More on that update

Chapter 4. Ramadan
I've started the update afresh. Uploading pics onto blogger is a total pain in the arse. Speaking of which, when the world wide web was coming into prominence in the early nineties, I knew, deep down, that one day my arse would be on it. I picked up this bruise walking down a scree field after climbing all day. No injuries climbing, but walking is a different matter.

Where was I? That's right, Ramadan. The above bruise happened in Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims where we work shorter hours and get to not eat or drink in public all day long. Which is weird, because the whole thing is about Muslims testing their faith, so they should be tempted in order to really test themselves. Non muslims should be encouraged to eat bacon in front of them, and drink beer in front of them, that sort of thing.

Actually, I've got nothing else to say about Ramadan, except that it's a crap time for visitors.

Chapter 5. Visitors

Roger and Lynn came to visit the other day. I can't believe it's been a year since their last visit. I also can't believe that once again it coincided with other visitors on the same weekend, this time Jenny and Bill. The tour of Dubai was much as it was for Natasha, except this time I could drive right up to the top of the Palm, which hadn't been opened in May. A new hotel, Atlantis, is up there, which is famous for its underwater suites (they look into an aquarium). Apparently big aquariums have divers in them an awful lot, so as much fun as it might be to get on the job in an underwater suite, it may no be a very private affair...

No visit during Ramadan is complete without iftar, though. This is the evening breaking of the fast and is much like Friday brunch, only it's typically all-Arabic food and the booze is substituted, for some reason, with television. We went to an upmarket one at the Palace Hotel and were sat next to a TV. We got it turned down and eventually turned off, but instantly a nearby arab decided he was watching it so it went back on. Other iftars have been the same, even outdoor ones. Restaurants that normally have no TV in sight, suddenly wheel them out and turn them on full. I can't imagine what people did at iftar before TV. Talked?

We also went to Hatta which is in the Hajjar mountains on the border with Oman. It's a funny area as you actually go through Oman to get there but there is no border post. It used to be an enclave, just a little couple-of-kilometer stretch on the main road that actually belonged to Oman, but now it is connected up to the rest of the country. If you turn south off the main road, as we did this last week, you do hit a border post (no passports needed, just insurance papers) but you can loop around and get back to the UAE on another road without any more checks. Pretty slack, but so much more convenient than the alternative!!

6. Eid

The last few days have been Eid Al Fitr, the holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. Most people got at least three days off (Tue - Thur) but Atkins only gave 2 (Tue - Wed), so creative timesheet scoring was called for to go camping in Oman on Wednesday night. Stunning scenery but we forgot the camera. I will post shots if I get copies or when I go again, and I will be back! We went to a wadi near Ray which you could wander along. It's very mountainous and rocky, not at all sandy like the west cost. In fact, on the drive the scenery goes from yellow sand (coast), to red sand, to rock to jagged, barren mountains. It is just sensational.

Afterwards we went to Ghantoot (Thursday night) for some wakeboarding. The Thursday night session was choppy as hell, but we camped on the canal and on Friday morning the water was like glass.

We wakeboard on a canal on the Abu Dhabi - Dubai border, and the king of Bahrain has a palace there. It was occupied at the time, so we could only go as far down the canal as the gunboat patrolling near the palace, which was a bit of a pity, but who can complain when you've got the rest of it to yourself?

Right, that is it. You are updated. I will try to be more regular from here on in. Keep the comments coming.

Long overdue update

I have, I admit, been a little slack. My last post was just after coming back from Jordan which means I haven't covered the following:

1. Engagement;
2. Natasha's visit;
3. Tuscany;

4. Ramadan in Dubai

5. Multiple visits

6. Eid

Chapter 1. Engagement

Yes, most of my readers should know by now that I asked Sarah to marry me and she was good enough to say yes. We were eating at a Spanish restaurant at Al Qasr, the waitress kept calling her Mrs Nicholas, so it wasn't too hard to work the conversation around to "Mrs Lander" and how did she like the sound of that. And so, in my typical fashion of being a little too laid back for my own good, I found myself engaged.

