modern metropolis with tree lined streets, futuristic skyscrapers, huge shopping malls and international luxury hotels, developing at a breakneck speed to become a truly 21st century destination. In little over half a century, it has seen a dramatic transformation from a small Bedouin settlement to a thriving business and tourism centre of global stature.
Our end of town is more old Abu Dhabi than new, the local shops more Arabic than international, that is, aside from the nearby Pepsi factory. The residents are mostly locals, apart from one young Chinese woman who seems to spend much of the day sauntering up and down the street fastened to a mobile phone.
Tuesday was spent starting our quest in earnest to absorb the sights, sounds and smells of Abu Dhabi, by bus and foot rather than Porsche. First stop the breakwater by the Marina which looks back over the skyline of the city and which houses a heritage village, the re-creation for tourists of the city’s Bedouin beginnings. Further along there is an enormous 100 metre high pole flying the UAE flag, the guidebook proclaiming that, until recently, it was the largest self-supporting flagpole in the world. Behind the breakwater, the Marina shopping mall, complete with viewing tower, Ikea and cinnamon bun shop.
Back towards the city is what at first glance looks like an extraordinarily lavish palace but which turns out to be only a palace of sorts, the Emirates Palace Hotel. Its website describes it as the iconic landmark of Abu Dhabi, costing a billion dollars, presumably U.S., and taking 20,000 workers three years to build. Time Out tells us that guests wanting that extra touch can have cappuccino with gold leaf sprinkled on the top instead of chocolate. Five kilograms of pure edible gold is used each year at this hotel, mainly for deserts.
Of course, in shorts and jandals we can’t even get beyond the sentry box so it is onwards, past the road to the ladies beach and down the “Cornishe”, the local waterfront promenade, and on to shops on the outskirts of the main shopping area. We ran out of time to see the souks and dhow yard, but that awaits us.
Wednesday is given to domestic chores. Washing to the laundry (about 20 dirham to wash and fold a small bag load) passport photos at a local store, then down to the Indian Embassy to arrange for visas. The Embassy was advertised to be open until 1.00pm, when we arrived at 12.15 it was closed. Not a good omen.
The find of the day was undoubtedly Sheikh Zayed’s Grand Mosque, the second largest mosque in the world behind Mecca. It is immense, its 22,000 square metres has the capacity to hold 30,000 people, and its exterior of pure white marble just glistens against the sun .Typically we find only after our visit that the mosque is open to non-Muslim visitors between 9.00 and 11.00 in the mornings. An excellent reason to return.

Ruling the road
What better place to learn to drive a Porsche than in Abu Dhabi. Unfamiliar city, unfamiliar car, unfamiliar roads, right hand drive, and few apparent road rules, but Marty did it and survived. That is, aside from almost getting lost on what really is a simple grid pattern of streets. Jade’s Porsche is beautiful not only to look at but also to drive and has sufficient power for both getting in and out of traffic trouble, so it is irresistable, even to us.
The main streets here are wide and expansive, generally four lanes in either direction and lined by palm trees. The urban speed limit is 80kph though, like the open road, the speed limit seems to be irrelevant. Speed is controlled on the side streets by humps every 50 metres or so, designed to rip the innards out of even the most sturdy 4 x 4 if negotiated in haste.
Irrelevant too are pedestrian lights. Yesterday, on our way to the bus stop we waited patiently and obediently observed the crossing rules. Then, as we started to cross with the green pedestrian light, one of those huge 4 wheel drive beasts that mothers in Christchurch insist on using to take their children to school took aim and, at about 100 kph, missed us by mere inches. For a moment Kaelene dreamed of blood money, but on reflection thought Marty’s death may have been inconvenient at this stage of the journey.
That probably sums up the driving; it seems the key is anticipation. For example, rather than using indicators to signal intended lane changes, drivers veer slightly, straighten and then lurch until they achieve the intended change, or something close to it. The other art is overtaking where, once completed, a driver will dart suddenly in front of the overtaken vehicle to secure a just-spotted parking place. Not usually a designated parking space, but an untaken corner out of the stream of traffic. On reflection, it is quite like home.
Abu Dhabi is the wealthiest of the emirates, just not as flashy as Dubai and many cars are as ordinary as ours, but there is a quite tasty array of Bentleys, Jaguars, Lexus, Aston Martins and Mercedes nevertheless. So many orders are there here for the new Ferrari that there is a four years waiting list.

