On new cars, being a tourist and a visit to Oman

February marked the next milestone of our stay in the Middle East as that was when I received my third monthly bank statement. Which means I am credit-worthy. Which meant we could buy a car. Although we are here primarily to pay off debts, it seemed silly to be paying nearly 2000 dirhams a month for a very basic hire car. So we looked into what we could afford for the same amount through finance. I had decided, before our arrival here, that due to ultra-cheap petrol (23p a litre) I was going to go for something that I could not afford to run in Europe. My initial criterion was that it needed to either grunt, go off road or waft. A survey of locally available nearly-new automobilia suggested a Chevrolet Lumina/Caprice might suffice. Despite the American brand name, these are actually rebadged Australian Holdens. They look like normal family saloon cars. Except that they have 6 litre, Corvette derived engines. But, in the end, the lure of desert camping trips proved too high, and we went for a 2 year old Jeep Cherokee (pics to follow, along with pics of the flat, school etc.). It’s a wonderful thing, with a 3.7 litre V6 engine (so it does grunt and off roading) and, being American, it was relatively cheap. Most people here drive 4x4s and 90% of all 4x4s on UAE roads (and, occasionally off UAE roads) are Toyota Landcruisers. They are, as an almost failsafe rule, driven by the ignorant and arrogant who make no concessions to other road users whatsoever. To the point where I feel a little bit sick every time I see one. Which, as I’m sure you can well imagine, is frequently. The rationale given for the dominance of the Toyota brand is their bombproof reliability and consequent very low depreciation. Imagine my delight then when Toyotas recently started killing people and had to be recalled. One of the branches of the Landcruiser family is so dangerous, apparently, that they have had to stop selling them here. Secondhand prices will plummet accordingly. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.




Our first adventure in the Jeep was a trip to Al Ain Zoo. I’m not much of a one for zoos, but it seemed like a good one. The animal enclosures were spacious and there was a variety of beasts.

Meerkats!

Being the UAE, of course, they were all the biggest animals available – the tiger was the size of a small horse, the bear the size of a large Jeep, and so on. They have a pair of white lions, which I’m fairly sure aren’t normal lions that have been bleached.

White lions

The high point for me came when I spotted some very strange birds in an enclosure:

I called Rachel over to show her and they all took off and flew away. They were, of course, native birds, not an exhibit. I sometimes forget we live in an exotic and faraway land.



Towards the end of February, my parents came to stay. This meant that we got the chance to do all the touristy stuff that residents (fools that we are) rarely do.

Me and mum being tourists

We went onto the Palm Jumeirah by monorail, looked at the Burj al Arab (the sail shaped hotel) and tried, twice, to go up to the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa (the tall building). But, less than a month after opening, problems with the electricity supply meant that it closed down temporarily. We tried at the beginning of the visit and again at the end, but to no avail. As I write this (halfway through April) the observation deck is still closed with no immediate prospect of change.

The Burj Khalifa! Still haven't been up it though.

Bastakiya - the renovated 'old' part of Dubai - now a warren of museums and art galleries and part of the tourist trail

We also went to Oman. The problem with owning a car in Dubai is that there really aren’t that many places to drive it to. You can’t drive through Saudi (not that anyone would want to), which means you can choose between other parts of the UAE, Oman and the Yemen. As the latter is pretty terrifying, the only other country is realistically Oman. So we set off in the Jeep to cross the mountains. It was a pretty boring journey – the mountains are not particularly spectacular, and once in Oman, the scenery is unchanging for the three or four hours it takes to get from the border to Muscat. Unlike the UAE, Oman feels like a real country – it has older buildings. It is much greener and, despite the UAE’s much vaunted oil wealth, Oman actually feels more prosperous.

Muscat is lovely. Strange, but lovely. Due to the landscape, it is divided into several clearly separate sections, each kept apart by rocky bluffs. We were staying in Mutrah, which is the main (as far as I can tell) tourist part – very pretty with one of the best bazaars in the Middle East. As it is also the main anchorage for cruise liners, it tends to be overrun by western sightseers. Of which we were a small but significant part.

Mutrah seafront

The old and the new - a dhow and a cruise liner in Mutrah harbour

Hotels in the Middle East are generally expensive, so the Hotel Mutrah was, by necessity, a 3 star establishment. But it was an excellent place to stay. Made more so by the Omani people we encountered. Without wishing to stray into generalisation, I have heard from many sources that the Omanis are very welcoming people. Unlike the Emiratis. And our stay certainly did little to disabuse us of this notion. The hotel bar was obviously a pretty rough, local watering hole – bar girls aside, entirely male and given over to playing bar-sports and watching other sports. As the only Westerners (and with two women!) in there, at no point did we feel uncomfortable or in the least bit unwelcome. Imagine a group of middle eastern tourists walking into an East End local. Do you think they would be able to say the same? Assuming they survived, of course. The restaurant attached the hotel was also excellent. It didn’t look like much – a staff canteen at best. But the Indian food there was of a quality I have not come across before or since. I only hope that it hasn’t raised the bar so high that I am disappointed when we go to India in the summer!

On our second night, we ventured into the part of Muscat where the big international hotels are, hoping for a bit more life. Which is what we found. It had three bars! Three! One of which was too full.

Before our return to Dubai, we visited Muscat itself – the administrative centre of the city. We were near enough the only people there. We had a look at the Royal Palace (fantastic! Concrete!). Then we went home.

The Omani Royal Palace

Following the parental visit, not much happened. We are sufficiently into the everyday grind now for the seemingly exotic location to make little difference. The only thing of note was that last month, I got to payday with the equivalent of £150 still in my bank account. That has never happened before! As with most people, it is now the holidays for which we live, and we had 6 weeks of grindstone heading towards the carrot of 10 days in Nepal. Except that Nepal seemed so alien to me, so far outside of my comfort zone (as, to be honest, is nearly anything that doesn’t involve cheeseburgers, games consoles and shopping malls – I appear to be an American teenager) that I really wasn’t looking forward to it at all.

I need not have worried. As I write this, we have been back from Kathmandu for about 12 hours and, as will be told in the next blog entry (which I am hoping to complete in the next 2 days or so), we had a wonderful, wonderful time.