The end is nigh

Well it's almost time to leave the Sandlands. Unfortunately the global recession has finally caught up with me and I am, together with the bulk of my colleagues, back in the Job Center queue. I have no regrets about coming out here, it's been a great experience.

The job market in the UK seems pretty dire right now so I've decided to use the recession as an opportunity to take some time out and do some travelling.

I start off with a visit to South Africa to catch up with family and friends and then I'm heading to South East Asia.

I'm going to try and keep a journal of my travels at http://journals.worldnomads.com/alistair/. I hope it will be a bit more successful than this blog.

It's been a while

Recently a number of people have asked me what has happened to my blog. I must admit I was quite surprised that people were still following it. I suppose I've been here for six months now, what was a big adventure has become a way of life and therefore goes undocumented. Anyway, here goes with a long overdue post:

Rugby 7's

The Dubai Rugby 7's were held in November. They have built a purpose built stadium about 30km outside Dubai in the middle of the desert for it. I think it's just to keet the drunken expats as far out of town as possible. It's a great party. A complete sell out and a two day binge in the sunshine. The World Cup Sevens are being held in a couple of weeks, lets hope for the same atmosphere. On the first day I bought myself a Scotland top to wear, only to discover that Scotland are absolutely hopeless at 7's. The next day I went out and bought myself a South African top. The main competition was eventually won by South Africa, so a good result for me.


It wasn't all about rugby. Here's a picture of my mate Gordon helping to create a DHL banger daisy chain which went right around the stadium:







Festive season



December was a month filled with public and work holidays. Just the sort of month that I like. Unfortunately the Sheik cancelled New Year celebrations on New Years Eve in sympathy with the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. In the end most indoor parties went ahead and only the outdoor festivities and fireworks were stopped. As it turned out there was a heavy fog that came down in the evening and stayed around all night so the fireworks would have been wasted in any case.

Credit crunch

I'd initially come to the Middle East thinking that it would be a pretty good place to ride out the recession that was starting to affect the UK. As it turns out, it's got here too. The timeframe has been incredible. In six months we have gone from a massive recruitment drive, to recruitment freeze and now sadly a number of lay-offs.

Thunderstorms


This may be the middle of the desert, but when it rains, it can pour. In January we had a massive thunderstorm. Because there is little road drainage, or the drains that are there are filled with sand, flooding is quite common. The road outside my apartment was about a half a metre under water. Cars were driving in it all the same. I saw a mini push a bow wave completely over a taxi coming in the opposite direction. Here are some pictures of the Burj Dubai taking a few lightning hits:







It this the worlds tallest lightning conductor?




Worlds most expensive beer?

Dubai is home to the worlds biggest of plenty of things, but recently I paid 45 Dhirams for a pint (500ml) of Stella Artois (that's 8.63 GBP; 125.59 ZAR or 12.25 USD). Is that the worlds most expensive beer? That's the same as it costs to fill my tank with petrol! I'd dread to know what they charge for a beer at The Burj Al Arab, our local 7 star hotel.

Some excellent photo's of Dubai and the UAE

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/dubai_and_the_uae.html

Settling in just fine

I'm now a fully fledged resident of Dubai. I'm in a reasonably well established area, where the grass has roots and the palms and trees are established unlike much of the city that is a bit of a building site. The area around me is still a bit chaotic with major roadworks at all exits from the suburb, but at least there seems to be some progress being made. The most annoying part of my drive to work now is the constant beeping of the 120 km/hr speed warning in my hire car once I'm past the roadworks. It takes me about an hour to commute 70 km, whereas it used to take over an hour to commute 20 km when I stayed in Sharjah.

I recently visited the newly opened Atlantis Hotel and Water Park, http://www.atlantisthepalm.com/ situated on the tip of Palm Jumeirah. What a place. The attention to detail is incredible. The glass and water sculpture in the main entrance is staggering and the aquarium fantastic. The aquarium has one glass window that must measure 8m x 8m. It seems to be about 300mm thick at the bottom tapering towards the top, there are three panels joined virtually invisibly. It is incredibly clear and has no distortion. The tank holds thousands of fish of many spiecies, I'm just amazed that they can all live together without being eaten.

