The Emirates

I had been enjoying my time in the Emirates.

It was a very tourist's view I had received, but it was still impressive.  Up close, the development of the city was amazing, particularly given how quickly it had all occurred.

I really liked the fact that even though these were all "modern" constructs, there had been a determined effort made for the Arabic styles to be pushed through as well.  It may have all been a facade, but it still made the building feel like they actually belonged to the region instead of merely having been airlifted in from some Western country.

I sat within the food courts or the cafes inside these buildings, and I drank the coffees and I ate the dates.  There was a feint hint of the experiences I had once had as backpacker, even if only passing.

It wasn't Syria, but it was still nice to be back in the Middle East.

Snow in the desert

This is very silly.

This makes no sense and there's something about being part of this that makes me feel guilty.

But this was still an experience I wanted to try at least once.

I was skiing in the desert.  Not skiing on sand, but actually skiing.  Snow, skis, stocks and everything.

The complex is enormous.  You walk into the middle of the shopping mall and you walk towards a shop front that feels like the front of a large department store.

Of course, it isn't a department store, it's actually the entrance to one of the largest indoor ski fields in the world.

I went inside, paid my money, got my gear and went skiing.

It definitely wasn't the "best", but it was far better than I expected and it was much longer than expected as well.  There were two runs (well.... there was one run that was split in half) and it was a few hundred metres long.  I did my runs and it was enjoyable.  It had been a long time since I had been skiing, the first time I had skied since my knee reconstruction in fact.  Who would have thought that the first time I would ski again would in fact be at a ski centre in the Arabian desert?

At the end of it all, it just felt a bit wrong.  I was pretty much alone skiing, with only the occasional office worker coming in to do a few runs (clearly a European expat longing for home).  It all seemed like an enormous waste that was there purely so that whoever sponsored the project could tell people it was here, rather than for it to actually provide the benefits of skiing.  On top of that, the poor workers inside (who looked to be Indian foreign workers) looked truly miserable in the cold.

After being blinded by the whiteness of the snow, it was extra surreal to be outside again and looking at the endless sands of the desert.

Into the desert

I was tired from the long flight and the early start, but my time was short.  I only had a few days in the UAE and I wanted to see as much of it as possible.

After a lovely wander around the beautiful Shaikh Zayed mosque, Pinar left Nader and myself to go do some chores.  Nader had planned more fun for the both of us without telling me.  I'm generally a fan of surprises (the good ones anyway) so I was happy to go along.

He wanted to give me a true Arabian experience.  This involved first getting decked out in the appropriate clothing.

Once we had all of that sorted, it was off to the desert.

I have often written about my love for the desert and this trip showed me that nothing had changed.  From the moment I walked onto the sands and looked out into the distance, I felt an immediate sense of ease.  Deserts and snowy mountains seem to both share a clean perfection that I love.  There was something so perfectly calming about being out in the openness that completely relaxed me.   What we did was probably the opposite of relaxing though.  Nader had arranged a 4WD expedition across the sand dunes for us. 

We were taken well into the desert and I definitely appreciated being so far from anything man-made.  It helped me to properly see the size of the place, the feel the scope of the desert and where I stood within it.

It was a touristy trip.

But I didn't care.

We were even taken to a small training ground for falcons.

The birds were uniquely beautiful, and the location added to the experience of "authenticity" which was in reality completely missing.  It was a strange paradoxical feeling to be able to embrace the culture I wanted to experience in such a manufactured manner.

Maybe this was just part of my progression and development as a traveler.

I certainly seemed to care less about seeking out what many would consider to be the most "authentic" experience, and was probably far more concerned now with seeking out the most enjoyable experience.

Those things don't need to be mutually exclusive, but there is definitely a time and place for some of the more guided experiences.  They help things along and can give you access to an activity that you simply wouldn't be able to organically achieve.

As I sat on a rug in the middle of the desert, eating rice and chicken, looking up at the stars and drinking tea, I was full of appreciation for where I was.  I was in the desert.  I was in Arabia.  I was with a good friend.  Did it matter at all how I had arrived at the place?

Beautiful people in a beautiful place

It had been a long time since I had been the Middle East.  It had been a long time since I had been able to travel at all.

I had been given the opportunity to take some leave and so I decided I would make the most of it by going to visit friends in some far away places.  I was now in a better financial position than I was when I was younger and so I even made the decision to purchase less direct tickets so I could stop in some other places and visit different people.

The first stop I decided to make was in the Arab gulf.

The United Arab Emirates has done an incredible job at promoting itself as a tourist destination, but I wasn't convinced yet.  My personal love for the Middle East was driven by what I would consider to be the genuine or "real" parts of the region that I had discovered back when I was backpacking.  There was something about the shininess of the UAE which didn't feel completely right.  It felt almost like a theme park version of the places I had grown to love.

Still, I hadn't actually experienced it yet.  I needed to look at it all with my own eyes to be able to make a proper judgement.  This trip would give me the opportunity, and it would also let me see my old friends Nader and Pinar again.  Meeting the two of them had been one of the great (and few) highlights of my trip to Egypt and so if nothing else, it would be amazing to see them again.

I landed early in Abu Dhabi.  So early in fact that there wasn't a chance that they were awake.  I decided to stay in the airport for a little bit to give them time to wake up.  Soon enough, I watched the sun rise over the desert and again felt the rush of comfort knowing that I was back in this part of the world that I loved so much.  I found a taxi and before long I was at their beautiful modern apartment next to the ocean.  The only way I can describe seeing Pinar and Nader again was joyful.  The happy expressions we all had combined with overall excitement is something that continues to encourage me to travel.  Seeing old friends is always an amazing experience.

So now I was in Abu Dhabi.  It seemed like a beautiful place and I was now with my beautiful friends Pinar and Nader.  They wanted to show me some of the most famous sights of Abu Dhabi and so decided to take me straight to see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

I had seen a lot of mosques over the years, but this was definitely on a different level.  There was a modern opulence to it that I was completely unfamiliar with.  Everything glistened and the white of the exterior almost glowed in the strong sunlight.  The size of the entire complex was also incredible and the grounds didn't seem to have an end to them.

Once we walked inside, we were given another shock.  The interior was covered with gold and other beautiful jewels.  There was an enormous chandelier that overlooked the prayer floor.

It was all very nice.  It was incredibly impressive.  Yet for all of this opulence and grandeur, it didn't quite impress me in the same way that other mosques had when I was young.  This felt big and it felt a bit manufactured.  It lacked the intricate beauty that was in the mosques I had seen in Turkey and Syria.  Those mosques were near antiques from a time long gone.  This mosque however was a modern construction.  As a modern construction, I couldn't help but think that it was actually overly simplistic for its time.  The real monuments of this era didn't look like this after all, they were the skyscrapers and enormous museums that were down the road.

It was still nice to look at though.