Good Bye Dubai

I 'm just waiting at the brand spanking new Dubai Airport for my flight to Doha, Qatar and then onto London . It's not a bad place to spend the night as it's huge, bright and silver clean, and the food is reasonable priced for airport standards. There's free Internet and for those with time and left over dinars, plenty of last minute shopping.

What can I say about Dubai... it reminds me of Las Vegas at times with the super fancy hotels and the way it is so spread out. There are buildings sprouting everywhere but outside the old city by the creek, they are far apart and not conducive to walking. You will be walking along the sidewalk which will suddenly peter out or have to cross a fourteen lane highway as there are no pedestrian walkways to be found. The city is really designed for cars and although the public transport is cheap, it's infrequent and often so packed that they won't pick up anyone. They have only recently began constructing an underground metro. I swear that 90 percent of the bus riders are Indians or Filipinos working in the UAE and the other 10 percent are tourists. The traffic is horrendous and reminds me of Jakarta, and doesn't thin out until after ten o'clock. To get to the public beach from YHA hostel which is a mere 30 KM away, takes over two hours on the public transport.

If you want to save money, make sure you book ahead at the one and only hostel in town. A dorm bed with four other people will cost $20 US. Accommodation is expensive in Dubai and the cheapest one or two star hotel is about $60 US for a single bed. Want to impress that special someone, then book a room at the seven star hotel, Burj Al-Arab which range from the cheapest for $1000 US a night to $8000 US for the grand daddy of them all, the Royal suite which has a rotating bed, a private cinema and dining in the underwater restuarant. People were checking into the hotel by landing on the roof helicopter pad. Nice. And just to get a tour of the hotel, you have to fork out $60 US. Still, the 202 hotel room building (staffed with 1200 workers!) shaped like a narrow crescent moon is impressive.

The stretch of luxury hotels run along the beach which has Mediterranean blue waters (albeit cooler) and white fine sand. The other impressive hotels are shaped like Arabic castles complexes with Wind Towers and lagoons and one shaped like a giant wave. They are also building new developments called the "World Village" where you can buy a property shaped like a country of the world on reclaimed land off the coast. I like to see who buys (and fights over) Israel. They are also building several Palm-like developments off the coast. I just hope they take into the rising sea level from global warming or some very rich people are going to be in for a wet surprise.

Dubai is one of the seven of Emirates that forms the country of the United Arab Emirates. It began from a humble fishing village reliant on pearl harvesting to a port town from the 1930's to 1950's and then quickly to a growing city in the 1970's with the discovery of oil in 1966. Sky scrappers, roads, schools, and housings were rapidly built, fueled by "black gold." Realizing that the oil is running out and the revenues from it now only accounts for 10 to 15 % of the total annual income, Dubai has placed their future on real estate and tourism. Incredibly, 80 percent of the water comes from the desalinization of ocean water through gas plants near the coast and residents have free electricity and water. Most of the menial labour is done by workers from India, the Philippines and some Middle East countries like Egypt who accept the long and poor work conditions for the better pay. As a result of these many workers, the city's gastronomic offerings has a heavy Indian and Asian influence and plenty of cheap eats. There's still the glitzy restaurants and bars where the patrons drive in, in a Ferrari. Even the ultra-egomaniac Chef Gordon Ramsay has opened up shop with the Verre restaurant.

Dubai also reminds me of Hong Kong especially the Khor (Creek) area which looks like Kowloon Harbour. It's very pleasant to walk along the creek at dusk as boats, dhows and ferries move along the waterway, the wharves are busy unloading and the city skyline is impressively lit up. Then there's the shopping. The condensed old city advertising electronic and watches, the spice, textile and gold souqs showing off their wares and plenty of malls to max out your credit cards. Although it's a tax free port, I didn't find the prices so cheap but the variety is there from cheap Chinese exports to boutique offerings from Paris, Milan and London.

You know when you have too much money to spend when... you have world's first air-conditioned bus stand. And when they make a ski hill inside a mall. Producing eights tons of snow a day, for $50 US you too can go down a slope for two hours. It's crazy that you can be walking in over 30 degrees on the outside and the next, feel a -2 degree chill. It's beyond me that they sell snowboard and ski gear, fleece jackets and Gortex gloves in the desert. There's even an artificial wooden ski lodge where you can sip hot chocolate by a fireplace as you watch people go up the ski lift or toboggan down a small hill.

Back to the rain and cold, wet weather in about ten hours. I even gave away my sunscreen lotion yesterday with the realization that I'm flying into England.

'Musings From Muscat

I entered Oman yesterday by arriving in Salalah as one of the great British explorer, Wilfred Thesiger did on October 1945. Salalah today is a modern city full of wide long avenues and new buildings constructed or being constructed with an almost North American urban planning, in that you need to drive everywhere as it is so spread out. I saw my first KFC (a.k.a. the dirty bird) in five months!

