Tag: cars

40th UAE National Day

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates formation.

Although it’s been a short history, it’s been an amazing story of progress and prosperity.

The local Emiratis celebrate the event through revving the turbos in their hotted up cars to deafening levels, and by covering them with masses of crazy string, and snow in a can.

It was truly a lot of fun. We found a good vantage point on Beach Road, which at 6pm was already pumping with a car park of amazingly decorated cars in all directions. They weren’t literally car parks, just cars not moving.

There were so many amazing cars painted in the Red, Green, White & Black of the UAE flag, or adorned with patriotic stickers of the Nation’s rulers. No expats seemed to take the celebration to such limits, we at least had UAE flags hanging off the windows – like many others had.

It was interesting to see the local guys focus quite a lot of their spraying of crazy string on certain seemingly non-descript cars. We worked out later it was the cars of local Emirati women – which were only able to be spotted through the extremely dark window tinting.

Another trick the guys with snow in a can had was to walk down the line of cars that are stuck in traffic. Then when they reach a car with their windows down, they let the car have it and fill it with as much snow and string until the car’s windows close. I learned this first hand when they got me! I’ve never noticed before how extremely slowly our electric windows go up, when you need them up. It was all a lot of fun.

It made me think though, a night like that couldn’t work in Australia. Here no cars were spared, in Australia I imagine quite a few folks would be protective of their cars and fights would probably ensue. And the partying that we saw on show was totally alcohol-free. In Australia, the addition of alcohol – such as at our own Australia Day celebrations – more often than not eventually turns such large public events into a bit of a disaster, once people become too far gone.

The celebrations started around 6pm, but they’re still going now at 2:15am. We’re not sure what time this will stop.

Happy 40th birthday UAE. Thanks for having us and my family. You don’t look a day over 35. 😉

Here’s to the next 40!

We have a car

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Thursday afternoon I picked up our set of wheels.  We had gone without for quite some time, but the last three weeks I’ve had the use of my boss’s other car and it’s just way too convenient to have your own vehicle.

I originally thought I’d go through a dealer, but the right second-hand Prado came up at the right price so we saved ourselves some money. This  meant we didn’t have to deal with bank loans with lots of interest so it suited us right now.

The whole experience was more pleasant than my experiences in Australia. Over there I always felt like I was getting screwed.  Here, the prices are generally so much cheaper it’s hard to see any of the cars as a bad deal.

We went for a 2006 Toyota VX Prado. It’s a V6 with a 4.0 litre engine, but with petrol so cheap it didn’t phase me.  I’ve seen a similar vehicle perform amazingly on the dunes.  In fact, one guy mentioned the only car here that does better is the same vehicle in the short wheel base.  I can’t wait to take it out.

A guy named George from Egypt sold it to me. It was his wife’s car.

The Sharia Law is  a major advantage to buying a car in Dubai. This means there is no way to buy a stolen car, or car with any existing finance or fines owing.  Well, it would have been a total comfort at the time if I had understood some of the process. The whole thing was in other languages. My seller’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) was speaking Arabic, all the forms I filled out were Arabic, and when the RTA folks did converse with me in English I mostly needed the PRO to translate anyway.

I did what I could and just matched my name to my license number to the car’s registration number, and so on.  I probably wouldn’t be too surprised if George drops in to take one of my kids away as a result of the forms.  Or alternatively leave me with a whole brood of his kids.

Unfortunately the car has never been serviced in its 52,000km life.  Almost ironically the inside still has some of the protective plastic on the duco, so it’s at least been partly looked after well.

Just like every other time I’ve bought a new car I notice only after I buy it that there are a billion other ones on the road.  We’ll need to be on our toes when we park at shopping centres, cause there’ll usually be a dozen other models exactly the same.

The price of home and contents insurance here is cheap as chips. But for automobiles it’s a hell of a lot dearer. And with good cause.  Less than three days after getting the car we had our first traffic incident.  On a routine trip to Deira City Centre (shopping centre), we were stuck in quite a bit of traffic. Nobody was going anywhere, yet as we sat there I heard a bump next to me, and low and behold a police car had hit my mirror as he tried to struggle through the traffic! It was at very slow speed so there was no damage, except to maybe the police man’s ego. He looked a bit embarassed by the incident. An added plus was his mirror was folded back, where as ours was proudly unaffected.

Two steps forward..

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Today I came back to my apartment feeling like I had some success.  Mind you, this was the second time I returned home. The first time I felt absolutely frustrated.  Just like many other days when I’ve had to deal with a certain area involved in visa processing, etc.

But anyway, back to the positive. Not only did I walk a new way home from the nearby shopping centre without getting lost.  I also managed to achieve almost everything on my shopping and to-do lists that had failed me for almost a couple of weeks.