Now, of course I cleared this with Sarah's father. I phoned him up, got the all clear and said I was going to propose. But not when. Now, Sarah's parents had been giving her a hard time for quite a while about the whole marriage issue, so we thought it was only fair to leave them hanging for a bit. The day after the Big Question, Sarah phoned home and made small talk for an hour without the slightest hint of what had happened. This must have been agony for her mum, who had been awake all the previous night waiting for the call, and had spent the next day phoning people to give the good news.

Anyway, after an hour, just as she was about to sign off, Sarah slipped in that she had to go ring shopping and the cat was finally, and officially, out of the bag.

Me, the future Mrs Nicholas, and the in-laws.

Ring Shopping.

Oh. My. God.

What a pain in the arse. Dubai's Gold and Diamond Park, aka The Place To Go For Jewellery, has approximately 10,000 shops, 4,969,000 rings and 4 designs, all of which are crap. So we were excited to find someone with some interesting designs and we decided to get him to design one. Option 1 sucked. Option 2 was based on a design seen elsewhere, but took about 3 attempts to get right. Even then it wasn't andthe whole process of perfecting the ring took about 4 months, the highlight of which was Khalid, the shopkeep/designer, accusing me at one point of being drunk when tearing strips of him for being a lazy, lying, nogoodnik. Awesome! The end result, though, is a beautiful ring loaded with diamonds, and a plan to start a Facebook group "Don't Use Khalid The Jeweller".

Chapter Two. Natasha's Visit
Natasha stopped by in May on her way to Europe for a trade fair. Dubai was, she said, the number one place she wanted to go, following all the documentaries she's seen on Discovery Channel. So the morning tour, in my beautiful car (or maybe Sarah's beautiful car, I forget which, but wanted to throw in that I have a beautiful car) was much the same as all of them: Our place to Jumeira, past the big flag pole, past Jumeira mosque, down beach road to the Burj Al Arab, down to the Palm ("I can't believe I'm actually on the Palm!"), Dubai Marina, across to the Springs, where we used to live, to laugh at the soullessness of it, and up Sheikh Zayed Road past the Burj Dubai and the monstrosities lining the highway between Trade Centre and Defence Roundabout (which has nothing to do with Defence and isn't a roundabout. But it's like that here. I live in a part of town called the Old Pakistani Consulate area, there's an intersection nearby colloquially named after a long-demolished cinema, and a building similarly named after a billboard that was on it 15 years ago).

Tash's visit coincided with my birthday so it was off to Brunch at the Dusit Hotel. I think I've covered brunch before, so in brief, it is an afternoon-long affair involving a large buffet of great food, free flowing champagne and as many friends as you can muster. (Unless you go to the Double Deckers brunch, in which case it is English food (I'm guessing), lots of beer (I'm pretty certain), appalling music (sad experience), and abhorent drunk middle aged English chavs and laddettes (ditto).) Anyway, we had a grand time with all my friends from Dubai and even Mike and Emma from Abu Dhabi. All up, a great day and a great time the whole time my big sis was over. Come back soon!

Tash getting into the Dubai lifestyle with free Champagne.

Natasha and I by the Burj.

Chapter Three. Tuscany

July saw me at my wit's end at work and desperate for a holiday. Roll on Italy, then! That's right, 10 days in Tuscany was exactly what I needed, especially staying at a friend's apartment in San Baronto for just €100.

We started off with an overnight flight to Doha, then Rome, then a train to Florence. Half a day there checking things out put me in the mood for history, but in the afternoon we picked up the car and drove to San Boronto, where history was instantly replaced with the mood for sitting on my arse and looking out over the valley and the town of Vinci.

Don't get me wrong, Florence is beautiful. Its one way system is a little annoying, especially when you want to return the car, are about 30m from the hire place and then have to detour around for another 50 minutes on a full bladder. But Florence itself is superb. Beautiful scenery, architecture, lines at the Uffizi that were too long to even contemplate, and gelati. Awesome.