I arrived in Muscat this morning by skirting below the Rub Al-Khali or the 'Empty Quarter', a hot, inhospitable desert that runs through Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia. It is one of the driest, most desolate places in the world. What took me twelve hours in the comfort of an air-conditioned bus, took Thesiger two months to survey and cross by foot and camel in dangerous, tribal feuding lands.

Thesiger crossed the Rub Al-Khali the following year in 1946 by first traveling to the desert's edge in a caravan and then with four Bedouin companions from the Bait Kathir tribe, they made their way across the 'Empty Quarter' in fourteen days. Taking with them only twenty-two pounds of flour, butter, coffee, tea, and sugar, and four goatskins of water in provisions. They rationed themselves to a daily intake of half a litre of foul "brackish" water, flavored with camel milk. And their one meal a day consisted of gritty lumps of unleavened bread, smeared with butter and a few drops of coffee. An impressive feat to traverse the 1000 KM, over sand dunes reaching 700 feet and areas that have not seen rain for twenty to thirty years, with the constant fear of their camels dying in their heads (and hence, their lives). No GPS, no cell phones, no outside help. It's all detailed in his book, Arabian Sands which is quintessential reading for the 'Empty Quarter' and Bedouin life. I highly recommend it (you can really feel the grit of the desert sands in your toes) and read it of all places, when I was working in Smithers, and now of all places, I am in Oman. How funny life is.

Muscat is a bright, clean and modern city complete with new roads, lit dancing water fountains and a cornice that runs along the harbor with manicured grass lawns and flowerbeds. Muscat really feels more like three towns separated by rocky hills than a metropolitan city and is relaxed and slow paced. However, Muscat and the rest of Oman in general is also very expensive. I'm off to catch a bus to Dubai tomorrow morning.

Leaving the Land of Sheba

A few days ago I visited Wadi Hadramawt, a series of gorges carved by water and dotted with old towns , palm trees, and plantations. The sultan's palace in Sayun, the palaces and mosques in Tarim and the densely packed "ancient skyscraper" mud brick town of Shibam were all beautiful. The rocky, sandy cliff as a backdrop was a nice touch. Shibam is especially full of atmosphere. Looking like a bunch of Jinga game puzzles loped closely together in a desert. It feels like you have stepped back a few hundred years when you walk through Shibam's dirt lanes as goats wander around, children play on the mud steps and the mosques calls people to prayer.

I'm making my way eastwards through Yemen by the coast. Hot and humid with rocky plateaus and empty stretches of sand dunes. Long wide beaches with turquoise waves rolling in from the sea. There are scattered stone fishing villages along the way where people remain inside to avoid the afternoon sun and an occasional camel standing around, comfortable in the heat. I enter Oman tomorrow and stay in Yemen, the ancient land of the Queen of Sheba for one more day.

Qat Crazy

By far the most common social activity for men in Yemen is chewing qat. Unmistakable with one cheek bulging out from the qat leaves and their hands carrying a plastic bag full of qat and a bottle of water. I can't speak much about the women fully covered behind the black abey as my contact with them is limited.

Life in Yemen seems to begin about 9:00 a.m. as the stores open and people start milling in the streets. The mid-day break happens as people take their lunch (the main meal) around noon as most of the stores close and the streets become quieter except for the bustling qat market. Sort of like a Middle East seista. People spill back on the streets around 4:00 p.m. and the businesses re-open and stay open until 10:00 p.m. or later.

In a shade behind a building, on top of hillside view point, inside some one's living room or in a qat den by the roadside, you will find men seated or semi-lying begin chewing qat at around 2:00 p.m. while chatting together, watching T.V., listening to music or occasionally smoking a hooka (water) pipe. The men usually chew qat daily for three or four hours, some up to ten hours a day! As one local put it, "Qat gives you power." Slightly bitter to the taste, chew enough of it and qat acts as a stimulant and suppresses hunger. People may spend as little as $2.50 US a day to chew poor quality qat or upwards to $40 US per day depending on the quality. When you consider the average wage in Yemen is $50 US a month (a high school teacher makes $75 US a month), it's a bit concerning.

Yemenis still admire Sudam Hussien and his face plastered on posters and stickers can be found on store fronts and car windshields. On the other hand, Yemenis are constantly complaining about their government stating they steal or you need to partner with them to do any business. The locals declare the only rich people are those in government. Despite the high unemployment, illiteracy, and poverty, I am continually impressed by how genuinely friendly, hospitable and generous the Yemenis are.

I'm about to leave Aden tonight for a twelve-hour bus ride to Al-Mukallah. Aden is much cleaner and newer than I had imagined and has a relaxed feel to it. The city has a few colonial buildings left over by the British and... the largest mall in the country, which means free air-conditioning to take a break from the hot, humid afternoon. There is a fort nearby offering a good view of the crater where the city lies and a series of impressive tanks, cisterns and channels built from the first century A.D. Plus, as the locals like to point out, you can buy whiskey in Aden while the rest of Yemen, alcohol is scarce to non-existent.