It's Nice to be Rich!
Another nice day yesterday. After our diving, we cleaned up our gear and ourselves and had lunch. Surprising how very hungry you get from diving but really tired too. It was about all I could do to fix lunch and stay awake to eat it. My hubby did not. He was taking quick naps from the time we got back to the villa until well into the afternoon. Well, I took a few naps myself. Rained several times yesterday which made it cooler in the villa which was pleasant.
Totally forgot it as Thanksgiving back in the States until we got on line last night and saw everyone talking about it on Facebook. Opps. Hard to remember U.S. holidays when we are overseas as we usually get the host country holidays. So a late Happy Thanksgiving to friends and relatives.
Had a really nice dinner as we went to a different restaurant and I had Mexican Food – Seychelles Intrepretation – which could have been the best "Mexican food" we’ve had overseas. The restaurant was doing a promotional video which we asked not to be in if possible – dang papparazzi, but he did film our food being served so maybe there is a glimpse of us in there.
Then up again this morning to do it all over again. Saw something at breakfast that I couldn’t identify. Looked like it might be a big bird that was wading through the surf halfway out in the middle of the bay – right about where you lose the shallow bits and get into some serious water. Finally got my camera and the long lens to look and it was actually a person. He was wading in a very large circle around the bay. And just as I was looking at him, my hubby goes – “Look, a fruit bat” and I saw him fly past but not quick enough to get a photo. Supposedly there are a lot of them around but he’s the first one we saw.
Back to the dive shop and out on the boat for another couple of dives. There is a large boat anchored in the bay. We did not get close to it yesterday so we asked what it was today
. Remember Sheik Khalifa – as in UAE Sheik, UAE ruler, Burj Khalifa named after him, etc. etc. It was his boat but his boat in that it is just a helicopter pad and a storage facility for two large and fast speedboats. So when the Sheik comes down here, he helicopters to his boat, takes out one of the fast speedboats and away he goes. Then reverse when he comes back. Plus they told us that he has a very, very large house here on top of a hill so there is a view from all diretions. This house has 7m high ceilings on each of the three floors. But when the Sheik comes here, he doesn’t bother to go there but stays in the 4 Seasons Hotel instead. WOW, how nice to be so rich that you can ignore your homes, ignore your toys, pay someone to look after them all the time, and just use them maybe a month out of the year or less. Even winning the lottery wouldn’t make me that rich. I would hope I’d use my money for better things than that.
The first spot was Shark cave or Cove, never sure which one they said. There were several white tipped reef sharks there including one around 6’ long but the others didn’t want to be seen and swam away as soon as we approached. Also a nice turtle who also didn’t like us being there. Also saw a huge hump headed parrotfish. He was probably 3’ across from the top of his fin to his belly. Really, really big fish
. Again, unfortunately, I couldn’t get close enough to get a light onto him so my photos of him are really blue and don’t show his size. Whale sharks come here but our guide said only maybe 5% of the time they are diving on this spot. The 5% was not with us today.
Out of the water and into the boat and on to the next site which was Oscar’s Reef. This was much closer to Sheik Khalifa’s boat and they said when the boat first moored there, it dragged its anchor through the reef several times and several meters, destroying a good part of it. Geez. And UAE is still trying to project and advertise itself as ecology minded.
Down onto the reef and it was really, really lovely. Best dive spot so far. Tons of fish, a turtle, two moray eels, two scorpion fish, lots of sea cucumbers, plenty of soft and hard coral, a pipefish which was quite special because I wasn’t sure what it was and don’t think I’ve seen one in the water before, but also a broken trench through the reef where you can tell an anchor was dragged and also two crown of thorns starfish which are quite destructive to reefs. Still, a very lovely dive and we enjoyed it a lot.
But all things end so back to the shore, stopped at the grocery on the way home, back to the villa, have electricity today so we could wash the dive gear rather than just rinse it. When we walk into the villa we just sort of stop at the door and strip everything off so we do not track sand and such all around. That means a lot of nudity going on in our villa. In our absence, the maid has usually visited the room and opened up all the drapes and windows. So then it’s a race through the villa, in the nude, to pull all the drapes before anyone wanders around outside. We’ve made it each time so far but just by the skin of our teeth a couple of times. Ha ha ha. Won’t our daughter LOVE reading this bit! EWWWWW! And lunch and now for some down time and relaxation. Love this activity in the morning and lazing around in the afternoon.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Dive Day
Dive Day
First day of diving here. We get to the dive shop on time, and get set up with our tanks and weights to dive. We had not planned on using shorty wet suits but everyone else is in one so I get my farmer john and hubby rents a shorty. While we probably would have been fine without them, there were a few thermoclines that were chilly and on the way to the first dive spot, we went through a really hard and chilly rain. It is an international group diving today as there are people from: Switzerland, Spain, UK, USA, Holland, and France but English is known by all. I demonstrate my proficency with languages by thanking everyone in a different language each time. HA.
First dive is at Adam's Apple, a place of granite rocks, some coral, and lots of small reef fish with some clams and a turtle which both my hubby and I missed
. Into the water and I don’t have enough weights. We’ve been given aluminum tanks which have a tendency to become lighter and lighter in weight as you breathe air out of them. So by the end of the dive, on our safety stop, I was like a cork and had to work hard at swimming around at 5 meters to accomplish my safety stop.
On our between dive break or our surface interval, a couple of the people on the boat were looking a bit green. Unfortunately, my hubby was one of them. He popped a dramamine and that helped a bit. I tend to take one before the boat leaves shore, just to be sure. And cookies were passed around which as everyone knows, cookies help everything, always. We move over to a large rock sticking out of the water which our divemasters inform us is for sale. Not really big enough to put a house on it so guess this is not our dream island. It used to have dugongs around it but no more.
Back into the water and we are swimming around more rocks. One of the dive masters waves us over to a large rock with an underhang. Hiding underthere is the largest ray I have ever seen in the wild and possibly even anywhere. This ray is huge, monstrous. He was bigger by far than any of the divers. We swim around to the front of the underhang and the ray is not happy
. He is fluffing up the bottom by waving his sides and stiring up the sand and gravel on the bottom. Visibility drops as he has a lot of bottom floating around him now. But we still don’t really leave so he looks for a hole in our circle and takes it and glides away from the group. He didn’t go far to get under another overhang and we found him again but he seemed to think we couldn’t see him this time so he just circled around a couple of times and settled back on the bottom. That was great. Also saw some lovely little crabs that were hidden deep in the recesses of some small coral heads. Small damselfish and anenome fish were popping in and out of the coral too but could never really get a good photo. There wasn’t much of a current but there was a surge so we were getting swept back and forth over the rocks and around the corals. I couldn’t find anything to grab onto to anchor myself long enough for a photo. Also a lovely sea cucumber that had his mouth open and his little feelers out and was eating. He reared up when I approached as if to warn me away from his good food. Didn’t bother his food but again, the surge swept me back and forth and I couldn’t ever get around to in front of his mouth before the group was gone and I had to swim after them to catch up. What is with this swimming bit??? I’d rather just go sit on the bottom and watch stuff. Good thing I have been practicing my swimming.
Time was over soon enough and we had to surface and I still didn’t have quite enough weight with the dang aluminum tank. More weight tomorrow. Back to the dive shop where the other boat had arrived back before us so we had to wait to get to the dunk tank to wash off our gear. Made arrangements to dive tomorrow morning too, with enough weight. Back to the villa which is so easy to find in the daylight. However now we have no electricity. It did come back on in the afternoon so we will be able to sleep tonight. Nice diving but the Philippines is still my favorite spot.
First day of diving here. We get to the dive shop on time, and get set up with our tanks and weights to dive. We had not planned on using shorty wet suits but everyone else is in one so I get my farmer john and hubby rents a shorty. While we probably would have been fine without them, there were a few thermoclines that were chilly and on the way to the first dive spot, we went through a really hard and chilly rain. It is an international group diving today as there are people from: Switzerland, Spain, UK, USA, Holland, and France but English is known by all. I demonstrate my proficency with languages by thanking everyone in a different language each time. HA.
First dive is at Adam's Apple, a place of granite rocks, some coral, and lots of small reef fish with some clams and a turtle which both my hubby and I missed
On our between dive break or our surface interval, a couple of the people on the boat were looking a bit green. Unfortunately, my hubby was one of them. He popped a dramamine and that helped a bit. I tend to take one before the boat leaves shore, just to be sure. And cookies were passed around which as everyone knows, cookies help everything, always. We move over to a large rock sticking out of the water which our divemasters inform us is for sale. Not really big enough to put a house on it so guess this is not our dream island. It used to have dugongs around it but no more.