My trips to the shops have usually ended with me giving  up cause I can’t find what I’m looking for, can’t get in and out of the shops without waiting an enormous amount of time, or can’t find someone with even basic English skills or the willingness to answer a simple question. Actually quite a few of my trips have combined all three.

I talk about it like a tremendous success, but in normal everyday life getting some passport-sized photos enhanced and printed; and buying things like a dish drainer, water bottle, and cotton buds are pretty minor things.  But here, when I have searched the web for info, and gone into plenty of shops and failed to find these everyday things to the standard I want, tonight’s purchases seem like fossicking some huge gold nuggets.

Actually I referred to  not getting lost like it’s a strange thing for me. It actually hasn’t.  Elle refers to me having a bad sense of direction, but it hasn’t been an issue here at all. I guess there’s no alternative to finding my way around. I’ve even helped out the occasional limo driver, who haven’t known where basic landmarks are.

It’s not entirely related to the topic, but typing directions made me think of it. As I was walking through the carpark on my way out of the shop, I probably pass about 20 – 30 drive straight in car spaces.  I would say, tonight when I passed these spaces, almost a third of all the cars were pointing in various directions – other than straight ahead.  No word of a lie, a couple were driven in and left at around a 40 degree angle! This adds to the examples of bad driving that you see everywhere, and that I’ve written about previously.

A few of the guys have asked more than once when I’m going to change my driver’s license over and hire or buy a car. My position is getting more concrete everyday, I’m going to put it off for as long as humanly possible!

But in reality, once the family arrive, it would be a good time to get more daring. There’s more to see in Dubai than the vicinity of Deira and the creek, and where I’ve been able to impinge on the kindness of others who have driven somewhere else.

The prices to hire cars is quite expensive, so a couple people I know hire the small and basic cars.  It might be a good idea until we get used to the roads, driving on the other side of the road, but most importantly, all the other crazy drivers.

I thought Irish Village would be, well, a village

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I survived my second week in the job, and joined a few Aussies at Irish Village for more than a few pints of Guinness. Until then I have been on a real health kick, and avoiding alcohol.

The Irish Village is a nice pub, in a semi-secluded spot. It’s near a couple of our offices, and the tennis courts where the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships will be played later this month.

At the pub there was yet another case of, it’s a small world afterall. Initially there was just four of us at the pub, and my boss mentioned to one of the other guys, I should tell you, Ryan’s wife is from Tasmania.  I thought this was a bit abstract, but the guy made a bit of a joke, so I figured he may have been to Tasmania, or something.  But no! It turns out he’s from Ulverstone – the same town as my wife’s family. A town of less than 10,000 people. Now that’s getting a little freaky.

Ulverstone seems like one of those places though, like Toowoomba. If you’re having a chat with a certain number of Australians,  you’re more than likely to find someone with a connection to the place.  I remember Elle was working in a Brisbane bar a number of years ago, where she happened to work alongside someone also from Ulverstone – whom she had never met before.  What are the chances.

But anyway, The Irish Village was a nice place.  When I was in Australia considering whether to take the job or not, I did a fair bit of Google-ing to suss the country out.  One of my questions was whether they had anywhere that cooks some decent fish & chips. There seemed to be more than a couple of favourable references to the fish & chips at Irish Village.

It was funny how no matter what I searched for – no matter how obscure – there was always more than one web forum, or site where someone had asked the question previously.  I can’t think of all the questions now off the top of my head, but there were plenty of things like whether they had baby formula, childhood panadol, and things of that nature.

Google also helped me identify the sex of a person when I couldn’t discern it from the Indian, or Arabic name.  All you do is an image search on the name, and each and every time it displays dozens of images of people by that name. Presto.

Earlier in the day I did a fair bit of running around, finalising the joining stuff, such as attesting my marriage certificate. I caught a taxi from the Consulate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the guy was an absolute madman. Everyone on the roads here are obviously a bit crazy, but this guy took it to a whole new level. He actually had great skill with the way he could drive up to 100km/hr within 10 cm from the car in front, and stop suddenly at the lights. I was wondering why he was in so much of a hurry, and the only thing I could come up with was he going that fast to give him more time to watch himself in the rear vision mirros as he brushed his hands through his thick head of hair, and polish and straighten his shiny Ray Bans sunglasses. It was a bit compulsive. But he wasn’t just the king of speeding, he was also quite an expert at shepherding the other cars out of the lanes around him, and his use of the horn was quite special also.

In Dubai, people use their horns more than anywhere else I know. I would say on any built-up stretch of road, you’d hear a horn go off every 3 – 4 seconds. Most of the time, there are multiple horns going at once. There seems to be a number of contexts for people’s horning, and more than a few meanings attributed to it.  Yes, the humble car horn is a multi-faceted communication tool.

