Monday, January 28th - Dubai

Today we drove from Abu Dhabi to Dubai...the second wealthiest of the seven United Arab Emirates. Each Emirate is ruled by an Emir. They are all related somehow. You may know Dubai from the Burj Al Arab Hotel...seven stars, shaped like a sail. Also, from Palm Island as mentioned before.

Again, this country should be on another planet. Dubai and Abu Dhabi (both are cities in Emirates of the same name) compete with each other for the biggest and best of everything. Dubai currently has the world's tallest building, but is building another at a rate of a floor a week. No one knows for sure how tall it wil be....the top floor will be such that they can add to it to keep the record. Dubai is also home to the largest mall in the middle east.

So. We are in the Mall of the Emirates, minding our own business, watching the skiers at the 400m indoor ski hill when we heard this shreiking and saw this muslim veiled woman running after this Arab guy in the traditional dress. He -was going full steam, lifting his robe to get better speed. Of course, events such as this are rare so the entire mall is running after to see what is going on (similar to cars following fire trucks on PEI). We thought it was a purse snatching, but of course that rarely happens here so it wasn't that. Our local guide said the man was probably her husband and he may have just divorced her on the spot. If a husband says it 3 times it is done. Well she wasn't too impressed and high-tailed it after him..shreiking at the top of her lungs............meanwhile, she has left a toddler and baby in a stroller behind. All the locals don't seem to be too concerned or have left in pursuit to see what was going on. None of the locals who are left seem to be too concerned. Well, I can't have this! So, I go over and say in the best Arabic I can OK, No Problem.

Eventually security come and get the kids and there is still no sign of the wife....well, ex-wife, perhaps.

We then visited the showroom of the aforementioned Palm Island. Wait till you see the brochures! We also visited the construction site. So, since the guys from Abu Dhabi are building this Island to be bigger and better than Palm Island, the guys from Dubai are not going to let this go by so they are now building this place called Atlantis with under water villas with tropical fish outside your living room 'window'. Then there is a developement called "the World" which is a whole bunch of Islands that all come together to look like the globe. Rod Stewart bought the UK Island. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Oman will be a bit of relief to go more 'rural' and reasonable.

Dubai architecture

The world-famous, Burj Al Arab Hotel. Burj is arabic for tower.
The Burj Dubai. Still under construction, already the tallest building in the world.
Local gentleman in Dubai

Sunday, January 27th - Abu Dhabi

I have to admit that I lost my notebook with all my notes and all these countries are starting to run together so my stories might be a bit out of sequence or mixed up, but you get the general idea.

OK. I thought Qatar was crazy.

The Abu Dhabi skyline is completely ridiculous. If Qatar was from a space movie, this one is from another universe. I really can't believe these places exist. This is not the Middle East you are seeing on the news. There is NO crime. NO unemployment. In Abu Dhabi if two people are having a fist fight on the street, the police don't care who started it. Both are deported within 12 hours and not permitted to ever return. That pretty well keeps things under control. Of course you can't drink, partake in drugs etc. Of course, things differ from country to country, even within the seven Emirates. But without exception there is very little crime...next to none. In Abu Dhabi if you are a foreigner and out of work for more than an month, you are asked to leave. Of course, there is work everywhere here. Tourism is really just starting and they are crying for people at the management level or even things like tour guides. The tourism potential in enormous. Locals all have jobs courtesy of the government...or don't work because they are from the ruling family.

Our tour guide for the day was Mohamed. A unique fellow to say the least. He'd be about 25 and was stylin'. He was quite a hoot. He took us to this Island that they are developing to be bigger and better than Palm Island in Dubai.

Here is the Palm Island website.

http://www.palmsales.ca/

The plans are, again...out of this world. I can't quite accept what I am seeing. They are building complete cities within cities. Each country gets more and more 'out of this world'. Sorry to keep saying that, but it is the truth. There is no need to go to Mars or to the future. The future is here!!!!

Mohamad, our guide in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi skyline.

Saturday, January 27th - Qatar

"This is what travel is about. We strain to renew our capacity for wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again."
- Shana Alexander

Today we continued our tour of Qatar.