Back into the water and we are swimming around more rocks. One of the dive masters waves us over to a large rock with an underhang. Hiding underthere is the largest ray I have ever seen in the wild and possibly even anywhere. This ray is huge, monstrous. He was bigger by far than any of the divers. We swim around to the front of the underhang and the ray is not happy
. He is fluffing up the bottom by waving his sides and stiring up the sand and gravel on the bottom. Visibility drops as he has a lot of bottom floating around him now. But we still don’t really leave so he looks for a hole in our circle and takes it and glides away from the group. He didn’t go far to get under another overhang and we found him again but he seemed to think we couldn’t see him this time so he just circled around a couple of times and settled back on the bottom. That was great. Also saw some lovely little crabs that were hidden deep in the recesses of some small coral heads. Small damselfish and anenome fish were popping in and out of the coral too but could never really get a good photo. There wasn’t much of a current but there was a surge so we were getting swept back and forth over the rocks and around the corals. I couldn’t find anything to grab onto to anchor myself long enough for a photo. Also a lovely sea cucumber that had his mouth open and his little feelers out and was eating. He reared up when I approached as if to warn me away from his good food. Didn’t bother his food but again, the surge swept me back and forth and I couldn’t ever get around to in front of his mouth before the group was gone and I had to swim after them to catch up. What is with this swimming bit??? I’d rather just go sit on the bottom and watch stuff. Good thing I have been practicing my swimming.
Time was over soon enough and we had to surface and I still didn’t have quite enough weight with the dang aluminum tank. More weight tomorrow. Back to the dive shop where the other boat had arrived back before us so we had to wait to get to the dunk tank to wash off our gear. Made arrangements to dive tomorrow morning too, with enough weight. Back to the villa which is so easy to find in the daylight. However now we have no electricity. It did come back on in the afternoon so we will be able to sleep tonight. Nice diving but the Philippines is still my favorite spot.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Lost in Paradise - sort of
Lost in Paradise - kind of
Drove out of the villa last night about 6 p.m. to go get dinner at one of the close restaurants. Were a bit worried when we walked in and were the only guests but she assured us the place would fill up later. Didn’t fill up before we left but maybe had another ½ dozen patrons. Food was Creole and we were listening to a Jamaican - wannabe disc jockey play disco beats - in Creole - on a huge boom box sitting by the cash register but all in all, a nice dinner and a nice evening.
Of course when we left, it was very dark and there aren’t a lot of street lights nor house lights if someone isn’t home. Luckily, there is a huge concrete mixer parked right across from where I need to turn to go to the villa. I might be in trouble if they move that concrete mixer. We drove up the very steep hill, kept on going, looking for our sign that said this is the way to Sailfish. Didn’t find it. When we realized we had gone too far, I was on my way back down a very steep hill which had a wide, wide curve and I used that to turn around in the middle of the road and go back up the steep hill to try and find our villa again. Of course there was a car coming down the hill just as I was finishing my turn but we both managed to make it past each other without dropping off the side of the cliff.
Second try. My hubby thought for sure he had found it and we drove down a very narrow road until it ended. NOPE. He had to get out of the car this time and guide me in the turn around as it was quite narrow and very steep drop off. OK, down to the bottom of the hill and the concrete mixer, turn around in the main road, watch for pedestrians of whom there are surprisingly many walking up the hills in the dark, and then back up the steep hill for another try at finding our villa.
Another narrow road looked like a good possibility. NOPE. Another turn around in a very narrow road trying not to drop off the side and also avoiding people. Well, you can see how this is going. We tried both sides of the road because I thought the villa was on one side and hubby thought it was on another side. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE. Now we started asking people walking up the hill. The first guy sent us to the wrong street and again, hubby had to get out to help me turn the car but there was an old geezer walking up the hill and he stood at the entrance of the street to wait for us to make the turn while he thought about where the villas might be. We had to describe the lady that had brought us to the villas and that seemed to help. He told us to go to the second turn and we’d find it.
Huzzah! Hurrah! Glory! Yippee! He was right. Finally after about 25 minutes of driving up and down this steep road and making impossibly narrow turns and not falling off the cliff once, we pulled onto the drive of our very steep driveway and turned into our villas. I did not try and pull up to the front of our villa this time in the dark. I was pretty sure I could not safely make the steep hill to the villa so we parked below and walked up to our villa where my husband had left the light on for us. What a vacation!!! Good stuff. Ha ha ha.
Drove out of the villa last night about 6 p.m. to go get dinner at one of the close restaurants. Were a bit worried when we walked in and were the only guests but she assured us the place would fill up later. Didn’t fill up before we left but maybe had another ½ dozen patrons. Food was Creole and we were listening to a Jamaican - wannabe disc jockey play disco beats - in Creole - on a huge boom box sitting by the cash register but all in all, a nice dinner and a nice evening.
Of course when we left, it was very dark and there aren’t a lot of street lights nor house lights if someone isn’t home. Luckily, there is a huge concrete mixer parked right across from where I need to turn to go to the villa. I might be in trouble if they move that concrete mixer. We drove up the very steep hill, kept on going, looking for our sign that said this is the way to Sailfish. Didn’t find it. When we realized we had gone too far, I was on my way back down a very steep hill which had a wide, wide curve and I used that to turn around in the middle of the road and go back up the steep hill to try and find our villa again. Of course there was a car coming down the hill just as I was finishing my turn but we both managed to make it past each other without dropping off the side of the cliff.
Second try. My hubby thought for sure he had found it and we drove down a very narrow road until it ended. NOPE. He had to get out of the car this time and guide me in the turn around as it was quite narrow and very steep drop off. OK, down to the bottom of the hill and the concrete mixer, turn around in the main road, watch for pedestrians of whom there are surprisingly many walking up the hills in the dark, and then back up the steep hill for another try at finding our villa.
Another narrow road looked like a good possibility. NOPE. Another turn around in a very narrow road trying not to drop off the side and also avoiding people. Well, you can see how this is going. We tried both sides of the road because I thought the villa was on one side and hubby thought it was on another side. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE. Now we started asking people walking up the hill. The first guy sent us to the wrong street and again, hubby had to get out to help me turn the car but there was an old geezer walking up the hill and he stood at the entrance of the street to wait for us to make the turn while he thought about where the villas might be. We had to describe the lady that had brought us to the villas and that seemed to help. He told us to go to the second turn and we’d find it.
Huzzah! Hurrah! Glory! Yippee! He was right. Finally after about 25 minutes of driving up and down this steep road and making impossibly narrow turns and not falling off the cliff once, we pulled onto the drive of our very steep driveway and turned into our villas. I did not try and pull up to the front of our villa this time in the dark. I was pretty sure I could not safely make the steep hill to the villa so we parked below and walked up to our villa where my husband had left the light on for us. What a vacation!!! Good stuff. Ha ha ha.
First Island in the Bunch
First Island in the Bunch
Oh my gosh. Our flight last night left Dubai at 2:30 a.m. That’s very, very early and of course, it’s hard to try and go to sleep at 7 or 8 and then have to get up at 11 to go to the airport. So of course we didn’t. just stayed up the whole time. Have to say that Emirates Airways has cleaned up their act a lot since I flew them a number of years ago and had nothing but problems from beginning to end. It does help to have business class tickets as they are much more accommodating and I cannot imagine how they are in economy class and just don’t have the desire to find out. Been there, done that. Wasn’t any fun then.
So in the middle of the night, we are sitting in the business class lounge and we can board the airplane from the lounge. That’s really nice. At the proper time, we just walked down the gangway and hopped on the plane and no worries. We were probably asleep by the time the plane lifted off the runway. We had already put in our breakfast order so it was time to get some shut eye. It’s not a very long flight though and seemed like they were waking us for breakfast way too soon and on this end, the food wasn’t great which was a surprise because on the flight over, food had been fantastic. Just shows you never know how airplane food will be. Have had lovely food on very, very cheap flights with very, very cheap airlines and crappy food in first class seats. No way to tell really unless you bring your own chef with you. We haven’t reached that scale yet.
So we arrive on Mahe, the largest island of the Seychelles and the first one of our “bunch”. It is also where the capital, Victoria, is located. I’d say it’s got the largest airport too but can’t verify that. Many of the smaller islands have airports and there are heliports everywhere. The Seychelles have gone from a backwoods tropical sleepy laid back country to a high end resort tourist destination to the point where many of the islands are privately owned and for a fee, you can go there and be welcomed or stay at the private hotel. That’s what a lot of the helicopter pads are for. As I have a hard time justifying well over 500 pounds a night for a hotel, we found a very nice place on Mahe, close to the dive center, that was quite reasonable and had good reviews everywhere I looked. So we are staying at Sailfish Beach Villas. The beach part is visible but I don’t think walkable. Maybe there is a path down but we are up a hill and overlooking a very shallow bay.
I get ahead of myself though. We are through immigration quite fast but he makes sure we have a plane ticket for leaving before he will stamp our passports. Have really never had anyone want to actually see that before. Usually just writing it on the form is enough. Then all of our luggage made it to our destination - always a plus, and we are met outside of customs by the driver who will take us to the villas.