A culture change
The call to prayer wafted through the open window of our number 42 bus as we headed to downtown Abu Dhabi, Kaelene in the priority seats for ladies at the front. The service is free, the old buses jam-packed with migrant workers, and the driver working the horn and accelerator simultaneously while at the same time gesticulating wildly in frustration at the traffic and taxis who occupy the bus stops. We are certainly here in Arabia.
It is a culture shift, particularly little intuitive things. No pointing and certainly no touching between a woman and man in public. Despite the fact that we should have grown out of these things anyway, holding hands is out of the question, we have different surnames, including in our passports, and no way of proving we are actually married. So caution is the order of the day. Shoulders are kept covered in public; there are women-only (ladies) beaches and alcohol is only available to westerners in tourist complexes.
Abu Dhabi is an island, accessed by bridge and the part of the city we are staying in very much suburban with Arabic shops and supermarkets nearby. And cats. Skinny, wild cats are everywhere, trawling through open skips left in each street for the collection of domestic rubbish.
So far we have explored only very tentatively, local shops and the ultra-modern Marina mall. The city is one of contrast, and we plan to start exploring more thoroughly today.
We note that another cold snap has hit the north, with snow causing havoc right across Europe. It will be good to wander the streets here without the layers of thermal clothes and the involuntary streaming of eyes and noses that comes from the extreme cold. We’ll sit in the sun nursing drinks made of pomegranate seeds or crushed mint and lemon.

Porsche faces life
Jade has a brand new Porsche Cayman, not practical for two passengers and luggage, so it is swapped temporarily with her friend’s Mercedez Battletruck, something as square as and only marginally smaller than a Hummer. There’s no oil crisis in the Middle East, global warming a western conspiracy. “You can drive, I hate this thing,” Jade says as we prepare to leave Dubai for Abu Dhabi.
Sheik Zayed Road is six lanes wide each side and the driving on the right hand side of the road. The speed limit is 140kph, but only enforced at 160kph, so this is like a race track and our average 130 kph leaves us in the wake of an array of Lexus, BMWs and Mercedez, some of which must easily top 200 kph. There is no need to worry about speed camera fines if your veins pump oil.
We are mindful about blood money, the price to pay to the families of any Arab you may accidentally kill on the road. Avoid men in dish-dash and women in Arabic dress, and small children particularly, as blood money is around 200,000 dirham, more than $NZ100,000. The risk-factor is much higher here; Abu Dhabi is very much an Arabic city whereas only about 8 percent of the Dubai population is local.
Rule number one at roundabouts, Jade tells us, is that there are no rules. Just close your eyes, put your foot down and hope for the best. This useful advice comes just before a huge roundabout between her villa and the local supermarket where, it seems, half of the Dubai population has come to do the weekly shopping. We don’t know what the right hand rule is either, and parking and driving protocols are non-existent in the supermarket carpark. Only once does instinct draw me to drive in the left hand side of the road. The prospect of paying blood money a good reminder that when in the Middle East, drive as the locals do.

The skype is falling in
This is a commercial break. Or at least a break in the transmission of skype communication for those we have been calling this way. An error message, that Skype cannot connect, is a euphemism for it being blocked by the authorities in Abu Dhabi.
I checked the internet and found a site entitled Five simple steps to get Skype working again in the UAE, only to find a block on access with the message This site falls under the prohibited content categories of the UAE’s internet access management policy. Take a look.
We shall call again when normal transmission has resumed.

Change
They have given streets names instead of numbers since we were last in Dubai. Jade’s old place is no longer Villa 23 on street 20, off street 1 in Jumeirah 3,off Al Wasl Road. It now has an address, although I failed to note what it was and, we are told, taxi drivers ignore the new system anyway. But Dubai, has changed, and locals will tell you that if they have been away for a week they can notice the difference.
Dubai now seems less a city where the old Arabic world meets a modern western one, but more one where new meets even newer, and bolder means brasher. The Burj Dubai, the not yet completed one kilometer high tower, the tallest in the world, is already facing competition from a planned second new one, one mile high. The Mall of the Emirates, with its indoor ski slope, had been the second biggest shopping mall in the world, but has been surpassed by the recent opening of biggest shopping mall in the world. The Jumeirah Palm is now inhabited, at the outer end by the immense Hotel Atlantis complex which put on the world’s largest-ever fireworks display at its opening, has the underwater restaurant and is riddled with celebs.
We were holed up at the Metropolitan Hotel, off Sheik Zayed Road. You don’t have to leave the premises. It has its own movie complex, theme bars and restaurants (The Red Lion bar is an English pub, right down to artificially beer soaked carpets), a pool and spas, and then there is Rattlesnakes, a nightclub where young women are on hand to part men from large amounts of money in exchange for bodily pleasure.
The pool temperature was 29 degrees, the air temperature 23 in the middle of winter, and Kaelene was unwell having ice-on-the-lung, an illness resulting from the inhalation of cold European air. In these warmer climes we are expecting a quick recovery.
They say you can tell how hard the recession has hit Dubai by the level of traffic congestion. Apparently the current Auckland-style rush hour motorway congestion is mild by comparison to the pre-recession traffic. Ex-pats are leaving in droves as building projects stall, often leaving behind creditors and jail, the mandatory penalty for the non-payment of debt.
There is something alluring about the glamour and glitz here, the hustle and bustle, the opulence and the sheer audacity of the transformation of desert to luxury you would not think possible.
We have not yet heard the call to prayer which rings out over the city five times a day. Hedonism must make more noise.