Out of Dubai

After Muskat, Oman I returned to Sharjah just north of Dubai to wait
for a flight to Istanbul. The hostel in Sharjah gave me my own room for
the dorm membership price ( $15usd vs $20usd )! The manager was
glad to see me as he had just bought a new laptop... ;)

I made a day trip to the Emirates capital Abu Dhabi just 2 hours south
of Dubai. Abu Dhabi is Dubai without the ultra-mega projects... just
mega-projects and even less parking than Dubai. The drive down the main
drag all the way through Dubai was amazing and we didn't get to desert
until halfway down it seemed. Every station on the extensive elevated
transit system has 20% to go before it's done.. amazing. Wow.. they
either finish all of it or none of it. I was told there's a seperate
company building every second station! They didn't build out to Sharjah
though... where the slightly cheaper housing is.
Dubai seems almost like a one street town. It's
unreal that the "one street" has massive buildings along it with short
buildings or even just desert behind! It's so much so that it looks
more like a movie facade and in many ways you could argue it's an apt
description of Dubai. It seems very shallow and artificial. I think it
brings out a lot of envy in tourists who love to hate it. Some feel
it's built with petro dollars inflated by OPEC and then placed in front
of them at premium prices with not a scent of Vegas style perks. In fact
you definitely feel like you are expected to be the tourist revenue
that replaces the depleted oil that keeps them in their god-given
retirement palaces. Entitlement? A lesson to be learned? What's been
done so far is amazing though... maybe they can pull it off. Maybe
they'll learn tourism in time?

The local Emirates only make up 17% of the population ( and the best
place to spot them is in the shopping malls). The paper has stories
about the recent realization of loss of identity and culture due to
this imbalance. I'm not sure they considered this when they started
nor do I think they know what to do about it. They need the
population. Many buildings are still empty now and more are still
being built! Without the population they have no business or middle
class and without business they don't need all this infrastructure
they've built. I don't know how this is going to end. I talked to an architect who said there are more planned
project dollars halted now than are underway
- amazing given the huge projects being built now.

Many foreign workers don't seem to
like it here. You don't feel very free and if you run into a
member of that 17% of the population you might get a reminder that you
are considered beneath them. A young Phillipino woman almost had a
nervous breakdown in front of me telling me how badly she wanted to
leave.
Another interesting point: You get paid differently
depending on where you are from. People go through the hassle to get
Canadian/American/European citizenship then use that passport to go
back to Dubai and get paid double.

Picture: Young women about to be arrested for taking off their hijab
( the big black gown that soaks up all the sunlight ) and being
immodest on the beach. There are westerners on the same beach in
bikinis. The guy in white called the cops. The woman in black is with
him. I didn't want to get caught taking pictures so this is it (and
could get me in trouble as it is ). The girls tried to make a run for
it. Two got away, another was grabbed by her hair by the man in white.
All but the two were taken away by the police. Maybe tbey just got
dropped at home ?? :o

Yes... I'm now in Istanbul! More soon.

O man

April 15-18
Oman... it was such a covenient bus ride away I couldn't resist.
Immediately after I bought the bus ticket an American woman coming the
other way recognized me from Calcutta last November and gave me some
info.. expensive and almost non-existant public transportation. Off I
went anyways. Arrived at 10pm and stayed up all night at a 24hr
restaurant... made a bunch of new friends.. pic.. all Indian expats
working here ( but not as many as Dubai ). The 'Lonely Planet'
guidebook budget choice was still 'budget' at 10 Riels (27usd) but my
first room had bedbugs. I've already lost one battle with bedbugs in
Mumbai and was very happy there was another room available - switched -
whew.

I walked to the Sultan's palace. Above you see a picture of the back of
the palace on the water.. you might notice the red anti-aircraft guns
if you click on the picture to see the large version. He has a large
boat docked near my hotel as well.. I think it's his personal yacht but
it's maybe 6 decks and looks more like a small cruiseliner.

Dubai !

On April 3rd I flew to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates! Arriving late
I stuck it out at the airport until morning then headed into Sharjah
and then to the youth hostel in Dubai. This city is nuts.. it doesn't
make sense. So when I missed my flight out 4 days later ( horrible
traffic.. idiot taxi driver.. checkin after security.. and me only
giving myself 4.5 hours.. earliest I've ever left! )I didn't feel all
that bad and am still here trying to make sense of this city. First of
all... 80% of the population are 'visitors' most of which are workers
from India here to construct the city. The construction is hectic; for
example, the transit system is being constructed all at once... all the
huge elevated stations as well as downtown underground stations seem to
be at the same stage of construction! It's like they hire and train 50
crews at once and then lay them off or more likely hire them into other
projects later... (except many projects are being slowed, stopped or
cancelled due to the world economy). There were 10,000 one way
tickets out of here in the past while... and to try to take their
mind off of their 10 billion emergency loan from Abu Dabi the paper had
a story about "the bottom of the oil barrel" in Edmonton! Ok.. well,
the Edmonton story was just a neat coincidence.

