Magic Carpets
Monday, November 3, 2008
There are loads of activities to do here. The weather has cooled off and the tourists are trickling in.
Another guy at work and myself organized a half day fishing trip. The boat was about 30 feet long and had two 150 HP Motors which was plenty. We jetted along the water for about half an hour straight to a channel marker. In the near distance were two oil platforms with wide restricted areas. The water was only about 50 feet deep where we spent most of our time. One of our guys, started reeling in fish before some of us had even received our baited hooks. Yes, the guide would bait your hook, remove the fish and probably even real in the fish if you wanted. In all we caught like 26 fish. Most were small Groupers, two of them were about as long as your arm. The guide wanted to keep them for dinner. None of us had fillet knives so that was fine plus we gave him a fat tip. It's always cool to prepare the fish that you caught yourself. Deep sea fishing is coming up in less then a month. Here is one of the best places in the world to catch Marlin and Sailfish. Our guide had been cited for unknowingly fishing too close to the oil platforms. The police took away his fishing license for a while which almost caused him to be deported. The Emirate citizens can fish as close as they want to those things which are hot spots for fish.
Singular or plural Emirate is pronounced with a tee at the end "Em-er-ah-tee".
The weather is just great. It is comfortable at dawn in shorts and a t-shirt and not too hot in the afternoon. We have lots and lots of sunshine because there is seldom a cloud in the sky. There were also clouds two days ago which I took pictures of. Dust is a different story. The dust is so hazy the horizon is a tan color. It makes for beautiful sunsets and sunrises because you can look directly at the disc of the sun. Couple that with the call to prayer from any nearby mosque and it makes for a striking moment.
The natural terrain is a steady expanse of flat with nothing but dust and wind. It's so flat you can see the back of your own head. To walk around in the soil in some places is like walking on powdered sugar. It must be the blowing wind that effectively grinds the sand into dust. I have seen the wind pick up and visibility becomes very bad, apparently it becomes much worse. I have to dust the place about once a week. It gets everywhere including the bottom of things. It sticks to the bottom of your shelves and on the walls.
The dusty soil contains a heavy concentration of salt. I had to be in a storm water retention area the other day. The ground was encased in a 1+" thick plate of salt. There was a small patch of standing water sitting in a pocket of the advancing salt tomb. I knew that if I stomped on the encrusted mud, my foot would break through like a frozen pond…I did it. I was right. Inexplicably, there were softballs - of the fast pitch variety - half buried in the stuff.
The fog can be massive in the early morning. Near the two bridges that connect the island of Abu Dhabi to the mainland the fog is blinding. The morning sun quickly burns it off. People drive with their hazard lights on during that time which doesn't really help. Bright yellow flashing lights and reduced visibility just adds to the confusion. Some people don't even slow down. It's crazy the people!!!
There is a huge class of folks here that account for at least 80% of the population. They send money to their families in countries like India, Pakistan and the Philippines. They aren't paid very much and housing is very expensive so I can't imagine there is a lot left over to send. Sometimes companies take unfair advantage of the workers. A common abuse is their passports are withheld so they cannot leave. It's difficult for them to quit one job to work for another because the companies can send them home for any reason.
You'll see hundreds of people lounging around the city together on any empty patch of grass. They are workers who are waiting for their bed spaces to become available. 3 - 8 hour rotations per day per bed. One person gets up to go to work and another drowsy worker arrives for waiting for his turn in the bunk bed.
The mode of operations here is very labor intensive. They employ many people instead of machinery. Ditches are dug by 20 guys with shovels. Bricks are loaded by hand, one at a time. There is no rush. The late Sheik wanted to hire and bring in more and more people to stimulate the economy. Even after irrigation was laid for 20 miles outside the capital to water the Cedar trees, they still retained workers to water the grass. You'll seen guys standing in the sprinklers, watering the grass with a hose while the sprinklers are on.
