#SharjahSaturday - A QUICK FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
#SharjahSaturday 

What IS #SharjahSaturday?
It's just a wee Twitter hashtag. I've proposed a route around Sharjah to let people see what's on their doorsteps and what they could be getting up to on the weekend instead of being cooped up in their Dubai apartments or dragging their weary butts out to yet another brunch.

We'll be a-Tweetin' as we go, no doubt. I've sort of picked things that seemed to make sense for starters, but I've not even touched Mleiha; Wasit Wetlands; Sharjah Archaeology Museum; Sharjah Car Museum; Discovery Centre;  Sharjah Aquarium; Sharjah Art Museum or the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection. Let alone the conservation centres, lodges, inland or east coast places. There's a load to do in Sharjah - and that leaves another six emirates to explore afterwards...

What ARE you doin' then?
See blogs passim. Like this here list with Google pins for everything...

Why are you even bothering with this?
Because I got irritated at someone whining on Twitter a while back about how pinned down and shallow they felt living in Dubai. The Emirates is a rich, colourful, glorious tapestry of amazing things - and many of these are in Sharjah. So I thought it was worth sharing.

Also, I have a book to sell.

A book to sell? REALLY? Wow! Do tell MORE!
Children of the Seven Sands is the Human History of the United Arab Emirates, by me and published by Motivate Publishing and launching at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2020.

It just happens to tie in nicely with Sharjah's wild, rich and often extremely bloody history. The book charts the 130,000 year-old human history of this place, from the emergence of anatomically modern man from Africa to populate earth through to the end of Eden, the discovery of metals, early societies and trading networks, the advent of Islam and the fall of the first human intercontinental trade network to the bloodthirsty Portuguese, the dominance of the British and the violent, internecine wars and vicious scrabbles for power that eventually resulted in transforming the Trucial States into the United Arab Emirates.

Was that a book plug you just sneaked in?
No, no, no, no. Of course not.

If you want to attend the Children of the Seven Sands LitFest Session, the link is here. Ahem.

Do I have to come/make excuses for not coming?
No, not at all. I have no expectations here and if six people rock up, that'll be super. That's six times more people than me tweeting about things to see and do in Sharjah.

Where you starting?
Jones the Grocer - Flag Island for around about 9am. Google pin here.

Do we have to come to [insert location on the day]?
No, you can turn up, stay as long as you like in a place, miss a place out, do whatever you want to. We happen to be wandering around in a particular order, but that's no reason why you should feel you have to. HOWEVER, if you're with me/the main group, entry to Sharjah Museums properties is FREE YES FREE. If you're not, they'll make you pony up the entrance fee. To be fair, that's usually only pennies in any case - Sharjah's a very museum friendly place.

What about locations?
Every location for #SharjahSaturday is linked in this here blog post with a Google Maps pin. Isn't that all terribly convenient???

What do we need to bring?
Just yourselves. Some money for coffee/lunch/souvenirs. Perhaps some bottled water for walking, perhaps a hat for the kids. You WILL need to book Rain Room if you want to do that. The link's here for booking a slot.

Is there much walking?
Quite a bit of wandering around, yes. The most walking will be the afternoon, but there's no rush and if you want to hop in a cab at any stage, well, why not?

Where do we put the car?
We'll drive to Mahatta from Jones, then out to the Wildlife Park - about a 30 minute drive. We'll come back to the car park outside Fen in the Sharjah Art Foundation Area, which costs pennies. I'd suggest you dump the car there and walk the rest of it.

What if I have other questions?
@alexandermcnabb or just #SharjahSaturday!

#SharjahSaturday

Al Hisn Sharjah

Here it is, folks, the news you've all been waiting for. We're going to find out what's happening in the Cultured Emirate - Sharjah!!!

#SharjahSaturday started on Twitter as a result of my infamous rant about the fact that the Emirates is packed with things to do, places to go, stuff to see and an amazingly rich culture, heritage and diversity of locations. I'm still finding new stuff after over 32 years here and simply can't understand anyone sitting on their hands (particularly, not that I'm nagging, you understand, in Dubai) and moaning that there's nothing to do here - or that there's no depth, no culture, no bla bla bla.

So here's the skinny. On Saturday the 7th December, we're going to go to Sharjah (I'm cheating, I'll already be there) and we're going to spend the day together having fun. And then in the evening, decent folk can go home or perhaps find a restaurant for dinner while the naughty kids are going to go to Ajman and play. Not too hard, it's a school night, but enough to see some of what's there.

As anyone wot remembers the joys of GeekFest will recall, I have an instinctive horror of organisation. So #SharjahSaturday is UNorganised. You're welcome to come along for the whole thing, drop in at one or another of the destinations or just pop by and say 'Hi', as you please. The idea is that if you follow the hashtag, #SharjahSaturday you can see where we've got to and what we're doing.

The idea's to get a taste for what's there, so we're not necessarily hanging around and wringing the last ounce out of each location - we're finding them, taking a wander around and moving on! If people like, I'll play tour guide and share some of the history and pageantry of Sharjah's more than colouful past - and if not, I'll happily shut up!

Please note, in the nicest possible way, it doesn't matter to me if 6 or 60 turn up so don't go feeling obligated to confirm or whatever. If it works out for you on the day, it'll be lovely to see you. If not, you can follow the hashtag and have a vicarious day out!!!

Do feel free to bring the kids, BTW...

The Plan 

9am

Meet at Jones The Grocer, Flag Island.

Here we gather, do coffee and stuff before heading at around 9.45 to Mahatta Fort, via Al Hisn Sharjah.

10am

Mahatta Fort

This delightful little museum celebrates the first airport in the Emirates, built in 1932 by the Ruler of Sharjah to house travellers on the Empire Route from Croydon to Australia on enormous Handley Page HP42 biplanes - 18 of them on a full flight! At about 10.30 we're going to head for Arabia's Wildlife Centre.

11am

Arabia's Wildlife Centre

Just off the Sharjah/Dhaid highway, you'll find this gem - the Sharjah Natural History Museum, the Islamic Garden, a petting zoo and Arabia's Wildlife Centre, a zoo designed so that - in part - the humans are caged and the animals are free outdoors. I met its designer once and she, a fervent environmentalist, was delighted by that. At around 12.30 we'll head back into town, passing by the Discovery Centre and Sharjah Car Museum.

