Independence Day

Image by KhanCan via Flickr

Watching the slow procession of cars honking their way down the Ajman/Sharjah corniche last night was a real treat. We live virtually on the beach and so it was almost as if the parade was put on for our benefit. There were the usual suspects: the guy who'd covered the car in stickers, the balloon lovers and the cars draped in the green, red, white and black UAE flag, strips of flag-coloured cloth hanging from windows, handles and doors. Then there were the loonies, the guy who'd painted his white car with green, red and black patterns and the guys who'd paid for total wrap-around jobs, windows showing the leaders of the UAE or Sheikhs Zayed, Khalifa, Rashid and Mohammed.

Horns tooting, waving crowds of them all driving up and down the corniche for the evening, a blissed-out bunch of happy people celebrating. Earlier in the day, we'd seen an Emirati woman wearing a flag as a sheila which was a first for me.

Given the week's vicissitudes, it was all nice to see.

Do UAE Driving Test Reform Ideas Miss The Mark?

Image via Wikipedia

The National's position on the doorstep of the Federal Government has allowed the newspaper to quickly carve a leadership position in the UAE's news scene - it's been consistently breaking stories that other papers aren't within a mile of, frequently scooping them on important moves being made or studied.

One such story today is the report on reforms being considered to the UAE's driving test regulations. Possible changes being suggested by consultants include requiring Brits, Canadians and Australians to pass a local theoretical and practical test before they can drive here, requiring taxi drivers to have two years' experience of driving in the UAE before they can drive a taxi and also allowing people to learn to drive, if they wish, with an unlicensed but experienced driver rather than being forced to go to a driving school.

Two of these reforms I totally agree with. The third is ridiculous and unworkable.

The moves are being bandied about by UK based consultancy Transport Research Laboratory, which is advising the Ministry of Interior. TRL, previously a UK government entity, was privatised in 1996 and offers counsel and services based around transport and logistics.

The reform idea that tickled me enormously was bringing in the UK practice of allowing people to learn to drive without being forced to go to a licensed instruction. In the UK, it's quite common for people to learn to drive with a family member, perhaps having a couple of 'top up' lessons with an instructor before sitting the test. These days, newly qualified drivers have to wear a green 'L' plate for a year after they qualify, as well, which I do think is a good idea.

The driving schools are obviously up in arms about that one, because they'd lose their easy source of revenue from giving a million (or whatever the mandatory number is this week) lessons to hapless learners. The standard of instruction (Sarah took some top-up lessons here and was horrified) here is often cited as being impossibly low and close to useless. I have certainly seen learner cars driven with incredible incompetence both with one and two occupants.

So I think that one would be interesting - and probably see the pass rate increase exponentially.

The Brits need a license idea, I support purely on the basis of fairness. It's not fair that we don't have to take a test while other nationalities do. If we are as superior and wonderful as we all think we are as drivers, we should breeze it. An alternative would be to widen the 'no license' requirement to any country that had professional standards of driving qualification and a similar road sign system to the UAE, but maybe that's just me being silly.

However, while I have no problem with British nationals being required to take a theoretical and practical test in the UAE, I cannot fathom the reasons that TRL's Britta Lang gave to The National - “The knowledge of local road safety requirements is quite incompetent. Many people don’t know the road signs and are not aware of the safety requirements.”

That's an unsustainable assertion (unless it's based on extensive research of the knowledge of local traffic signs among those newly awarded with their first residence visa, which I doubt) and an odd one, to boot. The traffic signs in the UAE are based on British signs, using the same colour coding and shapes for mandatory, advisory and cautionary signs. I can think of no traffic sign (please do prove me wrong) in use here that wouldn't be instantly recognisable to any Western driver, except perhaps the 'mind the camels' sign, which would require at least a passing knowledge of the shape of a one-humped ungulate.

In fact, in order to comply with local safety requirements, I have had to learn a number of new skills, including pulling over when the Nissan Patrol up my arse flashes and beeps at me, watching out for blind maniacs with a death wish crossing six lanes of motorway without signalling, predicting when taxis are about to stop on a sixpence with no warning because they've spotted a fare and the principle that swapping lanes puts you instantly in the wrong no matter what circumstances cause the collision, including willfully driving into you because 'it's my lane'.

