“Auto racing is boring except when a car is going at least 172 miles per hour upside down.”-Dave Barry
Having spent the last four days moving about the Arabian Peninsula, we are now enjoying a day at sea. It gives us time to empty the sand of various colors out of our shoes, and get a bit of rest before the next phase of our trip. With three weeks in the Middle East behind us, we’ve seen some interesting variations in ways of life and situations of people.
This past week, as we visited several spots in the United Arab Emirates, as well as Qatar and Bahrain, we’ve seen a great deal of wealth, almost all of which is new and dizzying. These countries have not even existed for that long. What are now the nations of this region had long been protectorates or possessions of Great Britain, which exited at the start of the 1970s. Qatar and Bahrain had entered talks with what was then the Trucial States (now UAE) for confederation, but the deal fell apart when Bahrain pulled out. Qatar and Bahrain became independent countries in 1971, and the UAE was formed under a kind of federalist system from the seven Trucial States.
Oil is the main source of wealth of the region, but most have branched out into other arenas. Dubai, the best known of the emirates, has become a center of international trade. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, has taken up banking and finance, an interesting twist given the Islamic prohibition on charging or earning interest. Nevertheless, the financial institutions have found ways to function without involving themselves in interest. Qatar’s economy is based around natural gas (it holds nearly 6% of the world’s reserves). It also is the home of the growing TV network Al Jazeera.
Bahrain
After leaving Dubai (covered in my last entry), our next stop was Bahrain. The Lonely Planet guidebook called Doha, Qatar “the dullest place on earth” but if our visit was at all representative, I believe that title belongs to Bahrain. The name Manama, the nation’s capital and the place where we visited, means “sleeping place.” Yup, that’s about right. Though, seriously, it obtained that name from the astonishing number of burial mounds occupying this island. In fact, some 5% of the country’s land is occupied by burial tombs--more than 100,000 burial mounds nationwide. It seemed that every bit of land not occupied by buildings was a collection of what looked like gigantic ant hills. These were the mounds. We were told that many of the buildings had been constructed over mounds—if people want to live and work in this country, they really have no choice.
Bahrain was the first place on the Arabian side of the Gulf where oil was discovered, which came just at the point where the pearl industry had collapsed. The wealth shows in the same way Dubai's does: lots and lots of construction, primarily of highrises.
Part of our visit here was a drive partway out on the King Fahd Causeway that connects Bahrain & Saudi Arabia. It was finished in 1986 and cost US$1.2 billion. We went up into an observation tower at the border point, and got a decent view over Saudi Arabia, as well as over the several-mile backup of trucks waiting to be inspected for entry into Saudi Arabia. Kind of like what the U.S. land border might look like if 100% inspection went into effect.
That evening, the ship treated all passengers to a trip to the Formula One speedway, where we partied in the Sheik’s VIP guest tower and watched a racing demonstration. As we entered the women had to opportunity to get a henna tattoo. I now have one going down my lower arm and onto my hand. It’s temporary—I’m told it will fade in a few weeks, but it’s a fun decoration for now and, best of all, involved no needles in having it applied. These tattoos apparently are a wedding tradition in the area: one guide on a later trip asked me if I’d been recently married.
Qatar
Our visit to Doha, Qatar, turned out to be pretty interesting, Lonely Planet notwithstanding. We visited a Sheik’s private museum, which contained all sorts of collections, ranging from ancient fossils (we’re talking 200 million years old here) to currency (we saw bills issued by the city of Savannah, Georgia, Iranian bills with pictures of a young and older Shah, and many other colorful currencies that nationals of the countries in question had never seen), to weaponry, to old cars. My favorite among the latter was a motorcycle that had belonged to Lawrence of Arabia—presumably, not the one he was killed on, as it was in pristine condition.
We then visited a camel race track, which was fascinating. No races were going on, but we did watch the camels being exercised and trained. Camel racing is a major sport of the elite here. As Islam prohibits gambling, the government provides for a prize purse instead, with prizes running in the equivalent of millions of dollars. It would have to be fairly rewarding—a good racing camel costs about $2million.
The camel jockeys used to be young boys, but it was found bad for their health, and so the practice was stopped. Instead, now, they use robots as jockeys. The robots are small and often brightly colored. They even wear caps. They’re operated by remote control, by which their trainers operate whips to get the camels to move faster. There is only a very small grandstand area at the camel race track. This is because very few spectators sit in the stands. Instead, they get in cars and follow the camels around the track, using a parallel track meant for cars. It was on this track that we stood to watch the training process.
Most of the camels came by in tight racing packs, but there was one adolescent camel who came prancing by at his own pace. When he saw the audience, he turned into a ham, and flirted and played to the audience. He was utterly charming and had us all laughing.