The water park is great fun too, the water is in fact cooled to make it more pleasant. There are brilliant rides and slides and a circular wave ride with rapids. I still can't quite figure out how it all works, there seem to be more downhills that uphills and yet it all links up somehow. Perhaps the design was based on an Esher work. It's been built by Sol Kerzner, so those of you who've been to the Lost City and Sun City will know what to expect.

I loved the ride through the shark pool. OK the sharks are a lot smaller than they show in the promotional material, but it's great to float inside an aquarium with fish all around you.

I chickened out of the "Leap of Faith" virtial slide though.

The temperature now is quite pleasant. The middle of summer was a bit of a strain, but now I am starting to understand why people may want to come here on holiday.

I was out at the pub with friend on Thursday night (that's the start of the weekend here) and it was mobbed. It was a great outdoor bar on the beachfront on about 3 different levels and hundreds (probably thousands) of expats enjoying the milder outdoor weather. One of my friends made the observation that "this is a country where beer is expesive and petrol is cheap (but doesn't taste as good)". That's quite true, I can fill my car with pertrol for about the same price as two beers in a high end pub. Petrol is about a seventh of the cost of what I was paying for petrol in the UK, and beer probably costs double. If you buy your beer or whisky from one of the bootleg bottle shops in the neighbouring emirates, it's significantly cheaper than buying from a supermarket in the UK.

It's just like the Wild West

I've finally found myself an apartment in Dubai, so my time as a resident of Sharjah is finally coming to an end. :)

Which brings me to to todays topic. I've had it up to here [indicates the top of baldy patch on head] with Dubai Landlords and Estate Agents. I've been looking at properties for about a month and have walked away from three potential deals so far.

Agent / Landlord No 1:
I'd found a reasonable apartment for rent in Dubai Marina which was OK. I arranged to go to the estate agents office to pay the deposit and sign the contract. Firstly the agent told me that the office was near such-and-such, so I parked about half a km away and walked to the location in sweltering heat and found no such building. I phoned the agent and discovered that it was another half a km away in the opposite direction.

Eventually I arrived at the office and can't find he agency name on the board, or on the door. I go in and there is an office with desks and a few people, but little to suggest that this is an estate agency apart from a few random brochures scattered around. I was a little concerned about handing over significant quantities of cash to this motley crew and asked to see a letterhead or busness card...nothing. I then asked to see the contract and discovered that they had written in an illegal clause placing future unspecified maintenance costs on the tennant. I walked out.

Agent / Landlord No. 2
I found a really nice apartment, in a nice block, in a nice area and I was quite excited about it. It was stretching my budget to the maximum, but I decided that it was worth it. While driving to meet the agent (after nearly an hours drive), five minutes before parking the car the agent phoned to tell me that the landlord now wanted an extra 5000 dirhams (nearly a thousand pounds). I said that wasn't on and was about to head back to the office, but the agent persuaded me to meet. When I explained that I was unable to pay the entire years rental up front, but could probably manage two cheques, the rent went up another 5000 dirhams. The landlord also tried to impose a one year non-renewable contract so that he wouldn't be bound by the Dubai 2 year rental increase prohibition laws. I walked out again.

Agent / Landlord No. 3
I went to see another apartment that I liked it was advertised for one amount, however the rent increased by 5000 dirhams while I was viewing. I liked the apartment, but decided again on principal, to walk away from that.


Agent / Landlord No. 4
Finally I found a smaller apartment in the same block as the second apartment and my agent actually negotiated a reduced rent because of the aprtment size. Whoohoo, there are some good people out there afterall. Thanks Carolyn!

Anyway I move tomorrow into an unfurnished apartment. It has a fridge, so the beer will be cold, but nothing else. I'm thinking of buying the camping equipment that I'll need for camping in the desert in the winter and just camp in my apartment for a few days.

The prices of renting property have gone through the roof. I cannot believe that it's sustainable. Housing allowances don't cover rentals any more (at least not in my line of work). I pay double the rent for a small one bedroomed apartment in Dubai as I'm receiveing in rent for a 3 bedrromed house in Scotland. I am also expected to pay a full years rental up front. It's absolute madness. The new property being built here is mostly aimed at the upper end of the market, I have no idea who it is who's buying or renting them.