In order to survive as a driver in the Middle East over the past 20 years, I have had to unlearn pretty much every rule of driving taught to me in my home country. I have no problem sitting a test here. I have a huge problem being told it's necessary because I don' t understand the traffic signs and safety requirements.

But the daftest proposal, and one that showed how outside consultants with no experience of the local environment can go impossibly wide of the mark, was that of insisting that taxi drivers should have two years' experience of driving in the UAE before they're taken on.

It's surely obvious to the most idiotic, drooling incompetent that only employing taxi drivers with 24 months' experience of driving in the UAE is a completely unworkable proposal and should never have made it past the unwise contribution the lippy intern made to the first working group discussion. And why you would propose safety legislation for taxi drivers when every misbegotten escapee from Tora Bora, Helmand and Swat is currently bombing around the UAE in bald-tyred, battered deathtraps hefting tons of rock, shit and cement, passes me by entirely.

In fact, the most sensible proposal in the whole article was made by a driving school owner, who presumably hadn't been consulted by the consultants. Ehad Esbaita, general manager of Emirates Driving Compan, suggested that professional drivers should have to undergo a more rigorous course of instruction and certification and that this would have an instant effect on road safety in the UAE.

I thought that one idea alone was worth everything the consultants had to say and more.

U.A.Q. F.U.N. R.I.P.?

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The news that small and perfectly formed Emirate Umm Al Qawain is to close all bars and nightclubs appears to signal a new, more conservative approach.

It seems to be something of a KT 'scoop', BTW.

Long a favourite weekend haunt for the Lebanese community, UAQ had two 'proper' hotels, a couple of improper hooch-holes and a marina and equestrian club. It also sported the 'UAQ Tourist Club', which evolved from a barasti bar and Friday barbecue joint (run by a quite insane-sounding German person with a white hat) to being a fully-fledged beachside leisure and hotel outfit.

I learned to ride at the Equestrian Club back in the '90s - it was part of the UAQ Marina - a 'dry' entertainment venue, but a pleasant enough place to while away a beach-side Friday. The place was run by 'old school' couple Suzie and Peter Wooldridge, Peter was ex-military and had previously been stationed in the UAE apparently. It will be a very long time indeed before I forget Suzie's posh Brit voice booming across the sandy expanse of the riding school, 'Mexicaaan reeeiiinnss Arleygzaaarndar! Meeeexicaan reiins!!!'.

It was a nice little club and the stables were responsible for rescuing a number of horses, including failed yearlings, rodeo horses and even a couple of shell-shocked Lebanese nutters that had survived Israeli bombardments in the civil war. It was always fun to 'draw' one of those in the 'which horse do I get today' sweepstake. You could tell you were getting a nutter because they had white marks around their necks where they had tried to slip their rope halters during the bombardment - it's a little known fact that brown horse hair grows back white over scarring.

(Don't you learn the most marvellous things from this blog now and then, huh?)

My favourite of all was a 21-year old lippizaner called Samir. A contrary old bastard, Samir had been a beginner's school horse for long enough to know every trick in the book about how to plod around the school at his own pace no matter how much you squeezed or hupped. There were only two ways to get him moving: feed him Pepsi before the lesson or give him a smart crack on the arse with the crop. Some days it'd take both. I'd constantly touch him in the wrong places with my clumsy beginner's feet and end up doing involuntary dressage step dances across the school. The real treat when the weather was good was taking off the saddles and riding the horses bareback into the lovely waters of UAQ creek for a post-ride bathe in the warm, salty water.

They had two camels there called Larry and Alexander that they'd trained to do dressage. Funny.

Back then, a great Friday would consist of a ride out followed by a trip up to the Tourist Club, a barbeque lunch and a beer or two, perhaps a schlep out onto the creek on a jetski or one of the Club's boats and then a toddle home.

And then Suzie and Peter had a falling out with 'authority' and left, Peter selling his Porsche for a knock-down 'quick sale' Dhs 10,000 (always regretted not going for that one). Soon after, the land by the riding school was converted into chalets which always had something of a whiff of sulphur about them. Chalets that appeared to serve a 'certain type' of tourism. I shall say no more at the risk of offending the many sensitive and gentle souls amongst my readers.