1pm

Lunch at Fen Café
So funky it'll make your knee joints ache, Fen is Sharjah's home grown art cafe, a vision in smoothed concrete and chilled out ambience with a good dose of hipster menu and a chocolate cake that sits somewhere above lead on the periodic table.

2-3pm
Heart of Sharjah
We'll take a wander through the Heart of Sharjah, the Bait Al Naboodah and the Souk Al Shanasiyah to reach Rain Room at around 3-3.30ish. Those folks who actually want to experience the amazing sensation of walking through a rain shower in a dark cavern without actually getting wet will have to book for themselves. Visits are every 15 minutes for groups of no more than 6 and you book online here.

4pm
Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation 
A rather wonderful collection of Islamic innovation, history and artefacts housed in what used to be a not terribly successful souq but which is now a thoroughly successful museum!

5pm
Al Hisn Sharjah/Souq Al Arsah/Coffee at Al Bait Hotel
Sharjah Fort was totally and faithfully rebuilt by the current Ruler of Sharjah after its almost total destruction in the late 1960s. The Souq Al Arsah backs the uber-luxurious, Chedi-run Al Bait Hotel, a Dhs 27 million conversion of three traditional old merchants' houses in the centre of Sharjah into a hotel that is so gorgeous it makes Pat Mustard look unattractive.


7pm
Wave goodbyes/head for Ajman

Sounds like fun? Join us at Jones at 9am on Saturday the 7th December, then!

Something for the Weekend? A Friday Brunch in Sharjah!

The 'Heart of Sharjah'

Friday brunches have become something of a tradition in the Emirates although I have to confess, it's a delight we usually avoid these days - the Paul Smith shirts and Coast dresses sloshing about with a surfeit of cheap hooch and plates of sweaty salmon, prawns and houmus is really not our thing.

An alternative, which I'd highly recommend, is brunch at Sharjah's Radisson Blu - it's alcohol-free, which is a plus point for anyone who'd rather avoid the stuff on a Friday afternoon (or who just generally avoids the stuff) and it comes with a pass to the pool and beach thrown in so you can turn up (no traffic on a Friday, folks!), brunch to your heart's content and then flop down to the poolside and crash on a sunbed while the kids try to kill each other in the pools. There are three of these, by the way, as well as a beach.

If you're up for it, an overnight there right now will cost Dhs 279 a room which is hardly going to break the bank. The brunch package is Dhs 120 for adults and Dhs 60 for kids, which is basically your Friday sorted right there. The restaurant is surrounded by the UAE's original hotel indoor garden, waterfalls, koi carp and all and the food's excellent.

You're also all set to explore the Souk Al Shanasiyah at the Heart of Sharjah, the Al Naboodah house and the city's divers other museums (the museum of Islamic Civilisation is a short walk away), art galleries and attractions (the urban garden is lovely, Fen Café makes one of the world's most shockingly good chocolate cakes) as well as booking a 15 minute slot at Rain Room, taking a tour around Sharjah Aquarium or maybe tootling across town to explore the Wasit Wetland Centre. There are plenty more things to do/explore, too, including loads for kids - the rides and things at Al Montaza Park, the Discovery Centre and the Car Museum come immediately to mind, but there's plenty more where they came from.

You're basically looking at a whole weekend break with loads to see and do for a couple for the price of one of those Dubai 'bubbly brunches' for one. I mean, what's not to love?

Children of the Seven Sands: the Reveal.

The simple life of the Trucial States in the 1950s - A display at Ajman Museum...

As those of you that know me will by now have realised, there may be some book promoting going on around here for a while.

Suffer.

The good news is that this book is a bit, well, different. I try and make all my books different, but this one is differenter.

For a start, it's not a novel, a work of fiction, like the last six. It's 140,000 words of total fact. It's a very big book that tells a very big story indeed.

It's a roller-coaster ride of a tale that has never been told before in one place. And I kid you not.

Everything in it is not only true, but 100% verifiably so. It's meticulously researched and draws from archaeology, academic papers, ancient manuscripts, rare and forgotten books, archives aplenty and reputable, published (and many unpublished) sources. It draws together a story that tells of incredible innovation, of daring and courage - and of human perseverance.

If it doesn't make you draw breath and gasp at the sheer, blinding hugeness of what you didn't know, I'll refund you without quibble. Many of you are aware of my 'no refunds' policy. I'm willing to waive it for this one.

Children of the Seven Sands, set to be published in February next year by UAE-based publisher Motivate Publishing, is the human history of the United Arab Emirates. It's a 130,000 year-old tale that has, quite literally, never been shared before. And I guarantee you, it'll blow you away.

Bloody, gruesome, dramatic, vicious, honourable, glorious, brilliant, deceitful, noble, brave, bonkers and just plain splendorous, the history of the UAE is a wide-screen panorama of a narrative which has carried me away like a bewildered ant clinging to a log adrift in a winter wadi in spate - and I am going to delight in sharing it with you - here on the blog, but also in the book itself. You'd never believe the half of it - you'll never believe it's sitting here right under your noses. And it's all around you, even today.

It's a story I've set out to share with all its depth and vigour, charm and brio - it's a series of remarkable ups and downs, upsets and triumphs. It will challenge everything you thought you knew about UAE history but also quite a few unusual and unknown snippets of European and Indian history, too.

I kid you not - and I'm not overdoing it. I sent the final manuscript off to the publishers today and I can tell you that every single page contains something you didn't know, something that will challenge what you thought about this place and something that'll make you think about here in a totally new light.

Am I over promising? Let's see - but this, ladies and gentlemen, is what has been keeping me so very quiet as of late...

Rain Room Sharjah (#RainRoomSharjah)

I can't remember how we heard about Rain Room. But we did and a glance at the Sharjah Art Foundation website was intriguing, to say the least. It was the work of seconds few to pick a day and time and book (you have to book an 'appointment' online, there's no point just rocking up and expecting to get in - more on this later). That was us sorted - a trip to Rain Room for our 15 minute 'experience'.

