Queen of the desert

Some Canadians, some Germans, a Namibian, a Kiwi and another Englishwoman and I went on a dune bashing extravaganza in the desert on Friday. That's not even the start of an elaborate joke, we really did do that.

Here are some of the pictures to prove it. Let's start with the one where I helpfully took pictures while some of the rest of the group dug the vehicle of an inexperienced desert driver out of the sand after it got stuck.

 Then we arrived at Fossil Rock, up on the Sharjah border. It's quite a popular spot with dune buggy drivers, quad bikers and local dune bashers who zip around in 4X4s in various states of dilapidation.

Unfortunately I failed to get a close up of the lads in the above picture. They are in a battered four-wheel drive vehicle of some kind, sans numberplate, naturally, and had on traditional Arabic dress and gold rimmed Ray Ban glasses and nonchalantly shouted "Hi, how are you?", when they zoomed past us at a 45 degree angle spraying us with sand.

There's a feeling of cameraderie in the desert. We stopped to tow a Nissan Patrol belonging to a couple of local teens who had also got stuck.  Then, the less experienced desert driver managed to get his pickup wedged on a rock after he took a wrong turn (centre of pic below). He went up the slope, which as you can see is rather steep, and then rolled back on to the rock. Must have been a bit scary.

It was towed out of that particular hole by a much larger Toyota driven by more locals:

Another interesting sight was a desert village. Many were built in places where Bedouin used to camp.

Then we set up camp and ate a barbecue composed of many different meats. The Kiwi was in charge of that, obviously.

And there wasn't much to do but eat large amounts of meat, and sup a few cold ones, admire the view and watch the sun set. 

There was a lot of bandying about of advice about driving in the sand.

Here's some gems:

1. There's the letting your tyres down a bit to spread the load of the car to stop you sinking in. 
2. Drive in a wiggly way if you're following in the tracks of others, again, to avoid sinking in.
3. You should never go in just one vehicle as one might need to tow the other one out, or, if you're really stuck, give the others a lift in case you have to abandon it. 
4. Don't drive on the dunes in the dark because you might end up hitting someone coming the other way. Locals merrily ignored this advice.
5. Go in four-wheel drives. There was a lot of chat about the necessity of having a four-wheel drive and the inferiority or superiority of various makes and models. It was generally agreed that the Japanese makes are better.  Then, as we were leaving and pumping up the tyres before getting back on to the highway, what should fly past but a trio of saloon cars followed by a Toyota Yaris. How I chuckled. 

The biggest, the tallest, the most expensive....

This has proved to be the most popular page on my blog by a long, long way, so, in the spirit of giving the people what they want, I have decided to update it with new records when I hear about them.

If you're new to this particular corner of my blog, its purpose is to document Dubai superlatives, the biggest, the tallest, the most expensive, the widest, the fattest, the tastiest, the whatever. Dubai has them all.

The less kind commentators have said of this tendency to try to win accolades for the biggest and/or best shows that Dubai is an insecure place without culture or class that feels the need to win races and claim titles to draw attention to itself.  I could not possibly comment on that but here are some examples of the biggest/tallest/most expensive/only in Dubai.

1. The world's biggest shopping mall - Dubai Mall.

2. The world's tallest building - Burj Khalifa. This has held all kinds of world's highest records all of its own including world's highest swimming pool (now eclipsed by a Singapore hotel, I believe), world's highest bar/restaurant.

There have been claims that it is home to 3. The world's highest mosque but a story in The National makes a claim to the contrary. There's a can of worms that I'm not going to open as to why the rumour would start in the first place and if it indeed does exist, why it would need to be a secret.

4. World's single largest acrylic panel (certified by Guinness World Records and has a plaque and everything but developed rather alarming cracks and is partially covered by advertising hoarding) the Aquarium, Dubai Mall.

5. World's biggest ring which was displayed at the Gold Souk in Deira. No sniggering at the back.

6. World's most expensive handbag which was on display in Dubai earlier this year. Tasteful.

7. World's most expensive cocktail

8. World's only Seven Star Hotel, although how they measure such things when the ratings officially only go up to five stars, I'm not sure - Burj Al Arab.

Ace garden centre, Festival City, was briefly home to the most glamorous of all the tallest, longest, strongest, fastest records Dubai currently holds:

9. The world's largest garden spade.

Presumably, thanks to Kim Kardashian's recent visit to Dubai (October 2011), we can also claim to have a hand in: 10. The world's most embarrassingly contrived reality TV marriage.  What a claim to fame.