I was lucky to visit Lulu Island which is a small island right outside Abu Dhabi. It's very close, just a 10 min. Ferry ride from one of the shopping malls. The water is protected from the open Gulf by a perfectly symmetrical rip rap barricade about 250 yards from the beach. A few coworkers and I swam out to it and rested on the hot boulders. The top of the wall was carefully set so that the flattest side of each rock faces out. In the distance are the ever present oil tankers. Beyond that is hostile Iranian waters.
Lulu Island is a great place to relax because there aren't many people and it's so close. There is about a $4 fee for the ferry / bus ride to the beaches. The water seemed extra salty which made your body very buoyant. The water was warm and calm like a bathtub. The date palm trees were fully brimming that day. They were bigger and sweeter then the dates in the store. Exactly like candy - I probably ate 50 of them that day. We went out there last weekend and the date palm flush was pretty much over.
We went to Dubai and checked out the sites. They say everything is amazing in Dubai which is pretty much true. The architecture is tasteful and occasionally over the top. The Burj Dubai is the tallest building in the world and it's not even finished being built. It doesn't have the towering calmness of Taipei 101 which is the incumbent tallest and my personal favorite. The Burj (tower) Dubai is very thin like something from a fantasy world. Approaching Dubai from Abu Dhabi, you can not see the tower even on a clear day. Suddenly if you know where to look, you can see a thin line and it looks absolutely - impossibly tall. Far higher then everything else. The elevators being installed will be the fastest in the world.
I couldn't stop looking at the hug Burj Al Arab, the sailboat shaped 7 star hotel perched on it's own island. It is the tallest hotel in the world. Rooms start at about $1,850 per night. Near the Burj al Arab there is a huge beach for miles and miles. They are near completion on a monorail that will connect Abu Dhabi and Dubai. I took pictures of some of the futuristic train stations along the route. They spared no expense with these and many other buildings.
In Dubai, there are large palm tree shaped islands that have expensive condos and hotels all with waterfront property. The oldest of these man made Islands is called Palm Jumeirah. At the end of the Palm Jumeirah is a water park / hotel called Atlantis finished late last month. They have insane water slides and giant aquariums. One of the aquariums has a whale shark that they captured in the wild. There is a big push to rescue him from the hotel aquarium and put him back in the sea. I think they might have succeeded already. We drove onto the Palm Jumeirah, that is the photographs with the flags lining the road. We didn't have enough time to spend the day at Atlantis.
Dubai has got to be the worlds largest construction zone. I've heard they have 24% of the worlds construction cranes and I wouldn't dispute that. There is a huge demand for American educated, English speaking managers and workers. Dubai is very friendly and much more liberal then any other place in the Arab world. # 2 is Abu Dhabi. Beware the housing situation in Dubai, it's worse then Abu Dhabi. If you accept a job that pays $100,000 per year, you'll pay a huge portion of that for a place to live unless the company puts you up. Companies are doing that less and less because the housing prices are getting out of hand. There just isn't any apartments available, they can't build them fast enough.
You'll see some pictures of the Gold souk (market). It won't be hard to tell which ones those are. I went to a watch and jewelry show a few nights ago. Cameras were not allowed so I had to be extra careful. I got one picture of a diamond tiera that cost $1 million. You can see that it's basically a pile of enormous diamonds. There were watches and bracelets that looked like they had been dipped in glue and rolled around in icy diamonds. There was some great photo ops that I wanted. Imagine a glass case full of jewels and huddled from end to end are women in all black ninja burkas. Muslim Women here are modest but not always shy. They are very good at haggling. It's cool to watch both men and women raise there voices and use big sweeping body language when they negotiate prices. It's astonishing how much money these guys have.
During the day, taxi drivers turn the meters on and riding in taxis is cheap. $1.50 can take you to the mall about 2 miles away. At night, the meters go off and they try hard to gouge you. Especially if your western and they think you've been drinking - which is illegal unless you stay in your hotel, they will act like you're in trouble and demand money. When that doesn't work, they beg you for more money. "America is full power country, 60 AED ($16)" they say.
Thanks for being patient. I know it's been a while since I hollered at you all. Talk to you soon. Here is a link to my web album. I update it from time to time.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wingfold2001/UAE
-Joseph S.