I suspect the appearance of those chalets was pretty much when the rot started to set in. The KT news that some '25 nightclubs' were to be involved in the March 1st shutdown order came as something of a shock. 25 nightclubs? In lovely, quiet Umm Al Qawain?

The nightclub cleanup's fine by me, but I do hope they'll be leaving the 'old' outlets there - something that the KT story doesn't clarify.

People used to go up there and enjoy themselves quietly, not distressing, upsetting or disturbing anyone as they enjoyed the beaches and the rich marine life of the huge UAQ creek (turtles, marlin and mangroves).

And nobody, certainly, needed to worry about the provenance of the young lady accompanying you... But then I suppose they were more innocent times, no?

Fractal Khasab

Geek snap alert! Amazingly fractal image of the Musandam peninsula, including the remote town of Khasab, taken by NASA...

UAE Government Appoints Spokespeople

Image via Wikipedia

According to a front page story in The National today, the Federal government has moved to introduce a system whereby Federal government Ministries can have official spokespeople empowered to talk on the record to media on behalf of each Ministry and its officials.

The move received what appeared to be a cautious welcome from the UAE Journalists' Association. The new spokespeople would be "The only sources of information according to their roles and responsibilities", The National quotes Najla Al Awar, Secretary General of the Cabinet. However, she goes on to tell the paper, "Information collected through others at the governmental bodies shall not be considered as valid and authorised information."

So while the move would facilitate journalists' access to a responsible spokesperson, it would also appear to limit media to reporting only facts confirmed or released by that responsible spokesperson.

You tell me which is better...

Arabic

In the early days of this silly little blog, I put up a post that was essentially a crib from an experiment in Wiki creation that I was playing around with. ‘Ten Word Arabic’ was picked up by GN and a couple of big American blogs and has consequently turned out to be one of the most popular things I’ve written here in the past year. I’ve long meant to get around to doing a ‘proper’ singular version that doesn’t link out to the Wiki, which can be awfully annoying, and so here it is.

Some people think I’ve wasted 20 years in the Arab World, but I can prove ‘em all wrong. The following is the synthesis of everything insightful and useful I have learned about the Arabic language. Well, almost everything.

Arabic is not an easy language for speakers of the Romance languages. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy. Worse, pretty much everyone speaks English and people are often more keen to use their English than listen to you mangling their language.

The following ten words will allow you to get by, have meaningful sounding conversations and serve you well in any number of situations and scrapes. The investment required to get from this to speaking proper Arabic is so great, and the commensurate rewards so small, that you’ll probably never progress beyond Ten Word Arabic.

1) UGH

Ugh is the most important word in the Arab World. It's also pretty useful further east as well, although I have only personally tried it in Sri Lanka and not the subcontinent.

Ugh is used in Arabic to denote agreement, denial, affirmation, condescension, surprise, pain, acrimony, patrimony and, for advanced users, pleasure at a serendipitous encounter (Eu'gh!).

Note also its close cousin, the Lebanese expression of disgust, surprise, resignation, irritation and wonderment: 'Euft'.

TE Lawrence (Thomas Edward 'Ned' Chapman, AKA TE Lawrence, AKA TE Shaw. He's always fascinated me, has 'little Lawrence'.) once entered the town of Deraa disguised as a Circassian and using only the word 'Ugh' to get by. He was captured and comprehensively buggered, so this just shows the importance of properly practicing 'Ugh'. It is also argued that it shows how daft it is to use an Arabic 'Ugh' when talking to Turks.

2) SHOU

Lebanese/Palestinian (or Lebistinian if you prefer) slang for 'shinoo' which translates as 'what?'. Jordanian slang version is 'Aish'. In Egyptian it's 'Eida'. You start to see why the Arab world is quite as much fun as it is, no?

Belongs with 'hada' which isn't a component of Ten Word Arabic, but which is useful nonetheless and means 'that'.

So shou hada means 'what's that?'

Shou also is used to denote general query, as in 'what's happening, guys?' ('Shou?') or 'What's the stock market looking like this morning?' ('Shou?').

Shou can also be used in place of any query, from 'Why are you in pain?' to 'Where are you going?'