What is Rain Room? I hear you asking (unless you've been, in which case yes, I know, you've got the t-shirt*). It is an experiential art installation originally conceived by an London-based art collective/company called Random International, back in 2012. Rain Room toured the Barbican in London, MoMA in New York, LA's LACMA and other august artsy locations, to rave reviews. It has found its permanent home in Sharjah, and is open to the great unwashed in return for Dhs25.

It's a giant, black rain shower. You walk into it and sensors clear you a 6-foot dry patch as you wander around. Clearly, if you walk too fast or move suddenly, you get wet.

So here we are in Sharjah and it's late July. It's hot, the mercury at times nudging 50C. It's humid, too. Nasty, muggy, dense humidity that gets so thick and cloying a goldfish swam past my head the other day. The very idea of spending a little time in the rain has a certain appeal, no?

We booked for Saturday at 5pm. Get there 20 minutes early, says the email that followed my booking. Present this registration code when you arrive. And please use the hashtag #RainRoomSharjah. And so this is precisely what we do. Parking isn't a problem, there are reserved spaces alongside Al Majarrah Park with the blood-curdling threat of a Dhs1,000 fine if you park and aren't a guest of Rain Room. How do they know?

The building's totally plain - funky, for sure, but unadorned by any text that proclaims it to be Rain Room or, indeed, to be anything. It's all concrete, glass and steel and the floor is not only laid with the same blocks as those out on the pavement, but they're matched so they form a continuation with the outside paving. There's a Fen Café, just so's you know you've arrived in funky town. For those that don't know Sharjah's 'signature' art café, Fen is on funk. So much so that it actually aches, like eating too many ice cubes. We get our tickets printed and settle down to wait for our turn.

We watch people coming in off the street and expecting to get their 'experience' right here, right now. The chap on the front desk seems to spend 95% of his time explaining things and turning very entitled-feeling people away. Do you know who I am? Yes, and you haven't booked, mate. We're holding tickets and booked in for 5pm, the next available booking is 7pm. We briefly consider setting up in business buying tickets up online and sitting in Fen touting them to walk-ins. They only let six people in at a time and slots fill fast for popular times like weekends and evenings. Putting up a sign to this effect would save a great deal of very repetitive explaining. Our man stays calm and patient and we admire his stoicism almost as much as we admire Fen's jars of funky cookies and display of hipster cakes.

At just before 5, the security guard asks if we're the five o'clock crowd. Yup, that's us. Go to the waiting area, please. It's around the corner, a long concrete wall with bench seats set into it on our left and a great glassed vista looking out over Majarrah. It's a bit odd, looking out onto Sharjah backstreets from this cool concrete monument to contemporary chic. We wait. Nothing happens. 5pm comes and goes. I go to see Security Man. We're aware we're getting 15 scant minutes and that's our lot. So what happens now? We are waiting for people in the toilet, apparently. I ask if we're getting to stay in there until 5.17, then? The security guy giggles nervously. The man on the ticket desk intervenes, no, go on just go ahead. To be fair, they could have been a bit more precise with the old directions, there...

We go back down the corridor and turn a corner into a long passage that descends into the very bowels of the earth. We can hear water. A lot of water. At the bottom of the ramp, a local gent greets us and then we walk into a massive black room containing a single brilliant white light and a enormous cube of rain. It falls from tiny spouts high up in the ceiling, spattering and disappearing into the black grating which covers the entire expanse of floor. We walk into it and are consumed, enveloped in rain. The light picks out the droplets and they shimmer and scintillate as we turn and swoop. We're both laughing. There's a group of three Emirati girls in there with us and they're more nervous than we are, picking their way slowly and wonderingly into the big wall of constantly falling drops.

It doesn't smell of anything. There's no reek of chlorine or even musty damp. There's no sound beyond the hiss and spatter of rain, no hum of machinery. It's just the falling water and the shadows picked out by that single brilliant light. We get our mobiles out and start photographing ourselves not having a great time because we're so busy documenting the great time we're having. To be fair, you can't help yourself. It's deeply photogenic.

We throw shapes. We walk too quickly (and are punished). We're dancers, now, exaggerated slow movements as we carve our wee swathes through the curtain of bright droplets. We play like the big children we are. Our fifteen minutes flash by in subjective seconds and we are politely ejected through a curtain to wander back upstairs, blinking and giggling. It's all a bit intense, really. You feel bereft afterwards. I prescribe a nice cup of coffee and a Fen cookie.

*I said earlier that if you've been, you've got the t-shirt, but that's one trick the Rain Room misses - no merchandise. Sharjah of late has been quite good at merchandising its attractions, but there's not a Rain Room branded goodie in sight. Which is a missed opportunity, IMHO. Yes, yes, I'm sure art transcends base considerations of merchandise and all that...

In short, GO! You can get tickets to Rain Room Sharjah here at the Sharjah Art Foundation website. There's even a pin for those of you that don't know Sharjah or  where to find Al Mujarrah Park (or Al Majarrah park. It's a sort of movable feast, that spelling). The traffic's fine right now, so stop being a lily-livered Dubai type and make the journey North. Swing by the Heart of Sharjah while you're here and take a wander around some real souks. Or visit the Museum of Islamic Civilization (just around the corner from Rain Room) or even Sharjah Fort and its museum or discover the Imperialistic joys of Mahatta Fort, the site of the first airport in the UAE.

Go on, treat yourselves!

Pinky, Lucky, Latta and Khan

They sound like a subcontinental Trumpton fire brigade, but they're not. They're the rocks of Sharjah's 'antique' trade, those four. Latta's has always been upstairs in the Blue Souk, but Pinky's has moved around a bit since we first came across it in Sharjah's unrestored old central souk area, now known as the 'Heart of Sharjah'.

Named after the owner's daughter Pinky, the shop was a treasure trove of Indian furniture and assorted knick-knacks, from battered water jugs through to carved wooden textile printing blocks.

Our first visit to Pinky Furniture had us stumbling wide-eyed around the stacked jumble. An Indian bench caught our eye. 'Is this old?' Sarah asked the proprietor as we made our way between piled cupboards and dressers.

'Oh, absolutely,' he replied. 'Made just last week.'