The people who need accomodation are the expat workers building Dubai. When the building is largely done and the expats leave, who's going to live here. I think it's a pyramid scheme on a massive scale, which will all end in tears. I'm intrigued to see how this market rides out the current "Credit Crunch". The winners at the moment are the estate agents, but in my personal experience, there are a lot of cowboys amongst them. There is no accreditation or legislation for agents and it is a complete free-for-all. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.

Worlds largest construction site

It is often said that Dubai is the worlds largest construction site and that a quarter of the worlds tower cranes are here. Even if it's not true, I could easily believe it. The amount of construction work is truly mind boggling. Quite who is going to live in these buildings when they are all finished intrigues me.

At the moment there are hundreds of thousands of Expats working here to do all this construction work (myself included) and we need place to stay, but who's going to live in all these properties when the construction industry slows down.

Burj Dubai (under const.) currently the worlds tallest building.








We are also in the process of constructing the worlds largest traffic jam. The transport infrastucture around all these tower cities is limited to say the least. Most towers have sufficient basement parking for the occupants, but in my humble opinion, the service roads seem totally inadequate (apologies to any Dubai Transport Planners reading this). An ex-colleague of mine used to tell a story that 'Elisha Otis', the man who invented the safety elevator, was also responsible for inventing the traffic jam, as high density accomodation became a reality.

Jokingly the other day I said to colleagues that I hoped that Dubai wasn't in a seizmic zone or else we could be in for the worlds largest game of toppling domino's. What happens today... we had an earthquake. OK, the epicentre was across the Gulf in Iran about 120 km away, but we cerainly felt the tremors. Fortunately there's been no damage that I've heard of, but it does make one think.

Becoming a local

I finally got my Sharjah drivers licence the other day. I had to pass a blood test and an eye test but fortunately for me not the drivers test (UK licenses are a straight swap), which apparently can take several attempts, multiple lessons and several months.

I was concerned about driving on the right hand side for the first time, but it's been a breeze. Í've probably racked up 500 km in the first weekend and can't imagine what I was worried about. I can now drive almost like a local, although I still haven't picked up some of the local habits such as changing lanes randomly to gain a miniscule advantage, while talking on my mobile phone and hooting randomly at anything and everything.

The one error that I have been making is trying to leave a two second space between me and the car in front. When the local drivers see such an extrordinary sight they just can't help but change lanes to fill the gap, forcing me to slow down and leave another gap, etc. etc. I could end up going in reverse if I'm not careful.

I was invited out to my first Dubai Friday Brunch last Friday. What a brilliant concept! You go to a swish hotel, pay up front and eat and drink as much as you like from 12:30 till 4pm. I had the privelage of being invited join a party of 42 at one of the top Dubai hotels, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. The food, drink and company was absolutely superb! I look forward to the end of Ramadan when such cultural activities can resume.

Driving

I was going to write a bit about the state of driving in the UAE - even before I've received my license (hopefully this week) or even driven, then I read "Luke's Dubai Adventure's" extract from the blogoshere post on Dubai driving and thought I couldn't describe it better than that. Please read this, it describes things amost perfectly http://lukedubai.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/rules-for-driving-in-dubai/ (no exaggeration.. honest)

Taxis

I think I mentioned before how cheap UAE taxis were when compared to those in the UK. I am now forming the opinion that you get exactly what you pay for.

Firstly a bit of background information:

• There are three Emirates adjoining each other. Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman
• Dubai is expensive to live in and more fun
• Sharjah is cheaper to live in and deadly dull
• Ajman is furthest from Dubai
• The traffic between Sharjah and Dubai is horrendous.
• Taxis from one emirate are not permitted to collect fares in a neighboring one.
• Taxi’s regularly refuse to take you to a neighboring emirate as they get stuck in traffic returning to their home Emirate.
• Taxi drivers are poorly paid and often don’t speak English or Arabic.
  

Today I wanted to travel to several locations to look at possible accommodation, so a very lucrative fare was in the offing.