Shou can also be used to comprehensively diss someone. It's a difficult technique that's tied in closely to body language, which is used a lot in the Arab world, but basically you say the 'shou' in a totally dismissive way, turning the head to the left and flicking it in a sideways and downwards direction. This means 'what a heap of shit'.

The only way to respond to this is by using the same gestures but saying 'shou shou'. That outshous the shou. Or, in Arabic, that'll shou 'em.

3) YANI

One of a number of highly important key phrases in Levantine, particularly Lebanese Arabic (So not a Greek chillout musician, that's Yanni).

Yani means 'kind of' and is used frequently, also serving as a replacement for 'somehow', 'umm' and a million other syntactical spacers... It helps to pronounce the 'a' from the back of the throat, because in Arabic it's an 'ain', so written ya3ni in 'MSN Arabic'.

For instance: 'So I say to him, yani, what kind of car is that heap of shit? And he's like, yani, really pissed at me.'

Also used as a response to any given question, meaning 'Oh, you know...' where the amount of aaa in the yani is used to denote a studied indifference.

'Are you still going out with Fadi's sister?'

'Yani'

'She that hot?'

'Yaaaaani'

4) KHALAS

For a two syllable word, Khalas is certainly a complex little critter.

Pronounded khalas, halas, kalas depending on the mood, nationality and context, it means 'enough' but also 'stop' and 'I've had enough of your bullshit, get down to brass tacks or I'll do yer.'

As a term of contempt ('forget it and stop being so utterly stupid'), it can be quite nicely deployed by rolling the 'kh', a sound made at the back of the throat by the bit of the tongue that would be just before the late market if your tongue was the technology adoption lifecycle, and then lengthening the aaaaaaaalaaaaaaaas.

Like much Arabic, the words alone are not enough: it helps to use the hand in a gesture of denial and avert the head. This is also performed in a certain order for maximal impact: hand signal like policeman standing in front of speeding car, say 'Khalas' and avert head. If female, it is best to toss the head.

5) NAAM

Not to be mistaken for neem, which is a type of tree that grows in buddhist temple grounds, 'naam' is Arabic for yes. So is 'aiwa, which does tend to rather complicate things. One thing that is for certain is that 'no' is always 'la'.

Naam = yes

La = no

6) AKID

The importance of the word 'akid' (akeed) in Arabic can not be overstated: it's vital. It means 'for sure' and is the only way to test if someone's serious about a date or a promise or other undertaking.

'You will have the consignment by the 14th, ya habibi.'

'Akid?'

'Inshallah'

This conversation obviously means that you're about to be royally shafted and that the consignment has, in fact, been stolen by Papuan pirates just south of Aceh and the shipping agent knows this but isn't telling you.

7) SALAAM

Arabic for 'wotcha', it actually means 'peace'. The more formal 'Salaam Aleykum' is used for a proper greeting, salaam is used to a familiar or generally mumbled to all present when getting into a lift or arriving within a gathering. The response is 'Aleykum al Salaam'.

It's important because by using it you can be polite. So few people bother with these little pleasantries, but a smile and a little politeness don't half go a long way in the Arab World.

'Tara' is 'ma'salaama'

8) FIE

Fie (pronounced 'fee') is another powerfully multipurpose word. It means 'enough' or 'sufficient' or 'plenty' or 'too much' depending on how it's used. The only certainty is its antonym, 'ma fie' which always means 'none'.

I suppose its most accurate translation would be 'a plentiful sufficiency'.

9) MUSHKILA

Mushkila means 'problem' and, given that you spend half your time here flagging up, dealing with or avoiding problems, then it gets used a lot. So you have 'fie mushkila' (a great big problem with grindy, gnarly teeth and warts and things' or the debased assurance 'mafie mushkila' (no problem. This is ALWAYS, and please don't get me wrong here, ALWAYS not the case).

You'll sometimes hear 'mish mushkila' or 'mu mushkila'. These are dialect and both mean 'mafie mushkila' and so should be ignored.

10) INSHALLAH

Broadcaster and lobbyist Isa Khalil Sabbagh tells the story of the American businessman who was closing a deal in the Middle East and was told the contract would be signed tomorrow, 'inshallah'.