How could you not warm to that as a response? We got talking. Mr Mukri had a 'godown' where there was more furniture, Omani doors and the like. And there, baking slowly in the ambient heat, was a wonderful collection of dusty things, some new but many 'original' pieces nestled in the tottering piles of furniture.

There was some sort of family fall-out (to be honest I can't recall any details), resulting in Pinky's spawning a rival - Lucky's. We visited Lucky's once or twice, but it was always Pinky what had 'the good stuff'. The other game in town was Mr Khan, located at the back of the street the Post Office is on, who tended to stock the 'new style' of Indian furniture - the iron-banded browny stuff which made Marina Trading's fortune. We started to see this sort of thing popping up in London, in Lewis' and 'funky' furniture places. The basic rule of thumb on pricing seemed to be what cost a rupee in India cost a dirham in Sharjah and a quid in London.

We were furnishing our first villa, filling the vast yawning white spaces, so we bought benches and other stuff from Pinky, visiting regularly as his stock was topped up by containers coming in from India.

A while later, we'd fallen off the 'antique' furniture buying bandwagon and tended to look to Ikea rather than the furniture warehouses. We visited the brand new Souk Madinat Jumeirah, wandering around the alleyways of the fake new souk and realising that we were among old friends. Sure enough, all the traders were the boyos from upstairs at the Sharjah Blue Souk. After the third or fourth encounter it started to get surreal. 'Why are you here?' I asked one of the familiar faces.
He beamed back at me. 'Here it is fixed price! No haggle!'

It was indeed - the outrageous starting prices of Sharjah had become the fixed prices of Dubai and the tourists were, get this lads, paying them without so much a murmur, let alone a howl of 'Are you telling me that's not worth twenty shekels?'

And so, a while later, when I saw a shop close by Mall of the Emirates labelled 'Pinky Furniture & Novelties' I knew the exodus was complete. Pinky's, too, had clearly fallen for the bright lights and the allure of 'fixed prices'.

Only, as it turns out, they didn't. These days Pinky's is still to be found in Sharjah's industrial estate, run after his death by Mr Mukri's son and daughter, the eponymous Pinky. The Dubai adventure was brought to an end by outrageous rent increases (I mean, would you believe that? Really?) and the realisation that, actually, Pinky's customers are happy to make the journey and also that these days, Facebook is a vastly more powerful shop front.

We went for a visit and a wander down memory lane over Eid and walked away with two cupboards. It was just like old times - and I remembered (too late) how hard it always was to leave Pinky's without buying something.

Here's a pin. You're quite welcome.

How Green Is My Sharjah?

The unthinkable has happened. The old battered dumpsters that used to line our sandy street have disappeared, each one replaced by two shiny new plastic bins. One is marked 'General waste' and one 'Recyclable waste'.

I quite miss our old one. Some expat anarchist had sprayed 'Green Day' on it:

Well, 'green day' is finally upon us! Sharjah's upped its green act with waste management company Bee'ah, with a goal of 'zero to landfill' being the stated aim. The new bins aren't the only sign of change around here: for years an integrated waste management policy has been rolled out with thousands of staff litter-picking, bin emptying, street cleaning and waste segregating. It's taken its time, but that tremendous effort has finally reached our street.

It's the end of an era.

We used to go visiting friends and family in the UK, our hosts dancing after us and correcting our bin-using habits. This goes in the green bin, that goes in the orange bag, this goes in the black bag, that goes in the green tray: depending on where you were in the country, the recycling regimen would change, but generally people are in the habit of segregating waste into organics, recyclables, bottles and general waste. They always seem to fill the bottle baskets when we're with them, but that's probably just because they're pleased to see us.

Of course, we've always just had the dumpster. Our waste segregation regimen has generally been pretty much 'throw out stuff'. That includes broken office chairs, broken shower curtain poles. Anything. Just lay it by the dumpster and hey presto! it's gone. Actually, the bin men often don't get to the larger stuff, there's always some opportunist who's got an eye out and larger items generally don't stick around beside the dumpster for longer than an hour or so. The record was a broken office desk we chucked out a few years back: it was gone within ten minutes.

So now we've joined the ranks of the responsible: a second bag in the kitchen is devoted to plastic, cardboard and tins. We're actually becoming civilised. Wherever will it end?

An Alternative To That There Soulless Mall

So you want to get up to something different this weekend? Something a little more off the beaten track than wandering around marbled malls listening to that swishswish of the mall walkers, too lazy to pick up their feet as they wander around the 'new roundabout', packed with shops selling things they can't really afford and don't really need?

Let me suggest something. Over here, on ShjSEEN, is a wee guide to Sharjah's souks. Go for the early evening shift, from about 5pm onwards is good on a Friday or Saturday. Have an adventure. Fill your boots. You can thank me later...

Wandering Sharjah's Souks

BTW, all the souk names in the piece are links to Google Maps, so you have no excuse about 'finding my way around Sharjah'

shjSEEN - Sharing Sharjah Things, Stuff And Stories

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm contributing blog posts to an interesting project called shjSEEN, which is being run by the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The idea is to take a fresh look at Sharjah and perhaps delve into the many hidden joys, delights and treasures of The Cultured Emirate, under the tagline 'One city, lots of soul'.

I can hear you Dubai types scoffing as I type, so you can stop that right now, pally. Sharjah's got a great deal going for it - all you have to do is look beyond your brunches, blingy bars and chain stores. And you can get over that wailing about the traffic, while you're at it. At the weekends, when Sharjah's arguably at its best, it's generally a breeze.

Sharjah HAS got soul, lots of it. From the area where I live (whose tribal leader, in the 1920s, invaded Ajman and occupied its fort), down to Al Khan on the Dubai border (where a protracted gun-fight took place between Dubai and a gang of dissidents, which stopped each day to let the charabanc of British travellers on Imperial Airways pass), Sharjah's got history. Loads of it. There are Umm Al Nar tombs, iron age settlements and ancient cities, forts and trade routes that go back - literally - to the dawn of humanity. There's the history of trade, from the lovingly restored (and beautiful) Souq Al Arsah and Heart of Sharjah through to Mahatta, the fort which was built as the Gulf's first airport hotel.