Qatar was memorable for one other thing, I’m afraid: its immigration process. There was a great deal of confusion about what kind of visa would be needed for the U.S. citizens. Beth and I had obtained our visas in advance, others pre-requested visas and had them waiting, still others obtained visas on the spot. None of these factors was a predictor of how easy or difficult immigration clearance would be. I sailed through; Beth with the same visa was tangled up for a while. Some with no visas also sailed, while others were held up. It was the longest clearing of immigration I’ve ever seen from a cruise ship. Thank heavens ours is a relatively small ship—heaven knows what they’d do with a mega-liner.
This hassle probably cost the merchants of Doha some income. A number of people came back to the ship in early afternoon, and would have gone out again to do some shopping, but decided against it because they didn’t want further immigration tangles. An object lesson for the U.S. (interestingly, a number of USCs on the ship refused to believe that Qatari citizens often receive similar or worse treatment by U.S. immigration officials).
One interesting thing about the immigration inspectors—they were all women and all fully or near fully veiled. This was one of the few places we’d seen local (as opposed to expat) women in jobs, and the only one with them in government jobs. We were told that this is because the majority of college graduates in Qatar are now women, and the government seeks degrees for these types of jobs.
Abu Dhabi
After Bahrain and Qatar, we were back in the UAE for the next two ports—Abu Dhabi and Fujairah. Getting a little jaded by city of new highrises upon city of new highrises, I was ready for something a little different, and so scooted immediately out of the city of Abu Dhabi to visit the oasis city of Al Ain. Al Ain is one of the largest cities in the UAE, but does not feel like it because of the marked lack of highrises. The buildings are all low rise and villas, and are built to fit in with the beautiful green landscape of the oasis that it is.
As a natural oasis, its groundwater is close to the surface and supports a good deal of plant life, most dominantly the date palm. With over 200 varieties of dates, this plant has long been a mainstay of Bedouin existence. Although no Bedouins live in the desert anymore—the government has settled them into lovely not-so-little villas—the date continues to be the staple of the diet in the area. We watched as a date picker VERY quickly climbed a tall palm and collected dates, then shimmied back down to offer us all fresh dates. Yum—unlike any date I’d ever eaten.
We toured a number of archaeological sites in Al Ain—civilizations here date back some 5,000 years. Yet, the carvings on some of the tombs are still clear, and the rooms in the ruins of old homes still distinct. We shared one visit with a group of schoolgirls, many of whom were anxious to test out their “American English” on us. Apparently, Snoopy is a popular figure among this group. The girls were very sweet. The day ended with a visit to a camel market. Camels in this part of the world serve three functions: racing (the most expensive camels), transportation (the mid-priced camels), and food (the lowest-priced camels). This market was definitely of the meat variety. Camel meat is the traditional main course for wedding dinners. Though we had no chance to try it, we were told it tastes much like beef, only fattier.
Fujairah
Our last visit on the Arabian peninsula was to the emirate of Fujairah. The approach to this port was interesting, as we passed on the way in what must have been a couple hundred oil tankers, all sitting in a line pointed toward the port, but none of them moving. We later found out that their owners had halted them there to wait for oil prices to go down further, at which time they'll each take their turn filling up and departing.
The only part of the UAE to be physically separated from the other emirates, Fujairah is not as far along in the pervasive construction of high rises as Dubai or Abu Dhabi. But it had its own charm, derived from the landscape. Most of Fujairah is either gray rock mountain or red sand desert. Here I went on a desert safari, riding in an off-road vehicle through the mountains then up and down the tall sand dunes. The views were breathtaking, and the ride was most comparable to a roller coaster. I should have realized what was up when we reached the dunes and our driver put on a cowboy hat. He had a good time scaring us to death as we shot up, down and around steep dunes.
The one thing I realized as I looked at the tracks behind us was that this cannot be good for the desert environment. I know that one of our new friends on the ship does not approve of dune bashing for this reason. But I have to guiltily confess that I found the trip exhilarating and the landscape beautiful beyond description.
We are now en route to India, and I will update the blog after our two-day Mumbai stop.
A note re photos: Although, as you can see, I can upload individual photos to this blog, I’m finding it impossible given the ship’s bandwidth limitations to post my full photo gallery. So, unless I can find a way to get it loaded from here, I probably won’t be posting my photos until after I return home in December. Then, of course, there will be many hundreds of them.
Having spent the last four days moving about the Arabian Peninsula, we are now enjoying a day at sea. It gives us time to empty the sand of various colors out of our shoes, and get a bit of rest before the next phase of our trip. With three weeks in the Middle East behind us, we’ve seen some interesting variations in ways of life and situations of people.