From what I’ve seen, people use their horns to say:

  • look out
  • hurry up
  • slow down
  • don’t cross there
  • hey, I’m driving here
  • LOOK OUT!
  • are you f-in crazy?
  • BOO!
  • you’re a mere pedestrian, don’t tempt me
  • this is your last warning. Grrrr; and
  • hey, it’s been quiet for three seconds – my turn.

The road rage statistics are actually quite low – if you believe the newspaper reports (which some have told me I shouldn’t do!)

We drove past some of the frantic construction of the Metro (Dubai’s first train system – expected to be running in Sept this yr). A sign on their wall caught my eye, “Know safety, no pain. No safety, Know Pain”. I thought this was quite insightful. Unfortunately it seems not everyone across the country has the same thinking. I was walking on a footpath, and at random intervals there were large and sudden drop-offs at least three feet in depth. I’d hate to be walking past there at night.

The night ended up going back to a birthday party of one of the expat gang. It was a pizza and trivia night party, where they used the Play Station 3 Buzz game. I was initially cynical, but it was extremely entertaining!  Particularly when the teams were split into guys and girls, and the guys would only take points from the girls – to ensure their demise.

Dune bashing take two

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Yesterday I was involved in a convoy of seven 4WDs, filled with expats who came together to achieve a single aim.  To bash some dunes.  The mission was a tremendous success.  However we failed to find and reach either of our two destinations, despite a guide book, co-ordinates, GPS technology x 2, and plenty of blokes trying to look like they know what they’re doing.  Camel Hump, and Fossil Rock will need to be a follow-up mission.  Actually we think we may have seen Camel Hump – that is, if it’s a big rocky range that looks like a camel’s hump.

I was picked up at my apartment around 9am, and while I was waiting outside it began to rain.  It was only occasionally drops, but it was definitely rain. So much for only 5 or 6 days or rain each year.  Apparently they exhausted that in the week before I arrived.

We initially met a petrol station – where one of the guys got humorously dissed by the console operator.  Jay is a young stylish guy, and consequently has his hair impressively messed up, going every which way. Apparently the console operator was staring at Jay’s hair, and asked him what the style was called.  Jay said, it’s the “Just got out of bed” style, and said to the guy why, don’t you like it?  The guy responded, “It’s just that it’s very terrible”. HA!

It was interesting to see the camels seemingly roaming wild.  There’s actually no wild camels in Dubai – they are all owned by someone.  But given the great expanse we covered with very extreme undulations, I’d hate to be the guy to herd those camels.  Actually, that job would be pretty tops!

It’s funny cause we didn’t see any for quite some time, but then, all at once they seem to be co-ordinating an attack. They decided against it, when they saw the horse-power on display.

I still don’t have my Dubai driver’s license. It requires a passport, which has been worryingly held by work to organise my Visa.  So the trip turned out to be a good research activity, for when I am in a position to buy a car.  The Prado is a superb vehicle.  I have known this for some time, as my father-in-law solely purchases them for work.  But it was truly awesome to see it effortlessly speeding through the sand, up and down hills like they don’t even exist.

On the other hand, the Jeep Wrangler on show was a huge disappointment.  This is a good thing for me, as a mate of mine in .AU and my former director both had Jeeps which I would give them plenty about. I must forward them the pictures of the Jeep getting pulled around first by a Land Rover, then the Prado. Apparently the driver had quite a bit of off-road experience, so perhaps to the Jeep’s defense, it was not at full strength. By the end of the day, the engine was all but dead.

Also, probably not quite up to the task was a Hummer H3. It’s a pretty awesome vehicle, but way too heavy for driving around in sand.

Other cars that performed well were the Toyota FJ  and Nissan X-Terra.  I hadn’t seen these cars in Australia, but they are both serious machines – made specifically for this sort of action.  But the Prado was in a league of its own, and provided more comfort than the other two combined.

The only other car I am considering is the Nissan Pathfinder, but there was no one on the day with one.  Hmm… decisions, decisions.

On the day there was another case of unbelievable consequences, and proof that it’s a small world.  One of the Aussie guys we met on the day happened to be from Brisbane, when we talked about which suburbs.  It turns out he’s from Indooroopilly, and he just happened to go to the same Lutheran school as one of the other guys.  He was around the same age, and knew, the guys brothers.

J-E-E-P spells poxy

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We joke with a friend of ours who has a Jeep, that his car is poxy. It’s come from my father in law who in his vast 4WD experience has come to the conclusion that American products just don’t measure up.

My four year old son’s very interested in cars, and has been paying attention to our ribbing of Jeeps. It’s a regular gag when our mate comes over that my son asks to see the “poxy car”.

We thought this was the extent of it, but we were following a Jeep – quite different to our mates – and the boy said we were following a Poxy.  We asked why he said that.  He pointed at the Jeep logo and said, “See – it says Poxy!”

Gold.