There are sights to see, from Mleiha's world-class visitor centre to the many museums, art galleries and exhibitions. There's loads to do, from dune bashing over fossil rock, chilling out in Khor Fakkan (Sharjah's the only Emirate with coastline on both the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean) through to wandering around the Sharjah Desert Park with its Natural History Museum, Wildlife Centre and Botanical Gardens.

In Sharjah you can buy diamonds, pearls, oud and bukhour, ambergris, musk and antiques, from old stamps and coins from the UAE and wider Middle East through to khanjars and water jars: you can wander perfume souks, spice souks, old souks, new souks and even gold and blue souks. You can take the kids to the aquarium or to play as you enjoy a waterside coffee at Al Qasba, or Al Majaz. Or let them go wild in the rides, swings and waterpark at Montaza.

If you fancy a full-on Friday brunch without having to fight off hooning, red-faced drunks in Paul Smith shirts and Coast dresses, the Radisson Blu does a family one including pool and beach access, so you can snooze it off - and cooks up some of the best Lebanese food you'll find outside Beirut. The Sheraton Sharjah does a glorious afternoon tea for pennies.

So I'll be looking forward to writing about these things and more - because there is, yes, a lot more. It's all rather fun, I must say!

shjSEEN is linked here for your Sharjah browsing pleasure!

Dubai Traffic On The Increase. Whoopee.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The car dealers are rubbing their hands, gleefully cackling and singing 'happy days are here again' in their broken, wheezing voices. As miserable a bunch of avaricious hunchbacks as you'll find, the saggy-skinned troglodytes in suits are hearing the sound of tills ringing and they have pronounced the sound To Be Good.

It is within the pages of the mighty Gulf News today we are told that Dubai has increased new vehicle registrations by 10% year on year. That's presumably a sign that we're seeing a 10% increase in vehicles on the road - a total of 1,240,931 vehicles were registered with the RTA this year. Car dealers in Dubai and Sharjah have apparently told the newspaper of increases in new car sales of up to 40% and anticipate a continued strong growth trend.

Even Gulf News made the connection. That means more cars on the road which means more traffic which means more congestion which means more jostling with aggressive dolts in lines of glittering metal blowing out billowing clouds of choking fumes and general bloody misery.

One place there are less cars to be found than last year, incidentally, is the Sharjah/Dubai highway. Although it still gets gummy here and there, the traffic volumes are undoubtedly down as traffic concentrates instead on choking Al Wahda street because everyone's trying to leave at Al Khan and hoy off over to the 311 (The road formerly known as the Emirates Road but now renamed the Mohammed Bin Zayed Road) to avoid shelling out Dhs4. I am constantly amazed at what lengths people will go to in order to save Dhs4 - including spending Dhs5 in extra petrol.

So Salik (the name of Dubai's traffic toll system and Arabic for 'clear') has lived up to its name. Who knew?

The question is whether the expansion of the UAE's road infrastructure will keep pace with the expansion in traffic. There's a new arterial motorway planned to link the 311 down to Abu Dhabi, while a new road system around the Trade Centre Roundabout - started before the bust and now completed by Italian company Salini, which has somehow managed to ride out the recession and its significant exposure to Dubai - is opening this week. The conversion of the National Paints Car Park into a functional road appears to be nearing completion, too - it'll be interesting to see if any number of new lanes can bring clarity to what was the UAE's most notorious traffic bottleneck.

Meanwhile, property prices in Dubai rose by more than anywhere else in the world, according to a piece in The National, which identifies a 28.5% rise in the first nine months of the year.

Oh, joy. Groundhog day.

Sharjah Cops Nail The Friday Free For All

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A one-month traffic safety awareness campaign has ended in Sharjah with a major drive to stop people dumping their cars in the streets outside mosques for Friday prayers in what is, to many, a quite incredible move.

It's long been traditional for Friday's midday prayer time to be the cue for people to park where they fancied in the street, abandoned cars outside popular mosques often reducing traffic to a single lane or even blocking roads entirely. It's amazing how people would park three or even four cars abreast on the approaches to - and even around - roundabouts. Given Sharjah has a large number of mosques, many located on roundabouts, serving residential neighbourhoods, Friday traffic can get quite random. That the problem has not been more severe has been in part down to the fact that shops and other businesses close between 11.30 and 1.30, so you've got fewer people in the streets in general.

The practice is justified by the fact the person is praying and therefore beyond reproach and has been tolerated for as long as I've been wandering around the Gulf. In Saudi Arabia, you'll often find people pulling up at the side of the road to pray, gaily abandoning their cars while they do so. But Sharjah's Friday street parking, which can reach a quite breathtaking scale, has clearly gone too far for authorities and we were amazed to see police patrols outside mosques, with cops taking numberplates and the usual jams on roundabouts notably absent.

Gulf News reports that over 200 traffic tickets were issued on Friday (a Dhs500 fine and four black points, if you don't mind) and that police distributed traffic awareness leaflets.

The acid test, of course, will be how this is implemented over time. And while it means emergency services and traffic in general won't be impeded by the 'random street parking', I can't help but feel a little sad at the passing of one of the many little quirks that makes living here so, well, interesting...

Sharjah Traffic Survey Masterplan Scheme Thingy Shock Horror

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We're about halfway through Sharjah's traffic survey, a project started in September and slated for completion in November. Traffic counters have been spotted on roundabouts, while we are told that thousands of residents will be surveyed with a number of different methodologies, including being asked questions while we sit in traffic.

Irony alert.

The survey aims to find out what we really want from transport. The answer has already been identified for us as more public transport, but we've got to be asked first.

Now comes the news that controversial consultancy AECOM has bagged a $4 million contract to draw up a 'master plan' for Sharjah's transportation network, to be ready by 2015. Amongst other things, AECOM will work on 'developing a scheme appraisal framework', whatever that is. Apparently the study will also lead to 'fostering modal shift towards public transport and collective modes.'

Which means more public transport, no? It's always nice to see a study of a problem that sets out already having identified the solution. It's so much more comforting that way.