This past week, as we visited several spots in the United Arab Emirates, as well as Qatar and Bahrain, we’ve seen a great deal of wealth, almost all of which is new and dizzying. These countries have not even existed for that long. What are now the nations of this region had long been protectorates or possessions of Great Britain, which exited at the start of the 1970s. Qatar and Bahrain had entered talks with what was then the Trucial States (now UAE) for confederation, but the deal fell apart when Bahrain pulled out. Qatar and Bahrain became independent countries in 1971, and the UAE was formed under a kind of federalist system from the seven Trucial States.
Oil is the main source of wealth of the region, but most have branched out into other arenas. Dubai, the best known of the emirates, has become a center of international trade. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, has taken up banking and finance, an interesting twist given the Islamic prohibition on charging or earning interest. Nevertheless, the financial institutions have found ways to function without involving themselves in interest. Qatar’s economy is based around natural gas (it holds nearly 6% of the world’s reserves). It also is the home of the growing TV network Al Jazeera.
Bahrain
After leaving Dubai (covered in my last entry), our next stop was Bahrain. The Lonely Planet guidebook called Doha, Qatar “the dullest place on earth” but if our visit was at all representative, I believe that title belongs to Bahrain. The name Manama, the nation’s capital and the place where we visited, means “sleeping place.” Yup, that’s about right. Though, seriously, it obtained that name from the astonishing number of burial mounds occupying this island. In fact, some 5% of the country’s land is occupied by burial tombs--more than 100,000 burial mounds nationwide. It seemed that every bit of land not occupied by buildings was a collection of what looked like gigantic ant hills. These were the mounds. We were told that many of the buildings had been constructed over mounds—if people want to live and work in this country, they really have no choice.
Bahrain was the first place on the Arabian side of the Gulf where oil was discovered, which came just at the point where the pearl industry had collapsed. The wealth shows in the same way Dubai's does: lots and lots of construction, primarily of highrises.
Part of our visit here was a drive partway out on the King Fahd Causeway that connects Bahrain & Saudi Arabia. It was finished in 1986 and cost US$1.2 billion. We went up into an observation tower at the border point, and got a decent view over Saudi Arabia, as well as over the several-mile backup of trucks waiting to be inspected for entry into Saudi Arabia. Kind of like what the U.S. land border might look like if 100% inspection went into effect.
That evening, the ship treated all passengers to a trip to the Formula One speedway, where we partied in the Sheik’s VIP guest tower and watched a racing demonstration. As we entered the women had to opportunity to get a henna tattoo. I now have one going down my lower arm and onto my hand. It’s temporary—I’m told it will fade in a few weeks, but it’s a fun decoration for now and, best of all, involved no needles in having it applied. These tattoos apparently are a wedding tradition in the area: one guide on a later trip asked me if I’d been recently married.
Qatar
Our visit to Doha, Qatar, turned out to be pretty interesting, Lonely Planet notwithstanding. We visited a Sheik’s private museum, which contained all sorts of collections, ranging from ancient fossils (we’re talking 200 million years old here) to currency (we saw bills issued by the city of Savannah, Georgia, Iranian bills with pictures of a young and older Shah, and many other colorful currencies that nationals of the countries in question had never seen), to weaponry, to old cars. My favorite among the latter was a motorcycle that had belonged to Lawrence of Arabia—presumably, not the one he was killed on, as it was in pristine condition.
We then visited a camel race track, which was fascinating. No races were going on, but we did watch the camels being exercised and trained. Camel racing is a major sport of the elite here. As Islam prohibits gambling, the government provides for a prize purse instead, with prizes running in the equivalent of millions of dollars. It would have to be fairly rewarding—a good racing camel costs about $2million.
The camel jockeys used to be young boys, but it was found bad for their health, and so the practice was stopped. Instead, now, they use robots as jockeys. The robots are small and often brightly colored. They even wear caps. They’re operated by remote control, by which their trainers operate whips to get the camels to move faster. There is only a very small grandstand area at the camel race track. This is because very few spectators sit in the stands. Instead, they get in cars and follow the camels around the track, using a parallel track meant for cars. It was on this track that we stood to watch the training process.
Most of the camels came by in tight racing packs, but there was one adolescent camel who came prancing by at his own pace. When he saw the audience, he turned into a ham, and flirted and played to the audience. He was utterly charming and had us all laughing.