'What's God got to do with this?' asked our man, angrily.

Lots, of course. Because, as a consequence of his comment, his deal never got signed.

Inshallah means 'God willing' and is a phrase fundamental in so many ways to Islamic thought. A thing will occur in the future only if it is the will of God. An expression born of piety, it is also used pragmatically as a universal get out clause and avoids an absolute undertaking.

Avoiding an absolute undertaking is seen as a good thing, at least in part because it cuts down the likelihood that you'll have to be offended by being told 'No'. This concept that the answer 'no' is offensive and should be avoided is quite a simple one, but has been known to drive callow Westerners insane.

Incidentally...

You have now mastered Ten Word Arabic and can hold entire conversations without anyone realising that you are in fact not a native of deepest Arabia.

'Salaam'
'Ugh'
'Mushkila?'
'Fie mushkila'
'Yanni, shou?'
'Shou? Shou? Yanni, shou fie.'
'Akid, akid. Mushkila fie.'

All shake heads and tut a lot. All depart.

Amaze your friends! Stun business contacts! Speak Ten Word Arabic!

Weekend

A while ago I posted up ten things to get you out of the house, which would also do as ideas for when you’ve got visitors. Here’s another ten. So now you’ve got twenty individual things to find out about the Emirates, which really does mean you’ve got no excuse for saying ‘there’s nothing to do today’ or, bless you all, ‘this place hasn’t got any culture’.

Like the last post, this comes with a long post warning. I couldn’t be bothered to split it up and post one a day…

The Gold Souks

This is a bit of a cheat, as I’ve actually got two gold souks in mind. Dubai Gold Souk is inside the bit of Deira by the mouth of the creek, halfway between HSBC in Dubai and the Grand Hyatt in Deira. You can park up anywhere in that area and just walk inside and you’ll get to it: an alternative is to take an abra across to the spice souk abra station from Bastakia, which is always fun. If you do it in the evening, take a turn up the dhow wharfage, too and have a shufti at the amazing mixture of cargoes, boats and crews. Sitting watching life go by and biting into the piping hot, spicy pakoras from the tea shops on the creekside at sunset was an old pleasure from travelling out here in the ‘80s…

Sharjah Gold Souk, the Souk Al Markazi or Blue Souk, is to be found at the edge of the Buheira Lagoon and sits at the end of King Feisal Street as it joins Al Aroubah Street, near to the fish market, the Saudi mosque and Al Ittihad Square. Any cabbie should know at least one of those! A major piece of contemporary Islamic architecture, the Blue Souq is nestled snugly by the insanely optimistic ‘Smile, You’re In Sharjah’ roundabout, so called because it contains that very injunction picked out lovingly, by insane people, in flowers. In fact, we have long referred to this as ‘Smile, you’re insane’ roundabout.

You’ll likely get better shopping out of the Sharjah souk, although the Dubai one is more extensive. The Sharjah one has the added advantage of an ‘antique souk’ on the first floor, although the chances of finding a true antique there are about as remote as those of finding a talking fish. Bargain like your life depended on it: the stallholders are as venial a collection of bashi-bazouks as you’re likely to find in your life.

Sheikh Saeed’s House

Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum was Sheikh Rashid’s father (Sheikh Rashid, arguably the founder of ‘modern’ Dubai and a truly visionary man) and therefore is Sheikh Mohammad’s grandfather. His house has now been restored from its former crumbling state, years of neglect having reduced it in parts almost to rubble. The house itself is a fantastic place to take a wander in the daytime and is also home to a delightful collection of early photography of Dubai as well as a collection of coins and other bits and bobs. It’s well worth the visit and costs pennies to get into. The area around has also been restored as a cultural centre and you can easily give an afternoon wandering around. If you want to hang around for the early evening, you can sit by the creekside, drink mint tea and smoke shisha at Kan Zaman as you watch the dhows and pleasure boats, abras and seagulls whizzing around the busy waterway.

Another option is to accede to the clamorous abra drivers who park up by Sheikh Saeed’s house and accept a tour up and down the creek. Don’t pay ‘em more than Dhs 60, they’re robbers, but do take the tour: it’s great fun and they’ll drop you off at the Spice Souk abra station so you can wander the dhow wharfage at sunset or go into the Gold Souk. Neat, huh?