Mind you, it's funny they're going to all this effort when a few hours looking at Nokia's brilliant Here Maps mobile app could tell them what we all know - the traffic overlay shows traffic density at near real-time, with free roads painted green, cloggy roads orange and jams outlined in a neat red. You can watch the morning developing quite nicely on your mobile in the comfort of your stationary car.

All roads east and south are routinely screwed, turning nicely red as the morning develops. The Road Formerly Known As The Emirates Road is a car park from about 6am onwards, stretching from the infamous National Paints (remember that 'it'll be done in April'? Yeah, right) all the way back to the airport road and beyond towards Ajman. The airport road bungs up, too - a combination of traffic leaving for the backed-up TRFKATER and the blinding sunrise on that wee bend before the university conspiring to cause it all to gum up back to Culture Roundabout.

Beirut's totally banjaxed, despite Dubai's sneaky Dhs4 collecting mechanism, while Al Wahda/Ittihad goes the same way (traffic backs up by the Faisal Street and Al Khan turnoffs first) from about 5.30am. Everyone hoys off from about 7am to take their kids to school so all roads East clog up very nicely thank you, with Anjads peeping and flailing at people as they try to smooth the way through key roundabouts of which Sharjah has many (and they're all called squares. Figure.).

The schools area - because zoning all schools together in an area with limited access is a clever idea - becomes a snarling mass of jostling entitlement. The Middle Road gums up from the schools area towards the city and again where it joins the Mileiha Road, because some genius at some time in recent history decided not to put in an intersection at the junction of two relatively new and planned major arterial roads, but instead plonk a chaos-inducing traffic light there instead.

This is all repeated, in reverse, in the evening, with TRFKATER south blocking up while the Northern lane jam stretches back to Mirdiff City Centre. The Middle Road access to TRFKATER then backs up.  Ittihad blocks up back to Garhoud and Nahda through Al Arouba Street just gets chicken oriental from about 4pm onwards. Basically, a lot of very unhappy and frustrated people gather and try to make themselves feel better by upsetting other people.

And it's all getting worse as we move back into mega-project announcing mode.

There we go, job done. No, no thanks necessary. This here matchbox contains your scheme appraisal framework. You just have to remember never to open it or it'll stop working. You can just pop that $4 million in my HSBC account and they'll somehow conspire to lose it or turn it into cat litter or something.

Of Goats...

(Photo credit: heliotropia)

Our neighbour is in the habit of slaughtering goats outside his villa. He's got a killing tree they hang from as he slits their throats then beheads and skins them. I make no complaint, but it can be a tad disconcerting to be popping down to Spinneys and find your gaze caught by the sight of glistening viscera and a pavement swimming with blood as a man in a shalwar kameez hacks away at furry folds.

They were preparing for a feast the other day, a pile of three beheaded carcases awaiting skinning as another was hoisted up. Must be a big family do or something.

It all rather got me thinking about the whole process. My mum remembers killing the pig from when she was a child, Wales in the 1930s, a big family and community occasion. Sarah remembers animals being slaughtered at home - Ireland in the 1970s was a very rural place indeed. Today, of course, we're too squeamish for that kind of thing in the West. The very sight of slaughter is something we cannot bear. We're far too sophisticated to stop and contemplate the fact our food contains, you know, dead stuff.

Sarah came back from school a couple of years ago with the marvellous news she'd told her class of five year-olds McDonalds were made out of cows. The class wouldn't believe her, a torrent of yews and general sick fascination following. These kids have only ever seen chicken on foam trays. They make no connection between a hen and the supermarket shelves.

Imagine - they mince up dead cows to make McDonalds. Lucky she didn't tell 'em what they put in the chicken nuggets, isn't it?

And strangely, in our rush to be 'humane' and escape the appalling sights of death, pumping blood and warm, fatty flesh I think we've become less human. We talk of humane killing and buy our food wrapped in plastic so we never have to become involved in the messy death of our next meal. By being 'humane' I think we seek to exonerate ourselves from the fact we kill to eat - and survive. And yet my neighbour understands his food, has taken the blood, the responsibility, on his own hands. He's a lot closer to life, through the cycle of death that feeds it, than I am picking my nicely prepared and sanitised meat product in a packet from the chiller in Spinneys.

Mind you, the spectacle of a bloody-handed bloke in a shalwar kameez hefting a big pointy knife in the street plays a lot better in Sharjah than it would in Surbiton...

1,000 Things You Can Do With A Masafi Bottle. Number 82...

E(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This piece in today's Gulf News had me chuckling - not because it is inherently funny, but because it reminded me of an event almost twenty years ago.

I should add that the piece relates to Dubai Municipality's latest - and highly laudable - scheme, an eco-friendly insect trap. We've seen a spate of recent stories in the UAE after illegal pest control companies' activities have led to a number of poisonings and Dubai  Municipality's got a point - a Masafi bottle with the top cut off and inverted then filled with some sugary water would, indeed, create an effective, simple and inexpensive insect trap.

But my chucklesome thought was back to the days of yore, when colleague Matt and I first arrived with our respective partners to set up a publishing business in the wilds of Ajman. We spent the first six months living in temporary accommodation, then found ourselves nice spanking new apartments just on the Ajman, Sharjah border in the Al Hamrani Building - at the time, the tallest building in Ajman (at five storeys!).

If there was one fly in the ointment of our contentment, it was that there was no plumbing for a washing machine in our apartments. I elected to pay the plumber who had worked on the building to install such plumbing in our apartment. Matt refused to pay the man's usurious price.

Quite apart from unerringly drilling a hole into one of his own pipes (a truly comic jet of water in eye moment) and running a plastic pipe across the wall at 45 degrees then across the kitchen floor to the overflow, the result of the plumbers labour was at least functional. We hadn't yet learned to shrug and move on when it came to aesthetics, being freshly out of the UK.

Matt's solution was infinitely more ingenious. He merely ran the outflow pipe from the washing machine to the overflow. Perfect. Except that pipe actually has to go above the level of the drum in order for the pump to work. Never daunted, inspired by Heath Robinson, Matt tied the outflow pipe to his iron, perched on top of the machine. Now the pipe was raised above the drum and the pump worked. Except now the pipe was too short to reach the drainage hole in the floor.