We are quite tired but watching around us as we drive away from the airport. We turn away from the road to Victoria and drive down the coast a bit then up over the mountain spine that runs down the middle of the island. The road is very twisty and turning everywhere and very steep climbing up and over the mountain and down the other side. Our driver is pointing out the grocery stores and restaurants and closest ATM machine as we pass. They have arranged a car to be delivered for us too and it will be needed to go anywhere.
Finally we find out villa which is in the hills, overlooking a nice shallow beach (only swimming during high tide because otherwise you a re just wading) and then we find out it is a self service place. I’m sure I knew this at the time of my booking but that was way back in March and I had forgotten. I’m sure it seemed like a very good idea at the time I made the booking too but this morning, because we were so tired, it was quite an unpleasant surprise. So we have a very nice two bedroom apartment with air conditioning ONLY in the bedrooms, and everything we need for the kitchen and lovely balconies but no food. I think we’ll get breakfast and lunch and then eat out at night. Dang. totally forgot that bit of it. My hubby was somewhat seriously surprised. I probably forgot to tell him.
Our guide gives us the tour of the house, how to operate the gas stove and such, shows us where additional restaurants are located and where to go for beaches and parks and tourist attractions and such and then she’s gone and in a bit our car arrives. It’s a nice little automatic. Was hoping for a manual to do the hills better but we’ll manage. The man who delivers the car finds out we live in the U.K. and he starts asking why we ever gave them independence! Wow, that was a surprise. Not sure of the history yet of the islands but France and Britain must have fought over them for awhile and at the end, just let them go their own way. He seemed to think it was not a good thing and they’d have been much better off to have stayed under the British crown.
A bit more relaxing and then we head off to find the ATM and some groceries. The hills are rather steep so I’m not going very fast even though the speed limit is 40 kph. I’m doing about 20 because the roads have no sides. You hit the edge of the pavement and you fall off into the ocean or into a ravine in many places. They drive like the English here so good thing I am rather proficient at it (except I backed up a steep hill to our parking lot and ran into the wall! DANG. first day! I’m rather proficient at running into walls too)
Anyway, we find the dive shop, we find the ATM, we find the gas station, we find the grocery and get all our errands completed. The groceries around here are small and rather dismal really. It is hard to get anything in small quantities and we only need things for 5 days before we head over to another island. Fresh fruit and veggies seem to be lacking in the market but there are some stands, we just need to find them. And there is a fresh fish market but we might have been too late today to get anything fresh so another day perhaps. One good thing - there seems to be plenty of ice cream at all the stores and plenty of cookies and chips and such like that. I do hope the hotels and restaurants where we choose to dine will have better selections. Many of them will apparently serve Creole food. Always a good thing.
Back at the villa for some scrumptious lunch of PB&J and it was so good that we both had 2 sandwiches apiece. Then some R&R in the hot villa in the afternoon. We get a rather big thunderstorm and rainstorm in the afternoon. This might be one of those places where it rains everyday around 4 or 5 p.m. Good thing we plan to do our diving in the morning.
So soon we will head out to dinner, up the steep driveway, down the steep and winding and narrow road , to one of two restaurants close to the villa and then I think we will hit the A/C in the bedroom and be happy for it. Looking forward to diving tomorrow.
Oh my gosh. Our flight last night left Dubai at 2:30 a.m. That’s very, very early and of course, it’s hard to try and go to sleep at 7 or 8 and then have to get up at 11 to go to the airport. So of course we didn’t. just stayed up the whole time. Have to say that Emirates Airways has cleaned up their act a lot since I flew them a number of years ago and had nothing but problems from beginning to end. It does help to have business class tickets as they are much more accommodating and I cannot imagine how they are in economy class and just don’t have the desire to find out. Been there, done that. Wasn’t any fun then.
So in the middle of the night, we are sitting in the business class lounge and we can board the airplane from the lounge. That’s really nice. At the proper time, we just walked down the gangway and hopped on the plane and no worries. We were probably asleep by the time the plane lifted off the runway. We had already put in our breakfast order so it was time to get some shut eye. It’s not a very long flight though and seemed like they were waking us for breakfast way too soon and on this end, the food wasn’t great which was a surprise because on the flight over, food had been fantastic. Just shows you never know how airplane food will be. Have had lovely food on very, very cheap flights with very, very cheap airlines and crappy food in first class seats. No way to tell really unless you bring your own chef with you. We haven’t reached that scale yet.
So we arrive on Mahe, the largest island of the Seychelles and the first one of our “bunch”. It is also where the capital, Victoria, is located. I’d say it’s got the largest airport too but can’t verify that. Many of the smaller islands have airports and there are heliports everywhere. The Seychelles have gone from a backwoods tropical sleepy laid back country to a high end resort tourist destination to the point where many of the islands are privately owned and for a fee, you can go there and be welcomed or stay at the private hotel. That’s what a lot of the helicopter pads are for. As I have a hard time justifying well over 500 pounds a night for a hotel, we found a very nice place on Mahe, close to the dive center, that was quite reasonable and had good reviews everywhere I looked. So we are staying at Sailfish Beach Villas. The beach part is visible but I don’t think walkable. Maybe there is a path down but we are up a hill and overlooking a very shallow bay.
I get ahead of myself though. We are through immigration quite fast but he makes sure we have a plane ticket for leaving before he will stamp our passports. Have really never had anyone want to actually see that before. Usually just writing it on the form is enough. Then all of our luggage made it to our destination - always a plus, and we are met outside of customs by the driver who will take us to the villas.
We are quite tired but watching around us as we drive away from the airport. We turn away from the road to Victoria and drive down the coast a bit then up over the mountain spine that runs down the middle of the island. The road is very twisty and turning everywhere and very steep climbing up and over the mountain and down the other side. Our driver is pointing out the grocery stores and restaurants and closest ATM machine as we pass. They have arranged a car to be delivered for us too and it will be needed to go anywhere.
Finally we find out villa which is in the hills, overlooking a nice shallow beach (only swimming during high tide because otherwise you a re just wading) and then we find out it is a self service place. I’m sure I knew this at the time of my booking but that was way back in March and I had forgotten. I’m sure it seemed like a very good idea at the time I made the booking too but this morning, because we were so tired, it was quite an unpleasant surprise. So we have a very nice two bedroom apartment with air conditioning ONLY in the bedrooms, and everything we need for the kitchen and lovely balconies but no food. I think we’ll get breakfast and lunch and then eat out at night. Dang. totally forgot that bit of it. My hubby was somewhat seriously surprised. I probably forgot to tell him.
Our guide gives us the tour of the house, how to operate the gas stove and such, shows us where additional restaurants are located and where to go for beaches and parks and tourist attractions and such and then she’s gone and in a bit our car arrives. It’s a nice little automatic. Was hoping for a manual to do the hills better but we’ll manage. The man who delivers the car finds out we live in the U.K. and he starts asking why we ever gave them independence! Wow, that was a surprise. Not sure of the history yet of the islands but France and Britain must have fought over them for awhile and at the end, just let them go their own way. He seemed to think it was not a good thing and they’d have been much better off to have stayed under the British crown.
A bit more relaxing and then we head off to find the ATM and some groceries. The hills are rather steep so I’m not going very fast even though the speed limit is 40 kph. I’m doing about 20 because the roads have no sides. You hit the edge of the pavement and you fall off into the ocean or into a ravine in many places. They drive like the English here so good thing I am rather proficient at it (except I backed up a steep hill to our parking lot and ran into the wall! DANG. first day! I’m rather proficient at running into walls too)
Anyway, we find the dive shop, we find the ATM, we find the gas station, we find the grocery and get all our errands completed. The groceries around here are small and rather dismal really. It is hard to get anything in small quantities and we only need things for 5 days before we head over to another island. Fresh fruit and veggies seem to be lacking in the market but there are some stands, we just need to find them. And there is a fresh fish market but we might have been too late today to get anything fresh so another day perhaps. One good thing - there seems to be plenty of ice cream at all the stores and plenty of cookies and chips and such like that. I do hope the hotels and restaurants where we choose to dine will have better selections. Many of them will apparently serve Creole food. Always a good thing.
Back at the villa for some scrumptious lunch of PB&J and it was so good that we both had 2 sandwiches apiece. Then some R&R in the hot villa in the afternoon. We get a rather big thunderstorm and rainstorm in the afternoon. This might be one of those places where it rains everyday around 4 or 5 p.m. Good thing we plan to do our diving in the morning.
So soon we will head out to dinner, up the steep driveway, down the steep and winding and narrow road , to one of two restaurants close to the villa and then I think we will hit the A/C in the bedroom and be happy for it. Looking forward to diving tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Creek Cruisin'
did not have a lot planned today. Thought we'd just take it easy, head for old Dubai and do some shopping in the original gold souk area and see how much the creek has changed. Dubai creek was once the heartbeat of the city. Anything coming and going into the city came up the creek on the boats and was unloaded on the corniche along the creek. There were water taxis coming and going across the creek all the time because it was really the only way to cross the creek. I figured that things would have changed by now.