Another hint: if you’re going to be in this area with guests, start the afternoon off with lunch at the Grand Hyatt’s Al Dawar revolving restaurant, known to us both (unfairly) for many years as the ‘revolting restaurant’. The food’s really good and you get to do an aerial tour of Dubai as you eat and gently revolve 360 degrees in an hour.

You can get to Sheikh Saeed’s house, which is in Shindaga, by driving towards Shindaga tunnel from Bur Dubai and then slinging a right before you get to the tunnel and just after you pass Carrefour or the Al Bustan Flour mill to your right. Or ask a cab to take you to the fruit souk in Bur Dubai and then go left at the lights beyond the fruit souk towards the main souk area.

Bastakia

Established by Iranian traders under British protection in the C19th, Bastakia’s wind towered adobe houses have been restored and are a delight to wander around: particularly as a few have been given over to cafes and art shops. A short walk along the creekside towards Shindaga will take you past the Amiri diwan to Dubai fort, which is a small, but good, museum.

The wind tower, incidentally, so much a symbol of the UAE is an Iranian innovation brought over to the UAE and can best be seen at Ajman Fort Museum, where a working, original wind tower stands. It’s amazingly efficient.

Geeky fact: one of the reasons these houses and forts are made of coral is that they allow air to pass through: in the summer, water was poured on the roof and the family would then sleep under the stars as the evaporation gently cooled them.

Dubai Museum

What a link! Dubai Museum, located at the old Al Fahidi fort in Bur Dubai, sits next to the Amiri Diwan. You get to it by driving down the creekside past the British Consulate (or Saudi Embassy, depending on how you like your directions) or, alternatively, by passing Bur Juman to your left going down bank street and then turning right at the lights. Or take a cab.

The Museum’s small but pretty much perfectly formed: the entrance leads quickly into a courtyard with rooms off it showing video clips and barasti (palm frond) houses showing how people lived in Dubai right up until the 1970s. Then you’re on the way downstairs, past a strangely stuffed and suspended seabird and a wee model of the old settlement of Dubai and into the highly impressive video show of Dubai’s history. From there, it’s a journey through town and desert and then into a display of artefacts from Dubai’s archaeological past and then, almost before you know it, you’re blinking in the sunlight again. If you’ve lived here more than six months and haven’t been, then shame upon you.

Liwa

Finding Liwa’s a doddle: go towards Abu Dhabi and then drive south – you can use the truck road or the ‘regular’ road – and you’ll need a reasonable road map. If you’re going to do Liwa, there are only two sensible options: the Liwa Hotel or camping. If you’re intending to drive on the dunes you’ll need friends, sand shovels, water, tow-ropes and the million other things that serious off-roading demands. I’d buy a copy of the Explorer offroad book – it’s the best of them.

One attraction on the way down is the Emirates National Auto Musuem, the private collection of cars assembled by Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan al Nahyan. The watchman usually lets people in, so don’t be deterred if it looks closed!

So why bother with Liwa? Well, the Liwa Crescent is true, deep desert. The dunes roll out as far as the eye can see, stunning piles of golden, reddish sand that can peak at 200 feet. It’s camel country, herds roam across the sands and the people out here are still close to the land, even if they do tend towards the Landcruiser lifestyle a little more than when Wilf ‘watery boys’ Thesiger used to wander around these parts.

The solitude out there is absolute, the tranquillity of the desert is a delight and at night-time, the deep desert clear skies and glistening stars stretched out above you, totally free of light pollution. There’s nothing like it!

Wadi Warraya

Wadi Warraya is easy to get to these days, signposted off the Dibba-Khor Fakkan road (or, if you’re going the other way, the Khor Fakkan-Dibba road) and reachable by blacktop road. It used to be an 18km wadi drive from the main road and was by far better off for it, too.

It’s the only guaranteed year-round waterfall in the Emirates and is, sadly, covered in graffiti and often filled with rubbish: the inevitable consequence of the road being built up to it. On one occasion we visited to find a gentleman had pitched his tent and installed a generator to drive the lightbulb on a stick he’d placed in front of it. The noise was awful.