The worlds tallest
building is here as well and just last summer surpassed the CN tower in
Toronto as the worlds highest freestanding structure period! It's
opening December '09 but get this... a Spanish guy in the hostel snuck
in and climbed all 162 stories! He didn't get spotted by security until
the top ( and by then he was on floors without outer walls.. keeping up
against the inside wall to keep from being blown off! The security
didn't actually aprehend him until he got back down to the bottom. At
the police station they erased all his pictures ( but I recovered them
for him.. then he decided not to share them with me ... grrr -
understood - I saw them though.. wow)! I'm not sure if he's been
extradited or is in jail... he had to go back to the police to get his
passport the next day.. no response yet on the internet!

Pics...
tallest building, 7-star tallest hotel, indoor ski hill etc. etc. etc...

Back through Delhi

I had trouble buying flights online for Airarabia.com so hopped on an
overnight train to Delhi and went to their office instead!
I was surprised my British friend Peter who I had met in Mumbai quite a
while ago now (November) was still in town. I had heard a month ago that
he was in jail in Delhi and then released a few weeks ago. They threw
his case out when they finally got before a judge after 3 months in
Delhi jail. Supposedly the Delhi jail is quite a healthy place and Peter
certainly looked better for it. He's back drinking and whatever else so
he'll be his rundown self again soon. It was very interesting to catch
up with him and I was relieved that no assistance was required nor
trouble lingering. My Australian friend Stewart was around as well
collecting older scooters he imports and fixes for Australian
collectors.

pics: dessert from Rishikesh - Canadian and Japanese friends enjoying
"Hello to the Queen" dessert.
Peter - quite a character. Mumbai,Bollywood and
now Delhi.

Rishikesh

March 14 - 30
I headed down to Rishikesh to catch Faith while she was
still there. Faith is an older traveller from Australia. She's been
coming to India every year for a long time and has many friends here.
I've hung out with her in Delhi ( we got our pictures in the paper )
Pushcar and now Rishikesh. One of her friends showed up a day after me..
another Canadian. Liza has been running an eclectic shop in
Toronto's hip Kensington neighbourhood for a long time. Two
other Canadian girls recognized her from her store.

Sittin' with the Dali Lama in Macleod Gange

March 9 - 13
A French couple in Amritsar mentioned that now would be a
great time to visit Macleod Gange as the Dali Lama would be presenting a
teaching and it was also the 50th anniversary of the uprising and his
'move' to India. I took the bus with 3 Canadian women and one American
husband all the way to Macleod Gange. It was a great group and it's the
first time in a long time I've been around so many Canadians at once!
Two of the women and a German woman we met and I ended up hanging
around much of the next 3 days.
The Dali Lama's teaching was translated and broadcast to our fm
radios. He mentioned the Chinese rulers occasionally as examples of
those who lack qualities he was teaching. Security was quite high at
the event and we weren't allowed to bring cameras.. so I have a
picture from the next day inside the temple from where I was sitting
and where he was speaking ;) As an added complication it has "Holi" in
India. This is a celebration which involves bombarding people on the
street with bright dyes and water. A Japanese man walking between
myself and my American Friend was bombed from above with green dye on
the walk back from the teaching. I've heard that Holi is getting a bit
out of hand... seems so. I didn't get hit but did threaten some kids
the day before who were mobilizing early.
ps - writing this from all nighter in Dubai airport... half asleep :o

Attari... border wth Pakistan!

March 6th
Friends from the morning train hopped on the afternoon train
back to Delhi - quick trip!! I went the other way and hopped on a
short local bus followed by a quick walk to the border with Pakistan.
The daily closing ceremonies have been tamed down recently but are still
very much oer-the-top.. as the lonely planet says - reminiscent of
Monty Python's "ministry of silly walks" .
As you can see from the pictures it seems more
like a football game than a flag
ceremony. It's much easier to get a good seat on the
Pakistani side which makes it all seem physically unbalanced as well.
I came back to find that I was supposed to leave something on my bed to
reserve it.. ended up spending the first night in a row of beds in the
larger hall mainly occupied by exotic european women... oh
well ;)

For more on the border click here to check out wikipedia's entry.