So a late start, a taxi ride into old Dubai and then we wandered through the souks. First thing we heard when we got out of the cab was "copy watch, copy bag". Gosh how that took us back. We used to wander Asia and get this all the time, men trying to sell us reproduction watches and high end copied purses and bags
. Hadn't heard it here yet because they can't go into the malls to do this. was kind of fun to hear it again. And as we didn't need a $20 Rolex, we passed them by.
The Gold Souk is enormous and when you think about the quantity of gold that is sitting in all the shop windows between here and all the malls and all the other Middle Eastern countries, and all the Asian countries and India, it is a wonder why gold is so expensive because there is certainly a lot of it. It's almost too much to look at and after awhile you kind of get almost inebriated from looking at all the gold and sparkly stuff. We stepped into a couple of stores and enjoyed talking to the clerks just because they are always from somewhere else. We talked to men from Kandy, Sri Lanka where we have visited and also men from Irkutsk, Russia where we have also visited. They always seem surprised that we've been in such out of the way places.
We finally had enough looking at gold so headed out towards the creek and had to walk upstream quite a bit to find the cargo boats and the water taxis but they are still there. We found a place to cross the creek and a man offered us a one hour tour on the boat so we took that and cruised up and down the creek for an hour, in the sun. Thank goodness it is winter almost and it was only about 75 degrees F. This part of Dubai has been here a very long time as it was the first important city center and also the first place to have sky scrappers and huge buildings and hotels and such. But I think it is like Singapore in that once a building has been up and running for 10-20 years, it is then old and faded in it's glory so we could see a lot of spaces where the buildings are coming down and being replaced. I think the fancy hotel along the creek where I stayed once is in that process.
The boat man dropped us on the other side of the creek and we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. We had to walk through a souk to get there and were offered pashminas and full Arabic dresses and perfume and tea sets and spices as we walked the short block to get to the restaurant. My hubby used to be bothered by the persistence of the salesmen but he's gotten much better at ignoring them.
Lunch was typical Arab food today and we enjoyed sitting under the shade, close to the creek, with a breeze, and having a nice lunch. But afterward, there wasn't much we wanted to do so we went out to a main street to find a taxi. The taxi that picked us up was a taxi from Sharjah and he isn't supposed to do that but he had been around the block and seen us and came back and we were still there so I'm glad he stopped. He didn't have a meter but by now we knew what the price should be so we got back to the hotel and have spent a quiet afternoon relaxing and trying to fight off a cold that is trying hard to sneak up on me - no, it's not sneaking, it's trying to hammer me. Just what I need to head off to the Seychelles tonight for diving. Well, luckily we'll be there long enough that I'm sure I will get in some good dives.
So a late start, a taxi ride into old Dubai and then we wandered through the souks. First thing we heard when we got out of the cab was "copy watch, copy bag". Gosh how that took us back. We used to wander Asia and get this all the time, men trying to sell us reproduction watches and high end copied purses and bags
. Hadn't heard it here yet because they can't go into the malls to do this. was kind of fun to hear it again. And as we didn't need a $20 Rolex, we passed them by.
The Gold Souk is enormous and when you think about the quantity of gold that is sitting in all the shop windows between here and all the malls and all the other Middle Eastern countries, and all the Asian countries and India, it is a wonder why gold is so expensive because there is certainly a lot of it. It's almost too much to look at and after awhile you kind of get almost inebriated from looking at all the gold and sparkly stuff. We stepped into a couple of stores and enjoyed talking to the clerks just because they are always from somewhere else. We talked to men from Kandy, Sri Lanka where we have visited and also men from Irkutsk, Russia where we have also visited. They always seem surprised that we've been in such out of the way places.
We finally had enough looking at gold so headed out towards the creek and had to walk upstream quite a bit to find the cargo boats and the water taxis but they are still there. We found a place to cross the creek and a man offered us a one hour tour on the boat so we took that and cruised up and down the creek for an hour, in the sun. Thank goodness it is winter almost and it was only about 75 degrees F. This part of Dubai has been here a very long time as it was the first important city center and also the first place to have sky scrappers and huge buildings and hotels and such. But I think it is like Singapore in that once a building has been up and running for 10-20 years, it is then old and faded in it's glory so we could see a lot of spaces where the buildings are coming down and being replaced. I think the fancy hotel along the creek where I stayed once is in that process.
The boat man dropped us on the other side of the creek and we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. We had to walk through a souk to get there and were offered pashminas and full Arabic dresses and perfume and tea sets and spices as we walked the short block to get to the restaurant. My hubby used to be bothered by the persistence of the salesmen but he's gotten much better at ignoring them.
Lunch was typical Arab food today and we enjoyed sitting under the shade, close to the creek, with a breeze, and having a nice lunch. But afterward, there wasn't much we wanted to do so we went out to a main street to find a taxi. The taxi that picked us up was a taxi from Sharjah and he isn't supposed to do that but he had been around the block and seen us and came back and we were still there so I'm glad he stopped. He didn't have a meter but by now we knew what the price should be so we got back to the hotel and have spent a quiet afternoon relaxing and trying to fight off a cold that is trying hard to sneak up on me - no, it's not sneaking, it's trying to hammer me. Just what I need to head off to the Seychelles tonight for diving. Well, luckily we'll be there long enough that I'm sure I will get in some good dives.
Monday, November 25, 2013
UAE Factoids???
Not a reporter, not a historical writer, just a write for fun and report opinions and what I see so when I say factoids with a question mark, it means that I have not looked things up in the encyclopedia or even Wikipedia, I'm just telling it like I see it or like someone related to me. Interesting things I think and passing them along for fun.
Dubai uses some 150 million (yes MILLION) gallons of water a day. Approximately 97% (YES 97%) of it is from desalinization meaning they have taken the water from the ocean and boiled it and processed it and basically distilled it to get rid of the salt and minerals. Not an inexpensive process. On my hubby's projects, they allow for 100 gallons of water a day per person for their use for showering, drinking, etc. So Dubai's daily use could possibly cover 150 million people in some circumstances. Imagine that.
Our guide today told us that Abu Dhabi has 1.8 million occupants and Dubai has 3.5 while the total number of people in the country is 8 million. Of the 8 million, only 20% are native. The rest are ex-pats, construction workers, contractors, etc from a wide variety of nationalities. We have seen a lot of Philippinas in stores and as caretakers and a lot of men from various African nations in the hotels plus a lot of Indians and Sri Lankans as drivers. Not sure they even know.
There is construction everywhere. We saw a couple of buildings where we weren't sure if they were going up or coming down. The freeways are all fairly new as is the monorail system. My last visit here was 2009. I didn't recognize a thing. Burj Khalifa was not finished then, no monorail, now satellite sky scrapper cities. I think if we came back in another year or two, we wouldn't recognize anything then either.
there are sky scrapper satellite cities all over the place. It's like having half dozen main "downtown" or "city center" areas. But many of them seem to have a single purpose such as Internet City, Marina City, or whatever they have named it, commerce, banking, whatever. And in each area of specialization and sky scrappers, there are hotels and malls and restaurants galore.
We've seen more Rolls Royce's on the road and in hotel and mall parking lots than we've ever seen elsewhere. Places like Monte Carlo are not playing into the picture here because I wasn't looking at stuff like that when I visited there.
You can buy some antibiotics here over the counter but you can't buy a beer anywhere except in a hotel bar, that we've found yet.
Dubailand is being built which will be bigger than Walt Disney World. And supposedly will have the biggest and scariest roller coaster.
There are about 5 aquariums I think. we've not seen them all. most are in a hotel or a mall.
There are many new mosques under construction. If someone is rich enough, he can build a mosque to help pave his way into heaven. There are a lot of rich people here.
Carrefour, the French grocery store chain, seems to be the grocery store of choice in most of the malls. But there is a heavy presence of British stores as well, Harvey Nichols, Debingham's. Starbucks are everywhere as well as Popeye's Chicken, Tiffany, Crate n Barrel, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme. Each mall that we've been in so far have been almost exactly alike in the stores and name brands and such. Except for the Arabic writing, you could be in a mall anywhere in the world, they are all so similar and alike. And it is quite hard to find things actually made here that are not glitzy, over-the-top, shiny, and very, very pricey.
There will be more factoids later
Dubai uses some 150 million (yes MILLION) gallons of water a day. Approximately 97% (YES 97%) of it is from desalinization meaning they have taken the water from the ocean and boiled it and processed it and basically distilled it to get rid of the salt and minerals. Not an inexpensive process. On my hubby's projects, they allow for 100 gallons of water a day per person for their use for showering, drinking, etc. So Dubai's daily use could possibly cover 150 million people in some circumstances. Imagine that.