Be careful about letting kids splash in the rock pools at Warrayah: there’s often a hidden payload of smashed glass in there. Climb up, though, and bathe in the bowl at the top of the waterfall, where a natural ‘Jacuzzi’ has formed: it’s really nice up there and the whole area’s great for a wander along the wadis and even a picnic!

Fujeirah Fort & Museum

The East Coast makes for a great day out: strike out early and aim for Masafi (the Dhaid, or airport, road out of Sharjah or the 611 out of Dubai should do, slinging a right at the Sajja turnoff – you could also drive towards Hatta and turn left at the Madham roundabout to get to Dhaid but that’s a long haul. Turn left at Masafi to get to Dibba, then right to pass by the JAL Hotel, the Al Aqha Meridien and then the Sandy Beach – an overnight at any one of these hotels would make the day out a neat weekend break. Drive down the coast towards Khor Fakkan, stop at the Bidya Mosque (the wee meringue-shaped white thing on the right under the lookout tower on the hill) for a peek on the way to Sharjah’s Indian Ocean resort town. Bidya is thought to date back to the C15th, which would take it back to the fall of Byzantium – although there is more ancient history on this coast with Dibba the scene of the battle that finally established Islam as the religion of the entire Gulf (and the burial place of 10,000 warriors today) and Bitnah home to a megalithic (that’s 3,000 years old to you, mate) grave site on the ancient trade route that used to snake up the wadi linking Fujeirah to Masafi.

Wadi Warayah is a right hand just before you get to Khor Fakkan (so is Wadi Shis, but that’s another story for another day)

The Oceanic Hotel at Khor Fakkan used to be nice, but we haven’t stayed there in 17 years, so don't take this as an up-to-date recommendation! When you leave Khor Fakkan, you’ll head inland for a bit before rejoining the coast and then you’ll find yourself entering Fujeirah itself.

Carry on along the coastal road until you see the Hilton on your left. There’s a large coffee pot on the roundabout (most roundabouts in Fujeirah are monumental, in fact many are monumentally dysfunctional): sling a right here and you can’t miss the Fujeirah Museum as well as the slightly drab ‘cultural and heritage centre’. The Museum’s nice and worth dropping by for, but not worth the trip to see specifically. If that makes any sense. It’s a short walk or a hop in the car from here to the restored Fujeirah Fort, which is well worth a wander round – particularly if you remember the awful ruin on a hillock that stood there washing away into the ground with every winter rains.

Now you can drive down the coast some more to reach Khor Kalba or drive inland to Masafi and perhaps visit Bitnah or Daftah on the way up. The drive’s amazing, particularly at sunset, when the craggy peaks to your left are silhouetted rather wonderfully.

Khor Kalba

If you decided to drive down to Kalba rather than go up to Masafi, you’re in for a treat: Kalba’s got a nice restored fort (it used to be an Emirate in its own right and an important one, as the backup airstrip for Imperial Airways’ airport at Sharjah was in Kalba), which used to be nothing more, literally, than a depression in the ground. It’s also got a neat seaside which extends out into an extensive mangrove swamp. Conservationists will get irritated here: Kalba’s something of a mess and really could do with more environmental protection measures and perhaps something nice like a visitor centre, but for now it’s open to all and the rubbish tells its own tale. The mangroves are fantastic, buzzing with life includling blue-shelled crabs. On the beach, local fishermen bring up dragnets using ancient, battered Toyota Landcruisers, a massive frothing load of fish the eventual result and then, tragically, a beach scattered with the corpses of sand sharks: edible but not liked by the locals and so of no value to them. They can’t be put back, apparently, as they inevitably die once they’ve been pulled up in the nets and have breathed air.

Go back on the mountain road to Sharjah and get a real treat of a drive scenically – including the mad tunnel through the mountain – and you’ll eventually end up at the infamous National Paints Roundabout on the Emirates Road!

Al Maha

Scrimp and save if you have to. Use your Skywards Miles. Sell a child. A kidney. But just do it.

A club class upgrade to Heathrow = 50,000 miles. A 24-hour summer blissout with food on demand and a luxurious desert chalet with a private pool = 50,000 miles. It’s a no-brainer, surely!