The Altani tribe are the ruling family with about 3500 family members. Qatari citizens receive a cheque every month from birth. The amount is not wrtten down anywhere so the only way to know how much they receive is to be close to one of the familyand hope they take you into their confidence. Everything, like education is paid by the state, including university - even if they go to an Ivy League school in the U.S. their tuiton, airfare, accomodations etc is paid.

It has been a cold winter here with nighttime temps during December going down to 6 degrees, where eleven would normally be the coldest. They also had a lot of rain. Things have returned to normal now. Summer hits 45 easy with 100% humidity.

The drivers here are completely nuts. There are about 350 deaths here every year for about the same population of Nova Scotia. No one wears a seatbelt and car seats for babies is unheard of. Similar to the other Gulf States, the actual citizens make up only 20% of the population with foreign workers making up the rest.

Inflation is at about 12%. The government just gave all Qataris (not foreigners) a 40% raise. A villa with 3 1/2 baths and four bedrooms is about $8000 US a month!

Last month Qatar hosted the Asian games, second only to size to the summer Olympics. Sport here is very important. The Qatari's steal athletes from other nationalities, give them a passport and then take back the passport after the event or when the athlete's sport life is over...along with a huge cheque. Money can buy absolutley anything here.

The most popular sport at the games was women's volleyball with all the Qatari men sitting in the stands watching the bikini clad players. Quite a difference from their veiled wives. There were 45 counties competing with 10,500 athletes and 39 sports.

Our guide for the day was French. She lives in a local neighbourhood (not a compound) so had lots of interesting stories about life in Qatar. She told the story of the wedding of the heir apparent to the throne, Sheik somebody. No expense is spared. The family flew to Paris to pick out, among other things, table clothes. They had custom made Channel table clothes at $500 each. As it turns out they didnt' like them so had the table clothes made into aprons for the servers.

The men and women (including bride and groom) never mingle on the wedding day. We saw a bedouin tent being sent up in the desert for an upcoming wedding with persian carpets etc. Most weddings are arranged.. There is no ceremony per se, it's all done on paper beforehand. Everyone arrives in their Toyota Land Cruisers (with the plastic still on the seats!!) and park helter skelter. It's quite a sight as you can imagine.

Then we visited the camel race track. Well. You have never seen anything like this in your life. They stil use some jockeys. They used to use children, but that wasn't cool as the area opened up to the west so now they use robots on the camel backs about the size of a small backpack. I'll try to upload a picture later. Then....wait for this....the owners drive around another oval outside the track....in their Toyota Land Cruisers with the remote control for the robot. It's out of this world. They are probably talking on their cell phone at the same time.

You really can't imagine the wealth here. Qatar is going nuts building. You have to remember that 25 years ago there was nothing here....NOTHING, except a village or some tents. The skyline looks like something from a space movie. I'll post some pictures of the architecture later. There are cranes everwhere. If they don't like a buillding they demolish it. There was one ten story hotel that was 5 years old and they wanted the land for a larger development so the Sheik who wanted the land for his development talked to his cousin the Sheik who owned the hotel and he agreed to pay him the equivalent of 30 year, full occupancy at the the rack rate. They had a deal!

License plates are issued in sequence...so the royal family has the low numbers with the ruling Sheik with #1. Some guy offered hime $300 million for his plate for the right to be #1. The Sheik kindly said...no thanks.

Tonight we flew to the Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest of the seven United Arab Emirates.

PHOTOS OF QATAR:

Sample of architecture in Qatar.

Falcons at the Souk.

This is the robot that sits on the camels during races. These have replaced child jockeys due to public outcry, mainly from the West. It's about the size of a small backpack.

Camel trainer at the track.

Typical Qatari dress for men. I think these were camel owners watching their camels practice.

Qatari kids learning to skate in a mall in Doha, Qatar. Canadians play here every Friday against local teams. Canadians usually win!

Setting up for a wedding. Notice the large, beautiful carpets. Men and women have separate tents. Later in the evening there will be many, many Toyota Land Cruisers parked helter-skelter.

Zig Zag building.

With the Sheik's gold medal winning horse from the Asian Games, held in Doha, Qatar.

Training swimming pool at the equestrian club (for the horses!).

Spices and such at the souk.