11. Thanks to a reader who reminded me that Dubai is home to the world's world's longest driverless Metro system.

12. The world's largest themed shopping mall in the form of the explorer-themed Ibn Battuta Mall. I must confess I have not visited it yet. I am clearly missing out.

13. The world's most expensive cupcake.

14. The world's biggest book, which has been on display at The Dubai Mall, entitled This is Muhammed. 

15. The world's first indoor black run at Ski Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates. 

16. The world's largest natural flower garden, Miracle Garden, which opened earlier this year.

Please leave a comment on the blog or contact me via facebook, if you are one of my chums, if you hear of any more Dubai records. The more ridiculous the better.

Please don't shout at me, I'm NEW

I was wondering through Dubai Mall the other day and I spotted 'Please don't shout at me, I'm NEW' emblazoned on the back of the shirt of a lady who was walking in front of me. I didn't see which shop she worked at and I'm ashamed to say I chuckled when I saw this before feeling a pang of sympathy for the lady who has to have this pointed out on her shirt to stop her getting the hairdryer treatment.

It speaks volumes about the attitude that some people can have to customer service in Dubai, that people have to be told not to go mental.

Most people will have witnessed some restaurant or shop staff member having an absolute strip torn off them by a customer at some point in their time in Dubai. The wages can be extremely low and seeing some usually comparatively well off person holding forth about some minor issue, threateneing to have them sacked or whatever, is pretty unedifying.

Don't get me wrong, the customer service can be appalling and I've very nearly lost it on a few occasions, mainly in instances when people feel free to waste your time. The main problem I find is that staff will tell you what you think you want to hear: "Ie, is my photo print ready?" "Yes, Ma'am." "Shall I come in today?" "Yes Ma'am" then you arrive to find that it is in fact not ready, come back in three days but the shop worker was afraid of upsetting you by saying no it wasn't. This sounds fairly minor but when it happens again and again in various forms, it can be immensely frustrating. They've dispensed with the problematic customer on the phone for the present and will worry about the problem when you are actually in the store face to face, complaining that your photo is not ready. Hopefully you won't come and pick up your photo for several days by which time it will be ready.  You learn pretty quick that when people say they're going to do something 'today' in Dubai they mean tomorrow or possibly next week.

People do expect much higher standards of customer service in the UAE and they don't always get it for reasons mentioned above, hence shouting in stores and restaurants being fairly routine. I tried to imagine what the lady's shirt would have had printed on it if she worked in a UK store:

"Dear customer, I am new to the store, please be so kind as to be patient while I am learning to be a full member of the team" or some such corporate bumpf rather than the pleading Please don't shout at me.  Answers on a postcard, which will take three months to reach me because the postal service seems to be run by one bloke in an empty warehouse in Jebel Ali.    

In other news, the Khaleej Times is reporting that ex-pats in the Emirates will have to present their Emirates ID card to get their transactions finalised (whatever that should mean) from June 1, 2012 onwards.  Who wants a bet that this will be pushed back?

Conversation curently typical of my every day working life

ARTISTIC PICTURE-FOCUSED GRAPHIC DESIGN-TYPE BLOKE: Sand Witch, this review of the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupé Black Series (that you've never even seen, let alone driven, but never mind that, that's another story) that you've written, it's called the Black Series but in all the pictures you've sent, it's bright red.

ME: Yes, that confused me, too, but I assumed it was just one of those odd car things. Calling the car black when it is in fact red. I know nothing about cars, do you? In normal circs I would ask the PR to make sure we had the correct images but PRs in this country, particularly in the luxury industry, seem to take pleasure in being total numpties who could not find their arses to scratch them, let alone give you correct information. With apologies if you have friends who work in PR.

ADP-FG-TB: I have several friends who work in PR who could talk shite for England. I don't know much about cars. I can't even drive.  Black but red? Weird eh?

ME: *Hysterical laughter*  

Identify yourself

We're an innovative bunch in the UAE and we like to forge ahead with schemes that others have cast aside as a massive waste of money. By which I mean, at a mystical or mythical point in the future, residents of the UAE are going to be required to carry an Emirates ID card. This move has been in the pipeline for years but the deadlines for when it's going to become mandatory to carry one keep being moved back... and back... and back...