But San Boronto is what a stressed young professional needs. Clear mountain air, names of Giro D'Italia heroes painted on the road, and a view from the bedroom many would give their right arm for. I'd give their right arm for it, too. You can see for yourself:

View from the bedroom

Once settled in the flat, we occasionally made forays into the neighbouring towns: San Gimignano; Lucca (stumbled upon an orchestra practicing for an outdoor summer concert, and a gelati shop); Sienna; Volterra; and the Chianti region, where we couldn't help but stock up on Chianti and salami. But half the time, we just stayed in the mountains, relaxing, reading, eating, drinking and generally, (ahem), having a good time. For photos, see:

http://picasaweb.google.com/njlander/Tuscany#

Sarah did all the driving. She asked me once if I wanted to, but honestly, I found it too stressful! I'm used to highways and Indian and Pakistani and Arab drivers who have no concept of the size of their car who cut you up and cut you off and change 4 lanes in the space of 50m at 120kph. I'm used to being undertaken and overtaken on the hard shoulder. In fact, I expect all that now. What I'm not used to is two way traffic and tiny narrow, curvy lanes that articulated lorries thunder along with inches to spare. Nor am I used to order on the roads. It did my head in! I told her I was there to relax and if she was happy to take the wheel, I was happy to navigate. Play to your strengths, I say!

On the way home, we stopped in Rome for a quick visit. And I mean quick - 4 hours, in fact. Ah, Rome, the poor man's Paris.

I've actually been to Rome before, but I was 10. I do remember, though, seeing the Fourm from the street and not caring about it because I was 10 and didn't have a degree in history yet, and it just looked like a yard full of rubble so I wan't fussed that we didn't go in. In fact, I didn't realise you could. But this time we went in and I'm glad we did. We saw Augustus's house (who was NOT the first emperor of Rome, as the tour guides tell you), the remnants of the Vestal Virgin's house, which reminded me of the Lego houses I used to make as a kid - one block high and just showing the outlines so you could get the idea but still get inside it - and various other temples.

Other than that, we only had time for gelati on the way back to the station. (Why don't icecream companies make fruit flavoured icecream that you can buy at the store? Do the gelati shop people have some kind of cartel arrangement?)

All up, it's the thumbs up from me in Italy, although I found it hard having no Italian beyond semaforo and cacchio. A useful couple of words, it is true, but sadly not enough to get you fed or out of trouble with the police.

Jordan

Barely a few days after getting back from Singapore, it was time to start using up some serious leave. I had 14 days to take off by July or I'd lose it, so with schools off on holidays, Sarah and I went to Jordan.

The fun kicked off in Petra, known to many film afficionados as the home of the Holy Grail. It's not anything like what you see in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, though. The ancient city is carved into cliff faces around a large wadi of rose coloured stone and there are more tourists than Nazi soldiers. It's a huge place, with some excellent walks up to the top of the cliffs where you can see for miles in the clear air. (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=38618&id=784253645)

After Petra we went to Wadi Rum, a large desert with mind blowing rock formations, and definitely the scene of a future rok climbing trip. It was also where they filmed Lawrence of Arabia, so get it out on video to check it out in detail.


Wadi Rum was also the scene of my first camel ride which differed markedly from my Patagonian pony ride a few years back, mainly in the testicular pain department, as well as the vehicular control department.

Anyway, my hot tip for Jordan: Petra and Wadi Rum. Interestingly, a friend of mine went and said to skip Wadi Rum and go for Aqaba instead. This is a small resort town with pretty average beaches, but if you like lazing around in an identikit resort, she probably has a point. We went, had lunch, and left for Amman.


(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=38619&id=784253645)

Now, Amman is ok. It has some nice Roman ruins, and the locals are pretty friendly - we were invited in for tea by some guy we passed on the street, but once you've seen the ruins and been ripped off by the tour guides, it's just a very large city. Some parts are really nice and reminded me a bit of Mendoza, in terms of architecture and streetscape. For mine though, as a history graduate, the best bit about Amman is its proximity to Juresh, an old Roman city.