Our guide today told us that Abu Dhabi has 1.8 million occupants and Dubai has 3.5 while the total number of people in the country is 8 million. Of the 8 million, only 20% are native. The rest are ex-pats, construction workers, contractors, etc from a wide variety of nationalities. We have seen a lot of Philippinas in stores and as caretakers and a lot of men from various African nations in the hotels plus a lot of Indians and Sri Lankans as drivers. Not sure they even know.
There is construction everywhere. We saw a couple of buildings where we weren't sure if they were going up or coming down. The freeways are all fairly new as is the monorail system. My last visit here was 2009. I didn't recognize a thing. Burj Khalifa was not finished then, no monorail, now satellite sky scrapper cities. I think if we came back in another year or two, we wouldn't recognize anything then either.
there are sky scrapper satellite cities all over the place. It's like having half dozen main "downtown" or "city center" areas. But many of them seem to have a single purpose such as Internet City, Marina City, or whatever they have named it, commerce, banking, whatever. And in each area of specialization and sky scrappers, there are hotels and malls and restaurants galore.
We've seen more Rolls Royce's on the road and in hotel and mall parking lots than we've ever seen elsewhere. Places like Monte Carlo are not playing into the picture here because I wasn't looking at stuff like that when I visited there.
You can buy some antibiotics here over the counter but you can't buy a beer anywhere except in a hotel bar, that we've found yet.
Dubailand is being built which will be bigger than Walt Disney World. And supposedly will have the biggest and scariest roller coaster.
There are about 5 aquariums I think. we've not seen them all. most are in a hotel or a mall.
There are many new mosques under construction. If someone is rich enough, he can build a mosque to help pave his way into heaven. There are a lot of rich people here.
Carrefour, the French grocery store chain, seems to be the grocery store of choice in most of the malls. But there is a heavy presence of British stores as well, Harvey Nichols, Debingham's. Starbucks are everywhere as well as Popeye's Chicken, Tiffany, Crate n Barrel, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme. Each mall that we've been in so far have been almost exactly alike in the stores and name brands and such. Except for the Arabic writing, you could be in a mall anywhere in the world, they are all so similar and alike. And it is quite hard to find things actually made here that are not glitzy, over-the-top, shiny, and very, very pricey.
There will be more factoids later
Hubba Bubba Abu Dhabi
A nice day trip down to Abu Dhabi, the only Emirate that I haven't visited yet so completing my "collection" so to speak. We had thought about renting a car and had planned to use it yesterday to drive to the dive center and then today to drive to Abu Dhabi but really, everyone on the road seems to think they are training to be Formula One drivers so I didn't want to partake of that training. We hired a tour and thought we were going by a bus with other people but we ended up with a car and driver and our own private little tour. OK by me. Imrod (and seriously, I thought he first said his name was Nimrod) picked us up a bit after 8 and away we go. Our itinerary is: Sheik Zayed Mosque, the Emirates Palace Hotel, The Presidential Palace, the Art Institute, a walk on the Corniche, lunch at the Marina Mall, the Heritage Village and finally Yas Island where the Formula One race track is located. Sounds like a full day to me.
As we are driving out of Dubai, we continue to pass the small cities that make up the larger Dubai, stands of skyscrapers sticking up out of the sand like sentinel stands of redwoods all connected apparently by the monorail and the multi-lane highways. And we finally saw a couple of the monorails. So far we have driven beside the tracks for miles and nary a monorail one to see so check that off the list now. yea.
Dubai has a haze hanging over it. We know it is the beginnings of being a very polluted city and if they aren't careful, they'll end up like Beijing on a hot day. We did ask our guide, Imrod, and he stated that it was sea haze. yea, right. We'll cover the energy consumption later but we did pass the power plants and the aluminum plant and both were belching a reddish haze into the sky.
Finally we hit the border between Dubai and Abu Dhabi and the buildings slow down to a minimum and we get some desert scenes again and my hubby and I both take a nap. I think it is a defense mechanism in order not to go crazy scared at the driving . If we sleep, we don't see the near misses and can't tell quite how fast we are going. The speed limit is 140 kph (about 86 mph) and I can hear the "beep, beep, beep" as we hit it. Our driver today though just ignores it and pushes down the accelerator harder. Yes, sleep is definitely a defense mechanism plus we will be all limp and bendy in a crash and able to tumble better. gulp.
Our first stop will be the mosque and oh what a mosque. It is magnificent and just incredible. We are told we have 1/2 hour. I think it takes at least that long to walk up to it and walk through it. I know we were longer than 1/2 hour. so much for timing. We had gotten a phone call last night that informed us that I needed to wear long pants and long sleeves but that an abaya (abbaya - seen it spelled both ways) would be provided if I didn't have on the proper clothes. We are let out at the side and we walk around to the front where my hubby enters through the main door and I am directed to the side where I can get my abaya. We've also been informed that after Dec 1, the mosque will no longer provide abayas for women who are not properly dressed as they had too many being stolen! rather ironic. So if that's true, anyone showing up without a scarf and proper covering will just have to stay outside and that would be a shame because it is so worth going inside . And they let you take photos throughout which is really nice.
The columns appear to be marble and they are each inlaid with stones of varying types to make designs of flowers going up the columns. The place is huge, possibly the biggest mosque I've ever been inside, and the prayer niche inside is covered in gold leaf or gold paint. There are three chandeliers inside with iridescent glass works on them and are beautifully designed like hanging flowers. It was a beautiful place inside. We walked through, following the path set out by the ropes and then back outside and back around to where I relinquished my abaya, not stealing it, and then back to the car. Not sure how anything else in Abu Dhabi can compare with this.
So our next stop is Emirates Palace Hotel. It is also a huge place and magnificently built but hard to photograph. We are trying to get a photo as we drive up to it but we kept getting things in the way and then we are at the front door with "You have 1/2 hour to look around". It's not near as impressive inside as say, the Grand Mosque or Burj Al Arab, but still quite nice. I really wanted a better shot of the outside with it's cascading waterfall from the top of the drive (it is built up on a hill) but not sure we ever got what I wanted. Later we were across a small waterfront area and had a much better of the hotel and also of the Presidential Palace. The Emirates Palace hotel has something like 140 domes on it, from very tiny to the large one over the main part. But the only way to get a good photo is from across the bay.
The Presidential Palace is our next stop, or rather our drive by . We didn't get our invitations in time to go in and meet the President so we just drove up his entryway drive and turned around at the gates so as not to bother the machine gun toting guards. Not supposed to take any photos but of course we snuck in a few as we were driving up to the gate, before we saw the machine gun toting guards. My hubby is getting me to hide the camera just in case. And as huge and magnificent and grand and ornate and rich as this palace looks, it was the current president's father's palace so the current president is building a new palace which will be even more OTT.
We're doing good on time for Imrod and he gives us some extra time at the next stop which is the Art Institute. We were under the impression, for some mysterious and unknown reason, that this was an art gallery which would display art of the area, like a museum might. Well, it certainly displayed art of the area which was all for sale at very inflated prices but wait - of course it's an investment to buy a gold threaded embroidered tree of life with semi-precious stones set it the branches to protect and guard your family and wealth. We had a very oily haired gentlemen following us around and presenting the many "paintings" of embroidered work which were lovely but we finally explained that it just wouldn't fit into our decor as we were "Old Masters and Impressionists" fans . I'm sure he thought we probably had a Monet or two and a Van Gogh at home. He assured us that his work would go with these rather well but we declined and ended up leaving well within our time limits.
Ah, the day just gets better and better. Next stop, the Heritage Village which actually seems to still be under construction but yet is open and had about 8 different school groups there, all of whom were speaking English and all of whom had many horns and whistles (the boys must have all had an allowance to spend). There was a small row of shops with the usual tourist kitsch junk and then a small area with desert tents to show what would have been used before concrete and aluminium and skyscrapers. They had one camel, one horse, and one donkey. At the other end, they had 3 sheep, one bull, and a couple of goats plus some ducks wandering the grounds until they'd get chased under a bush by one of the school groups only to come out later and get chased by a different school group. There was also a small row of traditional craftsmen who had their equipment actually in the shops and were actually making the items for sale in the shops. Woodworking, leather, glass blowing, pottery, boat building, carpet weaving, We finally have made a purchase! We got a nice little blown glass camel Christmas tree ornament. Huzzah!
That took about our entire time limit to go from one end to the other and also to find the toilet area which only had squatties. always my favorite kind - NOT. And on to our next big adventure of the day, a walk on the Corniche. The Corniche is quite an item with all the Middle Eastern countries it seems . I haven't been in one yet that doesn't advertise a walk on the Corniche as quite the thing to do to see and be seen and enjoy the ocean. hmmm. Almost got hit by heat stroke walking the Corniche in Doha, Qatar. And this one turned out to be a stop by the Corniche, not a walk. My hubby's side of the car had the child protection lock on it so he couldn't even get out of the car. I hopped out and dutifully took a couple of photos of the Corniche view and then we are off to the mall for lunch.