Qatar was memorable for one other thing, I’m afraid: its immigration process. There was a great deal of confusion about what kind of visa would be needed for the U.S. citizens. Beth and I had obtained our visas in advance, others pre-requested visas and had them waiting, still others obtained visas on the spot. None of these factors was a predictor of how easy or difficult immigration clearance would be. I sailed through; Beth with the same visa was tangled up for a while. Some with no visas also sailed, while others were held up. It was the longest clearing of immigration I’ve ever seen from a cruise ship. Thank heavens ours is a relatively small ship—heaven knows what they’d do with a mega-liner.
This hassle probably cost the merchants of Doha some income. A number of people came back to the ship in early afternoon, and would have gone out again to do some shopping, but decided against it because they didn’t want further immigration tangles. An object lesson for the U.S. (interestingly, a number of USCs on the ship refused to believe that Qatari citizens often receive similar or worse treatment by U.S. immigration officials).
One interesting thing about the immigration inspectors—they were all women and all fully or near fully veiled. This was one of the few places we’d seen local (as opposed to expat) women in jobs, and the only one with them in government jobs. We were told that this is because the majority of college graduates in Qatar are now women, and the government seeks degrees for these types of jobs.
Abu Dhabi
After Bahrain and Qatar, we were back in the UAE for the next two ports—Abu Dhabi and Fujairah. Getting a little jaded by city of new highrises upon city of new highrises, I was ready for something a little different, and so scooted immediately out of the city of Abu Dhabi to visit the oasis city of Al Ain. Al Ain is one of the largest cities in the UAE, but does not feel like it because of the marked lack of highrises. The buildings are all low rise and villas, and are built to fit in with the beautiful green landscape of the oasis that it is.
As a natural oasis, its groundwater is close to the surface and supports a good deal of plant life, most dominantly the date palm. With over 200 varieties of dates, this plant has long been a mainstay of Bedouin existence. Although no Bedouins live in the desert anymore—the government has settled them into lovely not-so-little villas—the date continues to be the staple of the diet in the area. We watched as a date picker VERY quickly climbed a tall palm and collected dates, then shimmied back down to offer us all fresh dates. Yum—unlike any date I’d ever eaten.
We toured a number of archaeological sites in Al Ain—civilizations here date back some 5,000 years. Yet, the carvings on some of the tombs are still clear, and the rooms in the ruins of old homes still distinct. We shared one visit with a group of schoolgirls, many of whom were anxious to test out their “American English” on us. Apparently, Snoopy is a popular figure among this group. The girls were very sweet. The day ended with a visit to a camel market. Camels in this part of the world serve three functions: racing (the most expensive camels), transportation (the mid-priced camels), and food (the lowest-priced camels). This market was definitely of the meat variety. Camel meat is the traditional main course for wedding dinners. Though we had no chance to try it, we were told it tastes much like beef, only fattier.
Fujairah
Our last visit on the Arabian peninsula was to the emirate of Fujairah. The approach to this port was interesting, as we passed on the way in what must have been a couple hundred oil tankers, all sitting in a line pointed toward the port, but none of them moving. We later found out that their owners had halted them there to wait for oil prices to go down further, at which time they'll each take their turn filling up and departing.
The only part of the UAE to be physically separated from the other emirates, Fujairah is not as far along in the pervasive construction of high rises as Dubai or Abu Dhabi. But it had its own charm, derived from the landscape. Most of Fujairah is either gray rock mountain or red sand desert. Here I went on a desert safari, riding in an off-road vehicle through the mountains then up and down the tall sand dunes. The views were breathtaking, and the ride was most comparable to a roller coaster. I should have realized what was up when we reached the dunes and our driver put on a cowboy hat. He had a good time scaring us to death as we shot up, down and around steep dunes.
The one thing I realized as I looked at the tracks behind us was that this cannot be good for the desert environment. I know that one of our new friends on the ship does not approve of dune bashing for this reason. But I have to guiltily confess that I found the trip exhilarating and the landscape beautiful beyond description.
We are now en route to India, and I will update the blog after our two-day Mumbai stop.
A note re photos: Although, as you can see, I can upload individual photos to this blog, I’m finding it impossible given the ship’s bandwidth limitations to post my full photo gallery. So, unless I can find a way to get it loaded from here, I probably won’t be posting my photos until after I return home in December. Then, of course, there will be many hundreds of them.
3 comments:
Enjoyed your blog articles Crystal, especially your reflections on Fujairah.
Have a wonderful trip.
Geoff, Fujairah.
I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your blog--I like your writing style, and how you write about your adventures! Looking forward to hearing your impressions of India.
Crystal,
Reading about your amazing adventures helps to sweep me away from the morass that can be D.C. working life. It's no longer "Calgon, take me away!", but "Crystal, take me away!".
Can't wait to read more!
-Becky Rice
Post a Comment