Channeling Mr Robinson, his teeth grinding and a wild look in his eye, Matt cut the base off a Masafi bottle, then cut little splines around it, pushing the bottle into the drainage hold in the floor. This allowed the outflow pipe to be jammed in the neck of the Masafi bottle (they were vinyl in those days, none of yer posh PET).

The perfect solution. We went out for a drink to celebrate Matt's undoubted genius. On returning, he discovered that hot water melts vinyl bottles and his apartment was consequently full of warm, soapy water, the only drainage hole being blocked by a melted vinyl bottle.

Which is why that insect trap had me chuckling...

The End Of The Road For Sharjah's Airport Runway?

Al Ittihad Square (Photo credit: kathrin_gaisser)

News continues to come out regarding what appears to be a massive reworking of the centre of Sharjah around the Souq Al Markazi (Blue souk to you), 'Smile You're In Sharjah' roundabout and Ittihad Square areas. Today's Gulf News carries the announcement of a new Sharjah central transport station, which appears to move the existing bus station over Arouba Street to sit adjacent to the King Faisal mosque, making room for the big new junction that's planned. That junction appears as if it will see an end to the cheery 'Smile You're In Sharjah' floral messages that have greeted visitors to the Cultural Emirate for so long - I posted about that here.

But the model illustrating Gulf News' piece on the new transport hub would appear to show another passing - that of the remnants of the old Sharjah airport runway. It's a little known fact, but when you drive past the King Faisal Mosque from Mahatta Fort towards 'Smile You're In Sharjah', the slightly odd, bumpy road surface is in fact not a road surface at all, but the end of the old airport runway. Formerly the site of RAF Sharjah and then Sharjah International Airport until the opening of the new airport on the Dhaid road in 1977, the old Mahatta Fort (retaining the airport's original conning tower) is now an aviation museum - and the the oddly straight street S116 runs down the former runway, which becomes the road surface once you're past the lights by the King Faisal Mosque.

The new road network will replace that piece of street, according to the model in the photo. But thankfully Mahattah itself has been preserved, a fascinating aviation museum that's well worth a weekend visit. If you're quick, you can drive along the old runway, too!

Life In The Sharjah Lane

The above is a little present for any of you in the UK right now, thawing out from last week's cold snap, surrounded by drizzle and grey lumps of hardened snow. It's the view up from my sun lounger at the poolside of the Radisson Sharjah this weekend. No, no, don't thank me. It's fine. All part of the service. You're welcome.

Sarah's working in Dubai at the moment which means we're doing the hop across the border to work - border rats both. We had a quick chat over the weekend (while lying on those sun loungers, natch) about whether we want to move to live in Dubai and the answer remains an emphatic no.

Sharjah's not as 'sophisticated' as Dubai. We don't have organic markets and our smattering of smaller shopping malls lack the glitz and glamour of the World's Greatest Malls. There aren't world class restaurants around every corner or phalanxes of five star hotels lining every street. But that's okay.

There are souks and backstreet stores, little haberdashery shops and stalls selling mad plastic stuff alongside bolts of cloth and hairclips. There are poor stores that sell dried loomi, loofahs and sacks of spices and herbal remedies. There's the cloth souk with its dazzling shop windows interspersed with rickety little tailors' shops, a tiny area of goldsmiths nestled in its core. And, of course, the Blue Souk (or Souk Al Markazi to give its proper name), perfume souk, vegetable souk, animal souk and fish market. These remain distinctively organic places, alive and human rather than planned and polished. There are museums and art galleries.

They're excavating the car park behind the fort in 'Bourj', where you can see the traceries and lines of coral buildings. It looks like the already extensive heritage area is about to get even bigger. It's a lovely area to walk in this time of year. Now they've moved the dhow wharfage to the other side of the creek, I think the 'Irani souk', one of the last surviving (every Emirate had an 'Irani souk' where the dhows would hove to from Iran and sell their wares - the souks became solidified, rather in the way 'speedbump communities' like the Masafi Friday Market do) will dissipate.

We went wandering in the hardware souk. Madness. Most entertaining. It's been a while since we last did that.

Sharjah suits us just fine, thanks...


 

Sharjah Bus Tour Fun

P London bus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sharjah's Investment and Development Authority, Shurooq, has introduced 'Big Bus' style bus tours to the Emirate, the City Sightseeing Sharjah buess.

Which is sort of cool.

Now I can see you snarky Dubai types quipping, "What, one stop, is it?" and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Three double-decker London buses will duly ply their route, stopping at such landmarks (according to Gulf News today) as Al Majaz, Buheira, Al Qasba, the aquarium, the fish market, the restoration area and, bizarrely, Mega Mall.

I first came across Big Bus tours in London, where twenty quid gave you an, all-day, all-sights experience, with plenty buses zooming around so you never really had to wait long for one to come along and whisk you to the next destination. Similarly Paris, where we did the same thing. It's a brilliant way to get around a city. I've never been quite sad enough to take the Big Bus tour of Dubai - nothing against the tour, but I can drive, thanks. Germaine Greer did and used the deep experience and insight it brought her to pen a 1200-word slagging piece in the Guardian about how horrible it all is.

Sharjah's tour buses are priced at Dhs85 for adults and 45 for kids, which is a wee bit hefty, if you don't mind me saying so. And, if Gulf News is to be believed, the buses miss some key destinations, too - what about the archaeological and science museum, book roundabout (and its cultural centre) or the classic car museum, the discovery centre and the children's museum? Let alone the stunning Sharjah desert park, which is home to the natural history museum, the botanical museum and, of course, the desert wildlife park itself, which is an absolute must visit for any tourist or expat living here. Then there's the Mahatta Museum, the site of the old Imperial Airways landing strip in central Sharjah restored to its former glory - and, like many of the restoration areas in Sharjah, beautifully done.

There's actually loads to see and do in Sharjah, folks - for those of you that have never travelled North to The Wastelands. The Sharjah museums website has some great ideas for a family day out and it's linked here.  Take a City Sightseeing bus one Friday while the weather's still nice!

I think it's a great idea.

Where's My Identity Card?

English: Letters in a post office box in a US post office lobby. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I renewed my UAE residence visa last month. Visas used to last for three years, now they last for two. This is apparently to improve the flexibility of the labour market. Sure enough, a new Emirates Identity Card is also part of the fun and games.