I know plenty of people in the Emirate of Dubai aren't bothering to get them because they think by the time the law is brought in making them mandatory, they'll be long gone, on to their next ex-pat assignment in a country, far, far away, or home to the motherland.  People are not super keen on the authorities having yet more documentation on them, including detailed fingerprints. We're a data protection sensitive bunch, us ex-pats, but no such laws exist to protect us in the UAE. 

Him indoors was made to get one by his company, presumably because they're a wee bit government owned so they're a bit stricter about such things.  I decided I may as well get one too because, frankly, I got the fear.  From the middle of last month, in neighbouring Abu Dhabi, they made it mandatory to have at least applied for your ID card if you wanted to renew your visa. I think such is the volume of people still entering Dubai, even post financial crash, it would be a nightmare to require such a thing as the backlogs would be horrendous, but it wouldn't surprise me if something similar came into force here. In addition, in future, Abu Dhabians will present their ID cards to receive medical treatment rather than carrying a separate medical insurance card.  It strikes me that if they make similar moves here, renewing your visa or obtaining medical treatment without the wretched card could be a right pain in the arse, particularly if there's a backlog of applications.

So, we applied for my card last month by filling in a form and taking my passport to a typing centre where they fill in the Arabic documents for you.  Then yesterday I went to the Department of Naturalisation and Residency to get my fingerprints done.  I haven't taken a picture of the department because it's forbidden to take pictures of government buildings but it's an odd looking low rise place on the side of Sheikh Zayed Road which looks a bit like a 1970s idea of a building of the future, ie, it's covered in gleaming silver panels. It's also a bizarre combination of the old and new Dubai.  Inside, there is a Gloria Jean's Coffee, symbolic of how Dubai, like everywhere else in the world, is overtaken by the desire to drink bucket-sized paper cups of sub-standard milk-based caffeine drinks and eat muffins the size of their heads, but outside there are little typing and photocopying centres in shack-like buildings as well as a "cafeteria".  A cafeteria in Dubai is basically a kebab or shwarma shack which also sells soft drinks or juices and various other fried items that can be wrapped up in pitta bread.   

I trooped into the main building looked around for a sign as I was promised by the slightly helpful man I had previously phoned to ask for directions. None to be had. So I asked the policeman sitting at the desk who directed me back out to the overflow building which had sinister signs including "investigative services, blacklisted visas, visa bans" etc.  I went and sat down in the women's only section of said building surrounded by forlorn looking blacklisted women from South Asia or the Philippines who had apparently come to plead their cases. 

It soon became apparent that I was in the wrong place when I asked one of the Emirati officials who had a sign saying "bank" in front of her, presumably because she was the one that collected the money for visa fees, she said: "Go back inside". Did she know where the correct office was? Er, no. Why would she? She only works there after all.

So I went back inside and asked a policeman at a different desk who sent me to the right place, another women only desk.  I took a ticket (they love that here, ticket taking, reminds me of a 1980s UK supermarket).  The woman doing the fingerprinting and photographs ambled off for an extended coffee break straight after I sat down so I looked up at the various widescreen televisions suspended from the ceilings for entertainment.  It's safe to say that the loop video of Sheikh Mohammed being shown round the spanking new Emirates ID facility got old pretty quick.

After the fingerprinting on a clever lasery looking panel thing, I was told I would receive a text message within a month to go and pick the Emirates ID card up from a post office. Which post office? Who knows? Why post office instead of sent directly to me? It's a mystery.  One more of the wonderful mysteries of the Emirates.

So that's why Dubai motorists drive like idiots

I haven't posted for a while because I have been doing the kind of writing that pays money instead. Part of that writing involved driving around in an inappropriately powerful car for a few days.

Here she is: The Infiniti M56S or Maureen as I liked to call her. I have been channeling my inner Clarkson again so while reading this, you can imagine the voice of the curly-haired, tight-jeaned one instead of my dead-pan librarian tones.

Compared to the Humvees, Landcruisers and other ginormous off-roaders that cruise down Dubai's perfectly smooth none SUV-needing highways, this car is actually pretty small fry but compared with my driving experiences of a Nissan Micra, a 15-year-old Vauxhall and 10-year-old VWs it was like being given KITT from Knight Rider.