Lunch is included in our tour package. Kind of figured we'd go to some nice Arabian type restaurant for some typical food. We park at the Marina Mall, which might be the smallest mall in UAE, and follow our guide, Imrod, into the mall. He leads the way up the escalator and leads us to - wait for it because this was so exciting - a food court!!!! TADA! He says we can pick anything and he will pay for it. wow. such a choice. We ended up with shrimp and fish at Popeye's and they still got the order wrong and we only got one drink. oh my. Then we had 1/2 hour (what is with the 1/2 hour everywhere) to wander the mall before heading out for our last adventure on our day tour of Abu Dhabi.
My hubby thought to check and see what was on at the movies . Looks like pretty much the same things that are on at home but we don't know if the movies are dubbed or subtitled. anyway, no time to go to a movie now anyway. We did have to go by a perfume stand twice that just about knocked us out with the strong smell, almost stench, of the perfume. As we have had to stand upwind of several of our guides and drivers, possibly there is a reason for the overpowering perfume.
We are off for our last visit which is also a drive by. We drive over the bridge to Saadinay (might be spelled wrong) Island which, like Dubai, is a man made island and has been made strickly to provide a place to build more villas and apartments and shops and stores. And it was huge. They (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) have both chosen to dump sand and rocks into the sea and build islands rather than going inland. Yas Island, next to Saadinay, is also man made and is busy building up the villas and places to live. Just think, we could probably get in on the ground floor and buy a villa or two.
Oh what a day. now we are heading back to Dubai and both of us fall asleep as quickly as possible to protect us from the harshness of the speed of our journey . Abu Dhabi is a poor relation of Dubai in terms of skyscrapers and development. But in both Emirates, everywhere you look is more and more construction. I don't see that they will ever stop building things and making more islands and more houses and such until they run out of money and then both places are going to be very ugly indeed with such large needs of water and such huge buildings that are going to end up empty.
We tell Imrod to drop us at the Mall of the Emirates. That is the location of Ski Dubai and we figure it is as much an attraction as some of the other man made things we have gone to see. We walk into the mall and the first 8 or 9 shops we see are English: Harvey Nickels, Debinhams, Zara, TopShop, etc. How funny is that. We are looking to find something nice for my daughter but every jewelry shop we approach is selling items from France, Italy, Turkey, etc. It is rather hard to find something actually made here!
We find Ski Dubai and there are a few people riding the ski lift to the top and then we can barely see them returning down the slope. There is a man doing the penguin encounter show for a small group that is inside the area . They look to have about 5 or 6 Emporer penguins which are walking around in their tuxedos and then are herded back into their pen. There is also a luge ride which looks to be a bit too short and sharp on the turns. The people we saw using it were bumping rather hard around the turns we thought. And also a zorbing on the snow slope in a giant snowball. All looking like good fun.
The mall is looking decidedly sparse though. At the Ski Dubai end, there is a huge entertainment and game section and no one using the games or entertainment at all. And maybe 8 or 10 people riding the ski lifts. The best visited area and area getting the most business was Carrefour with people coming out of there with full carts. Anyway, we walked the entire mall several times and saw almost all of the shops, I am sure. Found a pharmacy where we could buy antibiotics without a prescription so they will be good for some of my trips that are in some odd countries. And then we took a taxi back to our hotel and my hubby sat in the front seat like an old hand at traveling around in these Muslim countries and for his self preservation, he fell asleep. He needed to as we were weaving in and out of traffic like a slalom skier, and at a high rate of speed, and we got the special long way around route too. Oh well. it was a fun and interesting day to see all the contrasts between the two biggest and most prosperous Emirates.
As we are driving out of Dubai, we continue to pass the small cities that make up the larger Dubai, stands of skyscrapers sticking up out of the sand like sentinel stands of redwoods all connected apparently by the monorail and the multi-lane highways. And we finally saw a couple of the monorails. So far we have driven beside the tracks for miles and nary a monorail one to see so check that off the list now. yea.
Dubai has a haze hanging over it. We know it is the beginnings of being a very polluted city and if they aren't careful, they'll end up like Beijing on a hot day. We did ask our guide, Imrod, and he stated that it was sea haze. yea, right. We'll cover the energy consumption later but we did pass the power plants and the aluminum plant and both were belching a reddish haze into the sky.
Finally we hit the border between Dubai and Abu Dhabi and the buildings slow down to a minimum and we get some desert scenes again and my hubby and I both take a nap. I think it is a defense mechanism in order not to go crazy scared at the driving . If we sleep, we don't see the near misses and can't tell quite how fast we are going. The speed limit is 140 kph (about 86 mph) and I can hear the "beep, beep, beep" as we hit it. Our driver today though just ignores it and pushes down the accelerator harder. Yes, sleep is definitely a defense mechanism plus we will be all limp and bendy in a crash and able to tumble better. gulp.
Our first stop will be the mosque and oh what a mosque. It is magnificent and just incredible. We are told we have 1/2 hour. I think it takes at least that long to walk up to it and walk through it. I know we were longer than 1/2 hour. so much for timing. We had gotten a phone call last night that informed us that I needed to wear long pants and long sleeves but that an abaya (abbaya - seen it spelled both ways) would be provided if I didn't have on the proper clothes. We are let out at the side and we walk around to the front where my hubby enters through the main door and I am directed to the side where I can get my abaya. We've also been informed that after Dec 1, the mosque will no longer provide abayas for women who are not properly dressed as they had too many being stolen! rather ironic. So if that's true, anyone showing up without a scarf and proper covering will just have to stay outside and that would be a shame because it is so worth going inside . And they let you take photos throughout which is really nice.
The columns appear to be marble and they are each inlaid with stones of varying types to make designs of flowers going up the columns. The place is huge, possibly the biggest mosque I've ever been inside, and the prayer niche inside is covered in gold leaf or gold paint. There are three chandeliers inside with iridescent glass works on them and are beautifully designed like hanging flowers. It was a beautiful place inside. We walked through, following the path set out by the ropes and then back outside and back around to where I relinquished my abaya, not stealing it, and then back to the car. Not sure how anything else in Abu Dhabi can compare with this.
So our next stop is Emirates Palace Hotel. It is also a huge place and magnificently built but hard to photograph. We are trying to get a photo as we drive up to it but we kept getting things in the way and then we are at the front door with "You have 1/2 hour to look around". It's not near as impressive inside as say, the Grand Mosque or Burj Al Arab, but still quite nice. I really wanted a better shot of the outside with it's cascading waterfall from the top of the drive (it is built up on a hill) but not sure we ever got what I wanted. Later we were across a small waterfront area and had a much better of the hotel and also of the Presidential Palace. The Emirates Palace hotel has something like 140 domes on it, from very tiny to the large one over the main part. But the only way to get a good photo is from across the bay.
The Presidential Palace is our next stop, or rather our drive by . We didn't get our invitations in time to go in and meet the President so we just drove up his entryway drive and turned around at the gates so as not to bother the machine gun toting guards. Not supposed to take any photos but of course we snuck in a few as we were driving up to the gate, before we saw the machine gun toting guards. My hubby is getting me to hide the camera just in case. And as huge and magnificent and grand and ornate and rich as this palace looks, it was the current president's father's palace so the current president is building a new palace which will be even more OTT.
We're doing good on time for Imrod and he gives us some extra time at the next stop which is the Art Institute. We were under the impression, for some mysterious and unknown reason, that this was an art gallery which would display art of the area, like a museum might. Well, it certainly displayed art of the area which was all for sale at very inflated prices but wait - of course it's an investment to buy a gold threaded embroidered tree of life with semi-precious stones set it the branches to protect and guard your family and wealth. We had a very oily haired gentlemen following us around and presenting the many "paintings" of embroidered work which were lovely but we finally explained that it just wouldn't fit into our decor as we were "Old Masters and Impressionists" fans . I'm sure he thought we probably had a Monet or two and a Van Gogh at home. He assured us that his work would go with these rather well but we declined and ended up leaving well within our time limits.
Ah, the day just gets better and better. Next stop, the Heritage Village which actually seems to still be under construction but yet is open and had about 8 different school groups there, all of whom were speaking English and all of whom had many horns and whistles (the boys must have all had an allowance to spend). There was a small row of shops with the usual tourist kitsch junk and then a small area with desert tents to show what would have been used before concrete and aluminium and skyscrapers. They had one camel, one horse, and one donkey. At the other end, they had 3 sheep, one bull, and a couple of goats plus some ducks wandering the grounds until they'd get chased under a bush by one of the school groups only to come out later and get chased by a different school group. There was also a small row of traditional craftsmen who had their equipment actually in the shops and were actually making the items for sale in the shops. Woodworking, leather, glass blowing, pottery, boat building, carpet weaving, We finally have made a purchase! We got a nice little blown glass camel Christmas tree ornament. Huzzah!
