Abyad in Abu Dhabi

An AFP article in today's online Melbourne Age reports that Abu Dhabi is about to get a new taxi fleet - London cabs especially built and customised for "the often blazing hot climate of the Gulf".

Part of the upgrades includes a colour change from the traditional London taxi colour of black to a cooler white.

I wonder if the taxi drivers will also have to pass The Knowledge before they can get behind the wheel? ;-)

Our Local Expat Hero!

Gulf News is running a worthy campaign to recognise Everyday Heroes - people in the UAE who work behind the scenes contributing their time, experience and value to help others and be of positive influence in the community.

Among those recognised is Jayne Winstanley - our very own Jayne with a Why - blogger and raconteur of wit, humour and bloody good jokes, interspersed with tales of Grandma and life in the varied, numerous countries in which she has lived.

For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting her, Jayne is one blogger whose blog truly reflects her personality - straight-up, humorous, intelligent, and damn good value!

She has often written in her blog of her times spent as a volunteer at a centre caring for mentally and physically handicapped people in Abu Dhabi, and it's for this remarkable work that she is being honoured.

Anyone who has worked with the physically and mentally impaired will understand what fortitude this takes, and how you have to be so mentally strong to cope with the joy, frustration, sadness, happiness and the multitude of other emotions that caring for these people can invoke in their ablebodied caregivers. Jayne has just the right balance of compassion and humour to do it.

CONGRATULATIONS Jayne, kudos to Mike for nominating you, and well done to Gulf News for recognising outstanding UAE citizens working in the background to make a difference.

GN Article on Jayne
GN Article on Everyday Heroes
Nominate people for Everyday Heroes

Jebel Hafeet: heat-beating retreat

Want to know how to get out of the humidity for a while without leaving the UAE?

Head up a mountain.

The city of Al Ain in the Abu Dhabi emirate is close to the border of Oman, and the Hajjar mountain range which runs spinelike through Oman also invades the Al Ain environs.

The tallest peak on the Al Ain side is called Jebel Hafeet – rising up to 1240m. At the base is an area called the Green Mubazzarah – a popular picnic area with natural hot water springs. The 3-lane, 15km sealed road leading up the mountain is a work of art. It’s well–lit by halogen street lamps at night, and guarded by concrete barriers to stop the cars from driving over the edge and careening down the steep slopes to a less-than-happy fate. Judging by the scrapes and paint marks on the barriers, it appears that their presence has done much to prevent the already too-high UAE road toll from becoming even higher.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

Numerous huge car parking areas have been built along the road. In our trips up the mountain with various overseas visitors in tow, we’ve never seen more than 1 or 2 cars in any of these areas. The top carpark is easily the size of 4 or 5 football fields, and the black tyre marks which criss-cross the cobblestones are evidence that much hooning takes place up there by the resident boy racers.

On a clear day, the views are spectacular. Al Ain city and its environs stretch out at the base of the mountain; the sand and rock interspersed with areas of green which are a testament to the late Sheikh Zayed’s passion and determination to “greenify” the area, and much of the greenery is watered by his Bio-saline agricultural project. The sand dunes to the southwest are awesome, as is the mountain itself. Take binoculars, as viewing the environs through them allows so much more detail to be seen.

There are 2 amazing manmade structures on top of Jebel Hafeet. At the very top sits the palace where once resided Shaikh Zayed. It’s a fantastic engineering feat perched on the very top of the ridge.

Slightly below the palace is the Mercure Hotel. The Mercure is a popular place for weekend getaways from Dubai – and the rates are quite reasonable. There's a wonderful swimming pool and waterslides for kids (of all ages!) to enjoy, as well as a mini golf course, gym, squash and tennis courts, and a play area for the kids.

On the second floor of the hotel and only accessible to the hotel guests is a wonderful viewing deck. The wide concrete railing has a mosaic map of the surrounding vista – pointing out areas of interest, as well as describing the local flora and fauna. Markers also indicate the directions of the world’s major cities in relation to the hotel.

Being elevated, the mountain has its own ecoclimate, is less humid than the lower surrounding countryside and is also colder at night. In Summer, the skin burntime is a lot less than in Dubai - as M found out to her detriment during the July visit!

It’s a great place to base yourself when visiting Al Ain to experience all the attractions of the area. The camel market, zoo*, oases, forts and museums are among the finest in the UAE.

*I included the zoo as one of the finest sites because although it was a bit rundown and lacking in the animal department when we last visited, what is there is amazing to see - and it was only 2 dirhams to get in! The reptile house alone is worth the visit with huge pythons and anacondas, as well as the smaller species of reptiles.

Just recently there's been good news for the zoo. A 15 million dirham refurbishment has added covered walkways, new facilities and revamped animal enclosures.