Emirates’ Al Maha Desert Resort is getting arguably a teensy weensy bit old and drab and could do with a minor spruce up. (Oi! I didn’t say change it!) But it’s still Dubai’s most interesting hotel and without doubt stands as the premium resort hotel in the Northern Emirates, no competition. You call ahead when you’re on the Al Ain road (route 66) and there’s a guide waiting to pick you up as you arrive at the holding area (you can’t take your own car in). It’s a quick ride through the dunes on black top to the hotel, passing through the enormous game reserve (something like a third of Dubai’s land area). Once you’re there, ladies in kandouras ply you with towels and fruit cocktails as you’re checked in then it’s a golf cart to your chalet which will feature a massive bath for two, a nice fresh coffee maker, a decanter of sherry (very civilised at sunset on the decking), two chaise longues and a decked area out back graced with its own swimming pool for two. Oh, I should mention it’s definitely not a child friendly place. Yaaayyyy!!!

Room service is included as is any meal you take in the restaurant, so it’s much lounging around followed perhaps by a glass of pop on the dunes after a camel ride or a quick safari with your guide, then freshen up before a drink overlooking the waterhole and dinner in the restaurant: it’s a set menu, but the chef will accommodate pretty much any request, including a Sri-Lankan curry for two if you’re really, really nice to him and give him some notice. It’s a curry to die for, too.

If you’re up to it, there’s falconry in the morning. We’ve never managed the 5.30am wakeup. You’re more likely to find us lolling around in the extensive, excellent (and a tad expensive, but in for a penny...) spa. Incidentally, once you’re checked out, there’s no hurry to get rid of you – the staff always make it a point to ask if you’d like to stay for lunch. Which is a nice touch.

And so, 24 hours after you called from the Al Ain road, you’ll be blissed out, relaxed and filled with strong feelings of love towards your fellow men. I’m not saying that’ll last, I’m saying this is how to get there…

Kissing Tarmac

This has been an interesting week for me, involving much travel to Abu Dhabi. I used to think Abu Dhabi was the pits, a sort of sub-Sharjah, halfway between Dubai and Saudi in every way. Now I have come to appreciate it a little more. People who lived there always told me it was a great place to live, but I never really managed to believe them. It seemed, well, just sort of behind.

It seems like paradise right now. The first thing is, as colleague Mai pointed out, when you get there 'you can see the tarmac' - a prosaic way of pointing out that the roads are not a constant grind of bumper to bumper lane-swapping crawling pace madness.

People want to do business with you: they're not doing you a favour giving you the time of day.

Hotels are flexible and service-oriented, not process driven and hide-bound. Even the absurdly sumptuous, but nevertheless impressive, Emirates Palace.

There are locals. They talk to you. They're pleased to see you, friendly and open.

There's a sudden feeling of 'can do' attitude about the place. Abu Dhabi's changing - and fast.

I swear the driving's improved. I might just have gone mad, though.

On the way back this week, entering Dubai, we passed a poster for the RTA (Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority), congratulating itself on the wonderful achievement it managed on the opening of the Floating Bridge. And I really, I swear, started to wonder if a move wasn't really such a bad idea...

Ten Word Arabic

Please note I've updated this post and made it easier to read here. Cheers!

Some people think I’ve wasted 20 years in the Arab World, but I can prove ‘em all wrong. The following is the synthesis of everything insightful and useful I have learned about the Arabic language. Well, almost everything.

Arabic is not an easy language for speakers of the Romance languages. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy. Worse, pretty much everyone speaks English and people are often more keen to use their English than listen to you mangling their language.

The following ten words will allow you to get by, have meaningful sounding conversations and serve you well in any number of situations and scrapes. The investment required to get from this to speaking proper Arabic is so great, and the commensurate rewards so small, that you’ll probably never progress beyond Ten Word Arabic.

The definitions below link to the Wiki because that’s where I originally put ‘em and I can’t be bothered to move ‘em.

1) Ugh

2) Shou

3) Yani

4) Khalas

5) Naam

6) Akid

7) Salaam

8) Fie

9) Mushkila

10) Inshallah

Amaze your friends! Stun business contacts! Speak Ten Word Arabic!