That took about our entire time limit to go from one end to the other and also to find the toilet area which only had squatties. always my favorite kind - NOT. And on to our next big adventure of the day, a walk on the Corniche. The Corniche is quite an item with all the Middle Eastern countries it seems . I haven't been in one yet that doesn't advertise a walk on the Corniche as quite the thing to do to see and be seen and enjoy the ocean. hmmm. Almost got hit by heat stroke walking the Corniche in Doha, Qatar. And this one turned out to be a stop by the Corniche, not a walk. My hubby's side of the car had the child protection lock on it so he couldn't even get out of the car. I hopped out and dutifully took a couple of photos of the Corniche view and then we are off to the mall for lunch.
Lunch is included in our tour package. Kind of figured we'd go to some nice Arabian type restaurant for some typical food. We park at the Marina Mall, which might be the smallest mall in UAE, and follow our guide, Imrod, into the mall. He leads the way up the escalator and leads us to - wait for it because this was so exciting - a food court!!!! TADA! He says we can pick anything and he will pay for it. wow. such a choice. We ended up with shrimp and fish at Popeye's and they still got the order wrong and we only got one drink. oh my. Then we had 1/2 hour (what is with the 1/2 hour everywhere) to wander the mall before heading out for our last adventure on our day tour of Abu Dhabi.
My hubby thought to check and see what was on at the movies . Looks like pretty much the same things that are on at home but we don't know if the movies are dubbed or subtitled. anyway, no time to go to a movie now anyway. We did have to go by a perfume stand twice that just about knocked us out with the strong smell, almost stench, of the perfume. As we have had to stand upwind of several of our guides and drivers, possibly there is a reason for the overpowering perfume.
We are off for our last visit which is also a drive by. We drive over the bridge to Saadinay (might be spelled wrong) Island which, like Dubai, is a man made island and has been made strickly to provide a place to build more villas and apartments and shops and stores. And it was huge. They (Dubai and Abu Dhabi) have both chosen to dump sand and rocks into the sea and build islands rather than going inland. Yas Island, next to Saadinay, is also man made and is busy building up the villas and places to live. Just think, we could probably get in on the ground floor and buy a villa or two.
Oh what a day. now we are heading back to Dubai and both of us fall asleep as quickly as possible to protect us from the harshness of the speed of our journey . Abu Dhabi is a poor relation of Dubai in terms of skyscrapers and development. But in both Emirates, everywhere you look is more and more construction. I don't see that they will ever stop building things and making more islands and more houses and such until they run out of money and then both places are going to be very ugly indeed with such large needs of water and such huge buildings that are going to end up empty.
We tell Imrod to drop us at the Mall of the Emirates. That is the location of Ski Dubai and we figure it is as much an attraction as some of the other man made things we have gone to see. We walk into the mall and the first 8 or 9 shops we see are English: Harvey Nickels, Debinhams, Zara, TopShop, etc. How funny is that. We are looking to find something nice for my daughter but every jewelry shop we approach is selling items from France, Italy, Turkey, etc. It is rather hard to find something actually made here!
We find Ski Dubai and there are a few people riding the ski lift to the top and then we can barely see them returning down the slope. There is a man doing the penguin encounter show for a small group that is inside the area . They look to have about 5 or 6 Emporer penguins which are walking around in their tuxedos and then are herded back into their pen. There is also a luge ride which looks to be a bit too short and sharp on the turns. The people we saw using it were bumping rather hard around the turns we thought. And also a zorbing on the snow slope in a giant snowball. All looking like good fun.
The mall is looking decidedly sparse though. At the Ski Dubai end, there is a huge entertainment and game section and no one using the games or entertainment at all. And maybe 8 or 10 people riding the ski lifts. The best visited area and area getting the most business was Carrefour with people coming out of there with full carts. Anyway, we walked the entire mall several times and saw almost all of the shops, I am sure. Found a pharmacy where we could buy antibiotics without a prescription so they will be good for some of my trips that are in some odd countries. And then we took a taxi back to our hotel and my hubby sat in the front seat like an old hand at traveling around in these Muslim countries and for his self preservation, he fell asleep. He needed to as we were weaving in and out of traffic like a slalom skier, and at a high rate of speed, and we got the special long way around route too. Oh well. it was a fun and interesting day to see all the contrasts between the two biggest and most prosperous Emirates.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
6 Hour Drive to Nowhere
Dive Day! WooHoo! going to drive over to Fujairah today, one of the other Emirates, on the east coast, and do some diving. I went over there to dive the last time I was in UAE and it was quite nice enough. We had originally made arrangements to rent a car and I was going to do the drive myself but once we got here and looked at some of the traffic, I thought no way did I want to mix it up in the lanes and so we hired a driver.
Our driver arrived a bit early but we were almost ready to head out so we left the hotel at about 9:15 a.m. We are due at the dive shop at noon. Our driver, Abdul, is from India, even with a name like Abdul. He did speak English but it would take several tries before we could figure out what he was trying to tell us and then usually one of us would catch a word or two and by common sense and context of the conversation, we'd catch on to the meaning of the sentence
. He also speaks Hindi and Arabic but based on the different people to whom he spoke at various times throughout the day, I think it was all coming out of his mouth about the same. Wonder what the interpretation is of Indian sing-song dialect with Arabic words?
He offered to show us things on the drive to Fujairah but we told him we had to be there by noon. So we're off. Getting out of Dubai is like driving the Interstate 10 Highway through Houston. Sometimes there were 12 lanes of traffic, 6 in each direction, and it was still bumper to bumper and going about 60 mph. Not quite sure what the speed limit was but during the entire trip, we kept hearing the 'beep, beep, beep, beep" signal that means you are over the speed limit, then we'd get a step on the brake for a bit and then the speed would go up again until we got "beep, beep, beep". Abdul was big on the "post office method" of driving. When I was just out of high school, I hired on as a letter carrier. I drove my car sitting on the right hand side with my foot across the middle hump to reach the brake and accelerator. It was a stop and start driving. constantly moving just a few feet and then stopping to put letters in the mail box. Accelerate, brake, accelerate, brake, accelerate, brake over and over again. Driving on the highway with this technique drives me crazy
. Luckily for me, I was really sleepy because my loving hubby snored a lot last night and kept me awake. It was fairly easy to drift off in the car.
We drive through Sharjah, one of the Emirates and then into Fujairah but we still have quite a way to go. We stop at the "friday market" even though it's Sunday. The market is a bunch of open faced buildings along the highway with souvenirs, pottery, fruits and vegetables mainly, carpets, clothes, and other stalls. They are now open every day. We briefly walked up and down a tiny bit while Abdul when to check out the toilet facilities. He came running back and said they weren't appropriate for us. Geez. If he could imagine some of the facilities or lack of facilities I've used in the past, he wouldn't have worried. But that meant we had to drive on to a petrol station to stop for the toilet there. And at every stop, Abdul would run off to talk to someone he knew. He must know half the drivers in the country.
All throughout the journey, when I was awake, I'm thinking it is also so totally different than when I was here before. Everything is under construction. There are many fancy villas being constructed along the roads, hugh complexes of holiday homes, linear villages and strip malls all along the way
. There didn't seem to be too many spaces of open desert where something wasn't happening. I am reminded of Singapore during it's great building phase in the 80's and 90's and when they were finished, they looked around and said - "wow, this is impressive, what we have done - but we have plowed under all of our history and heritage!" I fear that UAE is well on it's way to accomplishing the same thing, Dubai having already finished the plowing under for the most part. Will be interesting to see what is left when we head into the "old city" on Tuesday.
Now we are motoring along and Abdul is stopping to see where the Raddison Blu Resort is located. I gave him a map but it must not be good enough plus he says the road is closed because it was flooded a few days ago. With all the stops and the road work, we finally pass the Raddison Blue Resort, make a u-turn and pull up to the Dive Shop at 11:50 a.m. The boat is supposed to leave at noon and we are not the only divers. We can see people walking out the back door as we walk into the front door.
As we are standing there to begin our check in and all, my poor darling hubby looks at me and says, "I'm not going to dive, I'm not feeling well.!" Well, shist and fooey and all that
. I'm not going to go diving without him so we sit to talk and see how bad he feels and if the trip can be salvaged. Unfortunately, we had mixed up the vitamins this morning and he'd taken my group of vitamins which also includes my arthritis pain medication so he was feeling a bit loopy. Wish it still made me feel loopy. oh well. Much better to be safe than sorry and we are very careful divers. If he's not wonderful or I'm not wonderful, we don't go in the water. We stop Abdul from leaving, tell the dive shop lady to release the boat, and discuss what to do instead. I thought we could go to a different Emirate and see the old fish market where the boats come in but either this doesn't happen any more or we couldn't convey it to Abdul.