I queued patiently outside the local Mall and eventually got to the front of the queue. The first driver point blank refused to take me to anywhere in Dubai, ‘feigning’ being unable to understand English. I’ve now learnt that the best way is to get in, make small talk about the heat and only give directions once under way. I managed this on my second attempt although this time the driver really didn’t know where he was going and spoke rudimentary English at best.

I decided that I needed another driver, so got dropped off at a Mall in Dubai and was fortunate to find a Dubai taxi driver that could speak reasonable English so I decided to use him for the rest of the journey. We did well together and travelled around for nearly three hours Mirdif, Dubai Marina, Jumeirah Lake Towers and finally Ajman.

My very last port of call was the Hole in the Wall in Ajman, a liquor outlet for non-Muslim expats. While I was inside shopping, my driver was outside being harassed by a local Ajman taxi driver who was threatening my driver for collecting a fare in Ajman even though the meter was still running. He seemed like a nasty piece of work so I decided it would be best to simply pay off my original driver and take my chances and get a ride back with him.

Ajman taxis are not metered and you have to negotiate a fare. I only realized this once travelling but he said, “Not to worry”. I knew the last I’d had a metered fare to Ajman, it was about 20 Dh which is what I’d planned on paying him, he demanded 35 Dh. I didn’t want any trouble seeing as I was in the process of lugging alcohol around a dry emirate, so I paid up. He knew that too!

At least I have a few Heinekens to calm me down now. The sooner I get my visa sorted, get my own wheels and move to Dubai the better.

P.S. (The househunting was disappointing too.. you dont get a lot for your money in Dubai!)

Location..location..location

I’m in a bit of a state of limbo at the moment. My passport is away getting my residence visa approved, which can apparently take 3 to 4 weeks. Hopefully I get it back before the month of Ramadan starts in September as apparently everything operates even slower then. The amount of bureaucracy here is quite mind boggling.

Because I’m working here I can’t hire a car with my international license, I have to get a UAE license (which is a straight forward issue if you have a UK license). However I can only get my UAE driving license when I get my passport back. I also can’t rent property, or (horror of horrors) get my alcohol license, until I get my passport back. So everything pretty much revolves around me getting my visa back. I’ve been told that I can pay 500 dirham’s to get my visa fast tracked, which will speed it up the final process from 10 days to 8 days. It hardly seems worth it.

Fortunately compared to the uk, taxi's are relatively cheap. Last weekend I hired a taxt and we drove around Sharjah, Ajman and all the way up the coast to Umm al-Qwainn. It took nearly 3 hours and the fare was about the same as my usual trip home in the UK.

This weekend I've been touring Dubai. I eventually found a taxi driver who had a reasonable grasp of English and got him to take me on a grand tour of potential living locations. Although it has been a bit of a white knuckle ride at times, he has tried very hard to point out all the significant landmarks to me and advised me on the type of clientelle he's collected and deposited in each district.

I went down as far as the Dubai Marina and the Palm Jumeriah, which is about 40km from work and very nice, but I don't think I'd be able to afford anywhere with a half decent view, and without a view the travel isn't really worth it, so I'll probably stick to something a bit closer to Sharjah. Mirdif is looking quite appealing. Smaller buildings (2/3 story) in a relatively new clean and tidy suburb. I'll have to see what's available when I get my documents back?

After two weeks here I’m starting to get a better feel for the place. It is one huge construction site. The scale of the construction is mind boggling, I just can’t imagine who’s going to live and work in all of these buildings, but most of them are sold off plan. Unfortunately I've not been taking photo's, I will when I get my own transport.

During our travels, my taxi driver, and now self appointed unofficial tour guide asked if he could have a 5 minute prayer break, so I arranged for him to drop me off at the Jumeriah Beach Hotel and I had a beer at the pool while he went off to the local mosque for a prayer. We both felt a lot better and more relaxed after our respective rituals. It's coming up for Ramadan in September so he explained that he's starting to be extra good about his prayer times. I explained to him that I was good all year, and not just for the month of Ramadan, but I don't think he believed me.