Plans are also underway to include a day and night safari, as well as build a water park.

Unlike the Dubai zoo, the enclosures are spacious, grassed, and from what we can see, all the animals' sleeping quarters have air-conditioners. Whether the aircon is actually used, I can't say!

I don't understand why they can't relocate some of the poor animals out of the Dubai Zoo to Al Ain until the new Dubai zoo is (ever) ready. It would benefit both establishments, and most of all, benefit the animals.

EDIT: Ahmed wrote to us to say that the palace on top of Jebel Hafeet is actually UAE President Sheikh Khalifa's residence - thanks Ahmed!

This post was also included in Gulf News' Pick of the Week on 7th August which now appears to be a weekly column highlighting posts from the regional bloggers.

Like a Circle in a Spiral...

...hmmm - one of my favourite songs!
Today I took this image in the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

It was one of those chance shots, where I held the camera out into the middle of the stairwell and shot looking up towards the dome in the ceiling. Only took 1 frame and then moved on to catch up with the rest of my group.

I didn't know what I had got until I got home and loaded it into my computer.

I like it!

Click on the image to open it larger in your browser.

UAE - Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi

As you do when any visitors come to town to stay, you take them to places that sometimes you've never seen either. Such as when M's parents were in Dubai for 2 weeks, and we took them to the Emirates Palace at the western end of the Corniche in Abu Dhabi which is the capital city of the UAE.

Run by the Kempinski Hotels management, (the same company with hotels in Ajman and a new one about to opened at the Mall of the Emirates), this amazing place really has to be experienced to be believed. No expense has been spared to make this an iconic landmark on the Abu Dhabi waterfront.
It's main purpose is to serve as a place to host the royal families and heads of state of the GCC countries when they come to visit the UAE, and need a place to rest their weary heads. There's no going in the main entry door for these folks: from the gates at the front 2 corners of the hotel grounds, there's a car access ramp especially for the GCC visitors which puts them into a private Majlis (meeting and welcome) area, after which they are whisked into their suites. Quite rightly too - who would want to mix with the hoi polloi below, who if our palace tour guide could be believed, can spend over Euro 3,000 per night to stay in one of the 'smaller' suites.

On our visit in October '05, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the guards at the gate waved us through without making us stop to give us the 3rd degree. They have VERY tall doormen at the front entrance, and we chatted to a couple of them who were from Nigeria and the Philippines. They told us that they were picked for the job based on their height! Every staff member that we encountered was extremely pleasant and helpful, and we were made to feel very welcome. Even when we ventured into areas that were out-of-bounds, the security guards went to great lengths to politely steer us back to where we were officially allowed to be.

J had booked us into Le Vendome Brasserie for lunch. There must have been at least 100 dishes on the buffet tables: there were 5 long benches bowed under the weight of every conceivable dish that you could imagine. It did make us wonder how much food is wasted, as there were only around 20 people in the restaurant, and the amount eaten didn't cause a dent in any of the food.
After lunch, we signed on for the hotel tour which we were lucky enough to get for free, because we had eaten in the hotel. Our guide was a very pleasant, tall Russian woman who took us on a tour of 3 different sizes of accommodation suites, the gym, the auditorium and the ballroom.

There is a distance of 1 km to walk from one side of the hotel to the other! We were shown suites in the main dome area, as well as in the West Wing of the hotel.

The gym is state-of-the art, as is everything else in this place. All the rooms have the latest electronic equipment - free internet, audio and stereo equipment; with at least one over 50" plasma TV mounted on the walls - some suites had 2 of these: 1 in the lounge and 1 in the bedroom.

You could host a party in the bathrooms, and some suites had dining rooms that could seat small, intimate soirees of about 20 people!

Our tour group did think that the furnishings were a bit bland and neutral for the size of the rooms. It would have been nice to have a splash of bright colour in either the curtains or the bedspreads, instead of all the beige and neutral 'colours of the desert' in which the rooms were decorated.

If the Swarovski family wasn't already rich, then they could surely retire on what was earned from the chandeliers that their company was commissioned to create and assemble for the Palace. Each one was a work of art, and all people on the tour agreed that we wouldn't like the twice-yearly job of hand-polishing every individual crystal in the hundreds of chandeliers that were installed throughout the hotel.

The grounds of the hotel are beautiful. From a distance, we saw a pool that looked like a river which wound its way around islands of greenery. The river had a water current running through it, so the swimmers could either go with the flow, or swim against it. The beach was manicured to perfection, and there were lots of areas to sit in the shade and relax with a cool drink served by the ever-attentive staff.

With the tour officially over, we were invited to privately walk around the public areas at our leisure, after which we drove back to Dubai; totally bemused at the opulence, richness and grandeur that we had just witnessed.