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=38621&id=784253645)

Much like other Roman ruins, Juresh has all the columns and straight streets you've come to expect. Of course, we were lucky to get there at all. The car we'd hired was the problem. First up, the cigarette lighter was blown so we couldn't plug the walkman in, but on the upside we did have some decent conversations. Then the brakes were shit, the tires had lost pressure after just a couple of days, it was dirty and smelt, it only had a two stroke engine, I think, and judging my the Mitsubishi badge and its overal performance, it certainly wasn't the Golf we thought we were going to get when we ordered it. Still, could've been worse. We saw some people pushing a car into a parking spot in Juresh. It didn't have reverse.

Singapore wedding

isWell, since the skiing, things were pretty quiet for a while. Then Ian and Berns got hitched in Singapore so I went over for that.

Now, last time I flew to Singapore I was doing what has become my standard "fly Thursday night, arrive Friday morning, sleep over, fly back Saturday, back at work Sunday." And as I flew down, bolt upright, wide awake but craving sleep, I promised myself I would never do it again. So with light heart and lighter bank account, I checked into Business Class and proceded to get pissed up the front of the plane.

The wedding day was cool. First I went climbing with the groom, then we ducked home to shower and change and then off to the Shangri-La for a tea ceremony followed by a big banquet full of extended family and business contacts, and two tables of Ian and Bernie's mates - all climbers. As desert ended there were just the two tables left, and about three dozen bottles of wine. "Drink up", orders Ian, so we took the party back to the bridal suite where we were soon evicted for making too much noise. Then up to the bar where we paid too much corkage, and eventually, some hours and several drunken phone calls to people who'd left for bed later, we all hit the sack.

The next morning was pretty rotten, but Andy had it worst. He'd left last (same time as me - about 2:30), caught the 7:30 shuttle to KL and went to the Malaysian Grand Prix. Ouch!

(More photos should be accessible here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36589&id=784253645)

Skiing

The other week six of us went for a ski. In Iran. What a trip.

The fun kicked off at Terminal 2 at the airport. Very much the poor cousin of Terminal 1, T2 caters for little known airlines that fly to little known destinations with passengers to match. It's a good place to play spot-the-Russian (look for peroxide, pimp-wear and too much cheap gold).

Once arrived our first mission was to change enough money to Rials to cover us for the entire trip. With no international credit cards and a currency where IR10,000 is about US$1, you quickly wind up with a very big wad. This pic is how much we paid for the accommodation between us, which was €810.

So there we are on our way up to the mountain, which is just outside Tehran. We were in a green van being driven by a guy who pretty clearly thought of himself as a bit of a rally driver. The only time I've been driven through the mountains by a race-nut was with Matt King and we managed to spin out. And that was in an MX5 (admittedly on cold tyres but on a dry road. Actually, I've spun out twice with Matt on mountain roads, the first time in a Prelude in the snow.) So I was pretty amazed when Colin McRae Admaninhajad got us to the hotel in Dizin in one piece.

Dizin as a ski resort has both good and bad points. On the one hand, the terrain isn't too steep, but on the other, Iranians don't ski off-piste and there aren't too many there anyway so you can still get fresh tracks two days after a snow fall.

And really, isn't that what it's all about?


The facilities at the resort are a little old-school, to be honest. The gondolas have their windows held in with bits of twisted wire and date from the late seventies. On-mountain food is restricted to the Iranian version of KFC, but that's okay because you can go back to the base and one of the two hotels which, interestingly, have the same menu. Which never changes. And which doesn't cater for vegetarians.


If you go, take your own gear or at the least take your own tuning kit as the skis have no edges. The boots are nearly all rear-entry (sooooo 1986) and if you were to hire clothes you'd probably wind up in a fluoro onesy, and that's just inexcusable.


The hotel was pretty good and the bedroom was electrifying. Literally, not figuratively. The air was so dry that you could run your hand over the blankets with the lights out and see blue sparks flying off. It's taken me until now, two weeks later, to be comfortable touching metal door handles again.


In the next couple of years I think Iran will pick up a little as a ski destination and will hopefully be upgraded, although that would lose it some of its charm. It would also lose the freshies and therefore it would just be mountain of blue runs. All up, I'm very glad I went when I did.

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ou can see more photos at:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=784253645
or maybe
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29451&id=784253645