I drove the Sand Warlock to and from work in the 5.6L engine shiny thing but I spared him the experience of clinging to the door in white-knuckled horror while I floored it on the roads out by the Meydan Racecourse during a little test drive.  The speed limit is 100km/ph and a lot of cars here (including Kevin the Toyota) are fitted with alarms that sound if you go above 120.  In Maureen, there is just a discreet flashing sign which is much less annoying for the discerning Kamikaze female motorist.  

It swoops up to 100km/ph without the slightest effort which brings me to the actual subject of this post.  This car is of similar style and levels of power to many on Dubai's roads and it goes really, really fast without you really noticing because of its stupidly powerful engine and noise reduction technology. Plus, it not only has parking sensors but lane sensors, driving too close sensors, and goodness knows what else.  Little lights flash at you if there's a vehicle in your blind sport and if you attempt to change lanes when there's a vehicle in your blind spot and there's a mechanism (which can be disabled) that will automatically steer you away if you attempt to drive towards said car in your blind spot, something which I am told is a world first.

The point being is that you don't have to blimmin' well know how to drive to drive it, something which seems to be very much the case for Dubai's motorists.  If you have a car that tells you "there's a vehicle in your blind spot so I'm stopping you manoeuvring, you pillock" what's the point of learning mirror, signal, check blind spot, manoeuvre?  And of course, you don't have the roar of a struggling engine to remind you that you've just cut up 15 people as you pulled out of a junction without looking at 90km/ph, so you're much less likely to be concerned by it because you've just left all the swearing, non-hand gesturing (because such things are illegal in the UAE) motorists/dying old ladies and desert animals whom you've cut up or killed in the dust. 

Needless to say, I felt myself turning into a tool as I merrily carved up inferior motors and refused to give way as people tried to overtake.  Him indoors will give testament to the fact that I actually uttered the phrase "I don't think so, b*tch," when someone tried to overtake me on the way to work one day. Oh, the shame. I had a few days to think about it and I started to think that other motorists were giving way more to me and generally showing me more, ahem, "respect" on the road due to my superior wheels.  But afterwards I realised they were doing nothing of the sort. It was just me driving more like a pillock than usual so they felt they had no choice to get out of the way whereas they would normally see me hesitate and cut me up first.

Mystery solved as to one of the many reasons why people drive so very badly in the UAE.  That and mobile phones. You will no doubt have heard the story that road accidents decreased dramatically while Blackberry services were out of action earlier this month.  Being on your mobile phone while driving is technically illegal in the UAE, you know.  I won't get started on the "technicallys" of Dubai again...

You've got a frond

I think I've now recovered enough from our magical mystery tour of Europe, seeing friends relatives and meeting the world's cutest nephew, in order to get back to talking nonsense about the minutaie of life in Dubai.

We've started to regard the fairylight covered palm trees that line the road that leads past Dubai Mall and our home with some fondness.

They're quite symbolic, these palm trees, of what it's like living in a city that thrives on a special showiness that is a cross between Las Vegas and downtown Marrakech (not that I've been to Marrakech, mind).

When we both arrived, me about four months after the Sand Warlock, we both thought, "erm, those are a wee bit naff, aren't they? What with all the fairylights and everything." And then as you get used to them and the slight naffness and the slightly worrying waste of energy involved in keeping them lit 24/7, you start to think, "you know, I think I was a little harsh on the palm trees with fairy lights, in fact, I think all palm trees should be arranged in regimented lines along boulevards and festooned with fairylights. Aren't they pretty?"

Returning from our two and a half weeks in cooler climes, we discovered that the palm trees have gained some friends, or what I can only described as white fronds sticking out of the ground next to them.  In fact, we saw a man fixing them into place the night after we got back.  Closer inspection showed that these fronds are also covered in fairylights, as you can't really see from my somewhat blurry Blackberry pic. 

That's the thing about Dubai that makes me chortle on an almost daily basis.  Someone has obviously looked at those palm trees and thought: "You know what those palm trees that are already covered in fairylights need? Some more fairylights, that's what. Excessive? I simply don't know the meaning of the word, me."  I think that said fairylight covered fronds, which are not lit yet, are there to celebrate something or other, possibly the vintage car event during which they park lots of lovely vintage cars down the boulevard and no one steals them or vandalises them,(strange, I know, but that's what it's like here) or possibly for this year's National Day, on December 2, which is likely to be something of a big deal due to it being the 40th anniversary of the founding of the UAE.

No doubt all will be revealed depending on the date on which the frond lights are switched on but I wouldn't be surprised if they are there to celebrate nothing in particular but just for the hell of it.