We shared some dive stories with the lady who was from the Philippines and knows the area there where we dive. Then we put our gear back in the car and climb in for the trip back. We think we have explained to Abdul what we'd like to do on the way back but he is determined to take us to the beach so instead of heading back towards Dubai, he is heading further up the coast. He passes an old mosque and fort and slows briefly but then continues on. We ask where we are heading and he keeps saying something about the beach. We finally put the squash on it and let him know we are not eager to go to the beach so we stop for lunch at a chicken place
. My hubby finally hits the nail on the head - we will pay him what we agreed to pay him for the day and he doesn't have to make sure we are out in the car for the same amount of time. I think that must be what he was worried about. So NOW, after lunch, we head back towards Dubai.
We pass the fort and old mosque and ask him to stop. He has to go to a roundabout and head back to it but he's happy to do that now. We hop out of the car and head towards the mosque. Not expecting to be out and about in public today, we are both wearing shorts. A gentleman at the front office stops me and says if I want to visit the mosque, I am going to need to put on an abbaya - the total black dress covering the entire body, plus a black scarf. I'm game so he gives me one which goes over my body but the sleeves are too skinny to get my hands through the holes so only my fingers are sticking out. The mosque was Bidiya Mosque and is dated about 1446 they think. Abdul kept saying that Mohammed had built it. I'm not an Islam scholar but I think the time line there is faulty. Whenever and whoever built it, it's a small mud mosque that has been refurbished. There were 2 men inside praying so I didn't go in as I don't like to bother anyone in their worship but Abdul came along and went in and told them both that I was coming inside so there I went
. Still, we got to see it and the group that came along after us didn't. We walked up to the small fort overlooking the mosque and it also overlooks the oasis behind it. the fort was built to protect the oasis which was getting water from an aquifer.
And then it is back to Dubai, lickety split, "beep, beep, beep, beep, brake, brake, beep, beep" all the way. We returned in time to hit the rush hour traffic around the Dubai Mall. We drove along the monorail system for awhile and I still haven't seen a monorail.
So things did not go as planned today but we had a nice long ride into the countryside. Saw that many things are changing, except for 4 decorated roundabouts that had the same decorations last time I was here, and got back in plenty of time for some dinner later. we'll wander around in a bit to find a place to eat. And I have clearly marked the vitamin/medicine packs now so there will be no confusion in the future.
Our driver arrived a bit early but we were almost ready to head out so we left the hotel at about 9:15 a.m. We are due at the dive shop at noon. Our driver, Abdul, is from India, even with a name like Abdul. He did speak English but it would take several tries before we could figure out what he was trying to tell us and then usually one of us would catch a word or two and by common sense and context of the conversation, we'd catch on to the meaning of the sentence
. He also speaks Hindi and Arabic but based on the different people to whom he spoke at various times throughout the day, I think it was all coming out of his mouth about the same. Wonder what the interpretation is of Indian sing-song dialect with Arabic words?
He offered to show us things on the drive to Fujairah but we told him we had to be there by noon. So we're off. Getting out of Dubai is like driving the Interstate 10 Highway through Houston. Sometimes there were 12 lanes of traffic, 6 in each direction, and it was still bumper to bumper and going about 60 mph. Not quite sure what the speed limit was but during the entire trip, we kept hearing the 'beep, beep, beep, beep" signal that means you are over the speed limit, then we'd get a step on the brake for a bit and then the speed would go up again until we got "beep, beep, beep". Abdul was big on the "post office method" of driving. When I was just out of high school, I hired on as a letter carrier. I drove my car sitting on the right hand side with my foot across the middle hump to reach the brake and accelerator. It was a stop and start driving. constantly moving just a few feet and then stopping to put letters in the mail box. Accelerate, brake, accelerate, brake, accelerate, brake over and over again. Driving on the highway with this technique drives me crazy
. Luckily for me, I was really sleepy because my loving hubby snored a lot last night and kept me awake. It was fairly easy to drift off in the car.
We drive through Sharjah, one of the Emirates and then into Fujairah but we still have quite a way to go. We stop at the "friday market" even though it's Sunday. The market is a bunch of open faced buildings along the highway with souvenirs, pottery, fruits and vegetables mainly, carpets, clothes, and other stalls. They are now open every day. We briefly walked up and down a tiny bit while Abdul when to check out the toilet facilities. He came running back and said they weren't appropriate for us. Geez. If he could imagine some of the facilities or lack of facilities I've used in the past, he wouldn't have worried. But that meant we had to drive on to a petrol station to stop for the toilet there. And at every stop, Abdul would run off to talk to someone he knew. He must know half the drivers in the country.
All throughout the journey, when I was awake, I'm thinking it is also so totally different than when I was here before. Everything is under construction. There are many fancy villas being constructed along the roads, hugh complexes of holiday homes, linear villages and strip malls all along the way
. There didn't seem to be too many spaces of open desert where something wasn't happening. I am reminded of Singapore during it's great building phase in the 80's and 90's and when they were finished, they looked around and said - "wow, this is impressive, what we have done - but we have plowed under all of our history and heritage!" I fear that UAE is well on it's way to accomplishing the same thing, Dubai having already finished the plowing under for the most part. Will be interesting to see what is left when we head into the "old city" on Tuesday.
Now we are motoring along and Abdul is stopping to see where the Raddison Blu Resort is located. I gave him a map but it must not be good enough plus he says the road is closed because it was flooded a few days ago. With all the stops and the road work, we finally pass the Raddison Blue Resort, make a u-turn and pull up to the Dive Shop at 11:50 a.m. The boat is supposed to leave at noon and we are not the only divers. We can see people walking out the back door as we walk into the front door.
As we are standing there to begin our check in and all, my poor darling hubby looks at me and says, "I'm not going to dive, I'm not feeling well.!" Well, shist and fooey and all that
. I'm not going to go diving without him so we sit to talk and see how bad he feels and if the trip can be salvaged. Unfortunately, we had mixed up the vitamins this morning and he'd taken my group of vitamins which also includes my arthritis pain medication so he was feeling a bit loopy. Wish it still made me feel loopy. oh well. Much better to be safe than sorry and we are very careful divers. If he's not wonderful or I'm not wonderful, we don't go in the water. We stop Abdul from leaving, tell the dive shop lady to release the boat, and discuss what to do instead. I thought we could go to a different Emirate and see the old fish market where the boats come in but either this doesn't happen any more or we couldn't convey it to Abdul.
We shared some dive stories with the lady who was from the Philippines and knows the area there where we dive. Then we put our gear back in the car and climb in for the trip back. We think we have explained to Abdul what we'd like to do on the way back but he is determined to take us to the beach so instead of heading back towards Dubai, he is heading further up the coast. He passes an old mosque and fort and slows briefly but then continues on. We ask where we are heading and he keeps saying something about the beach. We finally put the squash on it and let him know we are not eager to go to the beach so we stop for lunch at a chicken place
. My hubby finally hits the nail on the head - we will pay him what we agreed to pay him for the day and he doesn't have to make sure we are out in the car for the same amount of time. I think that must be what he was worried about. So NOW, after lunch, we head back towards Dubai.
We pass the fort and old mosque and ask him to stop. He has to go to a roundabout and head back to it but he's happy to do that now. We hop out of the car and head towards the mosque. Not expecting to be out and about in public today, we are both wearing shorts. A gentleman at the front office stops me and says if I want to visit the mosque, I am going to need to put on an abbaya - the total black dress covering the entire body, plus a black scarf. I'm game so he gives me one which goes over my body but the sleeves are too skinny to get my hands through the holes so only my fingers are sticking out. The mosque was Bidiya Mosque and is dated about 1446 they think. Abdul kept saying that Mohammed had built it. I'm not an Islam scholar but I think the time line there is faulty. Whenever and whoever built it, it's a small mud mosque that has been refurbished. There were 2 men inside praying so I didn't go in as I don't like to bother anyone in their worship but Abdul came along and went in and told them both that I was coming inside so there I went
. Still, we got to see it and the group that came along after us didn't. We walked up to the small fort overlooking the mosque and it also overlooks the oasis behind it. the fort was built to protect the oasis which was getting water from an aquifer.
And then it is back to Dubai, lickety split, "beep, beep, beep, beep, brake, brake, beep, beep" all the way. We returned in time to hit the rush hour traffic around the Dubai Mall. We drove along the monorail system for awhile and I still haven't seen a monorail.
So things did not go as planned today but we had a nice long ride into the countryside. Saw that many things are changing, except for 4 decorated roundabouts that had the same decorations last time I was here, and got back in plenty of time for some dinner later. we'll wander around in a bit to find a place to eat. And I have clearly marked the vitamin/medicine packs now so there will be no confusion in the future.
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