The traffic between Sharjah and Dubai can be an absolute nightmare and the taxi's often refuse to take you to Dubai from Sharjah or vice versa. I've learnt the trick to get in the cab, make small talk and only announce your final destination once in motion. I do have some sympathy for them as they are not allowed to collect fares in the neighbouring emirate so it can waste an hour of their time just getting back to where they can operate. They probably need a central rank on the border where you could change taxi's. This will all become immaterial once I move to Dubai. I'd hate to know what a Dubai Taxi driver would do if he was asked to go all the way to Ajman.

Here I am

Well, after days of packing and cleaning the house and traumatic goodbyes (mainly to Tombi the cat and my beautiful car) I finally made it onto the plane to Dubai.

Unfortunately I only got as far as Frankfurt and the connecting flight was cancelled. I'm afraid I cannot recommend Frankfurt airport as a suitable place to kill 12 hours. I was so bored with wandering around I checked in as soon as I could to get to see what was on airside in Terminal 2 - answer, nothing. You couldn't spend a cent!

Anyway, I finally arrived in Dubai 24 hours later at daybreak, after a sleepless flight. My neighbour insisted on poking me in the ribs continuously throughout the flight. I was quite surprised that even though it was quite overcast when we arrived, it was still 32 degrees and very humid - at 6am.

The heat is different to anything that I have experienced before. I've been in 42 degree dry heat before but the heat here is 40 deg + and very humid. Apparently this is only for a couple of months in the summer and then it becomes more bearable. However if you work inside as I do, there is no need to worry. Everything is air conditioned, sometimes to the opposite extreme where you actually feel cold. As you'd expect for a town that is essentially in the middle of a desert, it's extremely dusty.

I'd researched the area extensively over the web and had a fairly good idea of what to expect, however the size of the place surprised me. The distances are so much larger than I'd imagined. Possibly because I've become to small city blocks in the UK. You would certainly need a car to get around.

The offices are quite far away from the city, so the company provides busses to bus the staff in and out. It's so strange to see the place empty at 5:55 every evening, I dread to think what happens if there are deadline overruns. Perhaps that never happens here.

Over the weekend (Friday / Saturday) I went exploring in Dubai, Sharjar, Ajman and Umm al- Qaiwain. Taxi's are relatively cheap (compared to the UK) and I managed to hire a cab for about 2 hours for the same price as a cab ride back home from town in Edinburgh. The further away you go from Dubai, the more traditional and Arabic things become. In Um al-Qaiwain there are virtually no buildings over three storys.

The Burj Dubai, currently the worlds tallest building, in downtown Dubai looks a lot smaller than I imagined, mainly because it is surrounded by so many mega towers. Don't get me wrong, it's massive, but extremely slender and probably too high to fully appreciate from ground level. http://www.burjdubai.com/

The Burj al Arab is the worlds only 7 star hotel and was designed by the company that I work for. I've seen the photograph on hundreds of pieces of marketing material over the years and I finallt saw it in person. It will be a few years yet before I get to spend a night there, but it certainly is impressive from the exterior. http://www.burj-al-arab.com/

I had a couple of beers at the poolside of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and it was so hot and humid that I was sweating liquid faster than I could drink. I must remember to take something to swim in next time I visit.

My temporary hotel accomodation is in Sharjah which is a dry emirate, which means that they don't sell any alcohol, hence the need to visit Dubai to quench thirst occasionally. It's more much conservative than Dubai, but far more relaxed than Saudi Arabia. Because of the conservative nature it doesn't attract as much tourism and is a lot cheaper, which in turn means that many people who are priced out of Dubai, live in Sharjah and commute to Dubai daily. The Sharjah / Dubai traffic is notorious.

In the local press there is a lot of promotion for massive new tower developments in the neighbouring emirate of Ajman. I though I't take a look as it's forecast to become the next boom town after Dubai. Although many of the towe blocks have completely sold out there is nothing actually built yet. I drove past and it's just plain desert.

I need to find somewhere to stay soon. By a process of elimination, I'd decided that I'll probably try and rent somewhere in Dubai. I's much more expensive, but the more relaxed lifestyle will probably suit me better. Visiting friends and family expecting to be accomodated in the guest suite may be disappointed, I think I'll be aiming for something small initially. Once I'm more settled, I can decide if buying is a good investment.

I'll keep you posted.