Yesterday marked the passing of The Last Great Deadline for applying for an ID card in Dubai. The Emirates Identity Authority, or EIDA, has been issuing dire warnings and waffling about deadlines since the whole thing started back in 2007. Five years later, the card issuing process is finally linked (or at least, operating in parallel) with the visa application process and a deadline has passed without being extended, clarified or otherwise obfuscated.

I had to go to Sharjah's Central Post Office yesterday. I wanted to wait around for fifteen minutes waiting for a listless youth, who had apparently had all the bones removed from his body, to find my registered letter and experience tells me this is the best place to do it. While I was waiting for the aforementioned youth to bother turning up, I noticed a long, shuffling queue which led to a counter labelled "ID Card Collection Counter". Behind this, there were floor to ceiling racks stacked of cardboard mail boxes stuffed with envelopes and two grumpy looking blokes flopping around and grugingly doling out envelopes to supplicants. Because your ID card isn't actually sent to your PO Box, it's sent to the post office where your PO Box is and then handed out individually. There are in fact two queues - the one with no people queuing in it is marked 'Ladies and Locals'. There must have been thousands of envelopes in all.

This dystopian little scene reminded my of my own, as yet undelivered, ID card. It's been nearly a month since the visa was issued and there's been no sign of any ID card. I asked around. A pal with a visa issued last December is still waiting for her ID card. Another who applied in May is set to go for fingerprinting late in July.

Anybody with a less charitable outlook would conclude that the EIDA people are swamped and the whole system is totally backed up trying to manage the tide of last minute applications. If the scenes in the EIDA back office are in any way parallel to the communications side of things, it must be a tottering, Heath-Robinson style system creaking dangerously under the pressure.

I prefer to think of it as a well oiled machine snapping into action. And anyway, I'm in no hurry to join that long, hopeless-looking queue in the post office...

Has anybody out there actually received an ID card recently?

Twinge Sharjah And Reading Olives

Taking place at the Al Maraya Arts Centre at the delightful Al Qasba arts and recreation area in Sharjah, Twinge Sharjah is going to be a hoot. Starting Saturday with a chat, reading and Q&A session with yours truly, the event stretches out all week and will see presentations, performances and displays from fifty artists.

Twinge Sharjah starts at 8pm on Saturday the 25th February and goes on until the 2nd March, with nightly events dedicated to literature, fashion, film, comedy, music and poetry.


It's a remarkable follow-on from the TwingeDXB event where Olives was 'formally' launched - the event perhaps reflects Sharjah's standing in the cultural space and certainly reflects a move forwards in terms of the Twinge format. It's all rather exciting, actually - it's certainly far removed from the UAE I came to and is part of a growing cultural landscape in the country that is actually quite breathtaking.

The full running order is here, over on the UAE Community Blog. It looks like I'm kicking the whole thing off, so no pressure there. Now I've got to select a reading for the event - and it's a horrible job. At TwingeDXB, I read the part of the novel where young Paul Stokes meets Gerald Lynch for the first time. Irish poet Frank Dullaghan read Lynch for me, because although I can do a passable Northern Irish accent for a line or two, I can't keep it up. This time I'm on my own - and I've got to find another scene that represents the book, has a beginning, middle and end and won't send the audience to sleep.I'm sure I'll survive.

Up there with me on the night on Saturday will be authors Abdulla Kassim and Noura Noman. It'll be nice to be part of an event on 'home turf' and I do look forward to seeing you there if you can make it!

(you can follow 'em on @TwingeSHJ)

The Problem With Numbers

Image via WikipediaToday's edition of Dubai tabloid 7Days carries the Sharjah taxi driver's protest as its front page splash under the headline "Take the deal or go home". It's precisely what the cabbies were told by the UAE's Ministry of Labour, which has upheld the right of the five Sharjah taxi companies to unilaterally impose a charge on all drivers of 52 fils ($0.14) for every kilometer they drive. That 7Days gives the story such prominence is highly laudable - particularly as the other newspapers treat it as a minor and unimportant story barely worthy of metion.

Charging a taxi driver paid on a commission-only basis for actually driving is an act of genius, you'd have to admit.

I have posted before at some length about the awful conditions under which these drivers are working - and about the lack of coverage being afforded the whole dispute by the local news media who, while quick to protest their disintermediation with cries of context and analysis, have given us little more than compliance and silence. Gulf News, in particular has chosen to bury the story, something it rather does again today by featuring the dispute as a decoration to the gutter on page 6 under the roaring headline, 'Taxi drivers protest salary deduction'.

Gulf News says that 'More than 100 taxi drivers gathered yesterday morning outside the Ministry of Labour...' which is interesting given 7Days' claim that 'An estimated 2,000 drivers descended on the Ministry's offices in the emirate yesterday'. The National agrees with 7Days' figure of 2,000 protesting drivers, further reporting on the resignations of 600 drivers and police dispersing the crowd with the threat of fines. All rather different to Gulf News' sparse report.

So what is it? More than 100 or some 2,000? Can Gulf News really not tell the difference? Presumably not, as it goes on to report that 'dozens' of drivers have refused to return to work, which is also a slightly different scale to 2,000 protestors, 600 resignations on the spot and previous reports of hundreds of striking drivers.

Khaleej Times also relegates the story to page 6, but gives it more space. It rather conveniently omits any tally of protestors. Those pesky numbers again.

Estimates vary wildly, but of something like 5,000 taxi drivers employed in Sharjah, over the past month the vast majority have been on strike or taken some form of action to protest the new charges, which render their lives here virtually untenable. Many have said they will now cancel their visas and leave - and every driver I have spoken to has expressed an intention to quit as soon as they can. I can quite believe The National's figure of 600 resignations yesterday alone - and that this number was only limited by the Ministry of Labour's ability to manage the flood of resignations.

So there we have it. This is either the largest ever labour dispute in the UAE or its a few dozen cabbies making trouble. What do you think?

Just think. These resignations could even affect demand for new Ford Mondeos...

(I am actually amazed at how much ranting I've done on this subject in the past - it's all linked here if you want to trawl the backstory.)