Tag: driving

Heaven help me survive this drive

Reading Time: < 1 minute

This morning I saw an extremely alarming sight on Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai’s busiest road. Although I say it was alarming, at the same time it didn’t seem totally out of the ordinary for Dubai.

I was getting a lift into work with a colleague, and we were in one of the faster overtaking lanes – on the left-hand side. In a white Small Utility Vehicle in one of the right-hand lanes, still driving at a pretty quick speed, was a driver reading the Koran whilst he was driving! He gained my attention because the car was struggling to stay in one lane, which is understandable.

I’m not sure whether he was reading the holy book on account of being supremely religious. Perhaps he regularly catches up on the good book whenever there’s a quiet moment – such as this instance, driving 100kms per hour on a reasonably straight free-flowing passage of highway. Or is this person just a realist, and knows that we all need some extra help on Dubai’s road to make it through the day without accident. For sure, everybody around him needed some divine protection – insh’allah.

Contract middle fingers and use the horn instead

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I was forwarded this story via email. It follows a bit of a pattern. When someone does something you would not ordinarily worry too much about elsewhere, but when it happens in the UAE they have paid a terrible price. I’m not sure all of the others I’ve received are totally true, this one on the other hand looks authentic.

7DAYS – Road rage ruined me

“I didn’t think the consequences of telling the truth would be so harsh,” Darren said. “I’d like other people to be very careful. You’re in a different country and the laws are not always the same.”

The humble car horn is not the perfect substitute for giving the finger, but it sure beats going to jail.  It’s interesting how the two things don’t nearly have the same effect here.  In Brisbane I’d consider using the horn and giving the finger exactly the same except one is louder. I guess Australians generally use the horn as a swear word.  Here it’s really more of a conversation. And it’s a bit of a worry, but sometimes it’s even a two-way conversation.

Addendum
The story’s been confirmed in the Australian press:

Aussie jailed for flipping the bird at driver in Dubai | The Courier-Mail (2 May 2009)

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25412733-953,00.html

http://snipurl.com/h7zgw

Two steps forward..

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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.

Abu Dhabi – 14 Feb 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes
Some of the pix taken on the day. Full pix available thru 'Happy snaps' link above.
Some of the pix taken on the day - click for more.

Yesterday ten of us did a roadtrip to UAE’s capital, and Brisbane’s latest sister city, Abu Dhabi.  I can say, Abu Dhabi would be considered Brisbane’s richer, more confident sister. I took my Broncos jersey, but no one else there were wearing there’s. Perhaps they hadn’t got Campbell Newman’s press release yet.

The place was a nice break, and more different from Dubai than I had imagined.  Dubai seems almost obscene with the height and number of its buildings in comparison.  There seems to be a lot more planning behind Abu.  They have far more space, and more green areas, and a nicer walk along the waterside. It is still in the desert like Dubai, but Abu Dhabi has cleverly put effort into making the pieces within sight green and covered, and all the sand is further out.  With Dubai it seems to be everywhere they haven’t built a skyscraper yet.  I’m probably talking prematurely, as I’ve yet to see half of what Dubai has to offer.  But it is often said that the planning behind Dubai lacks a level of detail, or a level of foresight. It seems buildings change the roads, electricity, and water networks quite regularly. As one of our group aptly put it, if only they had played Sim City when they were younger.

We visited the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which is impressive to say the least.  One of the guys with us has visited the Taj Mahal several times, and says it was not nearly as grand, or nice. I’m sure other web sites can describe it so much better than I could, so I won’t bother – except to say, it was lovely, and a definite thing to see.

After viewing time finished, and the security chased everyone out, we made our way to the Emirates Palace – a huge notable five star hotel. Other people in our group failed previously to get in and see the place when they tried, as there was a VIP staying the night. This time, we weren’t allowed in without a reservation. Another from our group made it straight in a little while before us. Seems he just drove in confidently and wasn’t questioned.  His comments – perhaps just to make us feel better – were, it was very flash, but if you’ve seen one fancy hotel you’ve seen them all.

Lunch was in a cafe in their Marina Mall, and we also visited the Heritage Village to do the full tourist thing.  It was a nice place, although craving a bit more authentic ties to the area’s history for mine.

After many a photo, we decided to head back to Dubai. We saw many flash cars on the road on the way back to Dubai. One in particular that got our interest was a very flash Mercedes that a local guy was driving. The guy was driving like a real maniac, and obviously the hotted-up Mercedes had power to burn. Anyway, several minutes later as we were just cruising at the speed limit, we passed the very same red hotted up Mercedes pulled over by a police car.  Justice, for once.   Usually these cars own the road, and you just have to watch out.

I thoroughly recommend Abu Dhabi from the little I saw of it. It seemed to have quite a few green spaces – which I really don’t want my boys to miss.  In Dubai, they do have dedicated green spaces for kids to play, etc, but you need to search them out.  And to pay for the enormous amount of water and effort to maintain grass in a hot desert, you almost alwasys have to pay for the privilege.

I thought Irish Village would be, well, a village

Reading Time: 4 minutes

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.