Ray Bans

A quick and unscientific poll in Williamsburg, NY, has revealed a new craze in the Big Apple that will surely hit the rest of the world soon, if it hasn’t already. And that’s Ray Bans. But not any old Ray Bans, but the clunky old Roy Orbison Ray Bans from the 50s, or something. (More strictly, Wayfarers and Wayfarers II.) The only thing is, they’ve been jazzed with new patterns and primary colours. And they’re no longer just sunglasses, but regular spectacles, too, for hip young folk who want to be original and ironic by wearing the same daggy glasses as one in every four people.

That’s right, my poll, conducted while sitting in the sun outside a "New York Muffins" shop, revealed that 23 out of 100 pairs of eyewear, including both sunnies and specs, were Roy O Ray Bans (or $10 copies thereof). Of course, that was in Williamsburg, the hip part of Brooklyn, other parts of NYC had lower densities, but they are still everywhere.

I wish I could work out how to repackage something pretty average (at best) from the past so everyone wants to buy it and make me rich...

New York

We went to New York the other day. Sarah first spent 10 days in the UK for a wedding (that's one day, but why would you want to spend another nine there?) and we met up at JFK airport. Not before I was robbed, though.

That's right, robbed. You've got to love airline rules. I was getting on the plane in Dubai, one of those departure points that lets you use metal cutlery for your meals, and was asked if I had any liquids. Stupidly, I said toothpaste, and had it confiscated because the half used container was more than 100mL.

Less than 100mL of fluid - surely that's the key thing. Even with James Bond Licence To Kill exploding toothpaste, you can't do a lot of damage with half a tube.

But I digress.

Last time I was in New York I was 18 years old and with my parents so the experience this time around was a bit different. There was alcohol, going out, and not being dragged around a whole lot of women's clothing and shoe shops. (Sarah tried, but felt guilty because I wasn't really enjoying it. It cut both ways, though - I didn't want to bore her by spending too long in a climbing store and so walked out empty handed. Besides, there was too much to do.)

We checked off the big ticket items: Empire State on a perfect, cloudless day; Statue of Liberty; MoMA; New York Philharmonic in Central Park (unfortunately rained out halfway through); live jazz (and in a smoke-free venue. Yay to Michael Bloomberg!); as well as some not so big ticket things: boutique beers on the waterfront; cool cafes in Williamsburg; catching up with an old college friend, Jon; staying with Sarah's ex housemate, Sanne and his wife Sarah.

Oh, and there was Broadway. We went and saw Avenue Q on our last night. It's a very funny play with... let’s say “adult muppets”. They do a great song Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbwNSNLPIfw&feature=related) among many others. If you get a chance, and especially if you ever saw Sesame Street, check it out.

The other big highlight was Bear Mountain. On the Saturday we piled into Sanne's 1990-something Ford Thunderbird, (a monster vehicle of over 5 metres but with only two doors and vaguely sports styling that, according to Sanne, handles like a boat, despite it's awesome name), and drove to Bear Mountain national park where we hiked around for several hours in the sun and fresh air on the Appalachian Trail.

We came across a few crusty hikers who were walking serious lengths of the trail (it runs over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine) but hardly anyone else. Most of the day-trippers stayed by a small, artificial lake by the carpark and barbecued stuff. Walking back at the end of the day, we could smell the barbecue accelerant several minutes before we could smell any food. The crowds by the lake, sandwiched between the highway, too, were a bit much, and we got back into the car as fast as we could.

So New York is a fine place. Not sure I'd want to live there, though, as it's a bit full-on for my liking.

Goatmobile

Here's something I never thought I'd say:

"My car was goated".

Yes, it turns out that goats are not as dumb as they look and if you park under a tree in goat country, they will use your vehicle as a stand from which to reach the leaves. If your car is a beat up Pajero, as Mike's is, no big deal. If it's a Mercedes CLK, then it's a little more frustrating to find scuff marks on every panel, including the doors.

Before

Luckily, Pete referred me to the grand master of car polishing and after Dh800, including interior and engine detailing, it came back looking like new. Amazingly, goat hooves don't seem to scratch that deeply.

After

*

Not that that seemed to make too much difference after a couple of weeks of parking outside back in Dubai. I left my job of 3 years at Atkins (a record time for me) and as such lost my underground carpark near my home. With only one car space in our building, and what with me being a gentlemen and letting Sarah continue to use it, I've been parking on the street and it's been getting filthy. The big mistake though was letting some car cleaner at the supermarket clean it - I think he scratched the hood more than the goats did.

(Just on that job thing: I was about to resign as I had another offer when Atkins thoughtfully made me redundant with a big fat pay cheque. So now I'm helping start up a new firm, still in Dubai for now, but maybe we'll move east in a few years.)

The Offender?

Snake Gorge

Well, after planning to get out to Snake Gorge since last summer, it finally happened. May is not too hot, the water is still clean(ish) in the gorge, and nor is it too cold. In fact, even though it was 40-something degrees outside, the gorge was about 10° cooler.

So the fun kicked off on Thursday. I had planned to skip off work early, but a 4:30 meeting kyboshed that idea. Not that it mattered as Zoi got caught in traffic on the way back from Abu Dhabi, so we didn't leave finally until almost 9:00pm. Hit the border in Al Ain at midnight, got a little lost and drove straight past the turn off at Al Hamra, and finally made camp at about 4:00am.

Friday morning was pretty rough, but once we'd eaten a bit, loaded up on coffee (even I had coffee!) we were ok, and once we saw the gorge for the first time, all tiredness evaporated. Snake Gorge, (or Canyon, depending who you talk to), is a long, deep and narrow cut through some of the most spectacular mountains in the world. There is water running at the bottom year round, and this weekend the water was clean (mostly), cool and refreshing. And the gorge was simply spectacular.

The day involved a combination of jumping into water, abseiling, scrambling over rocks, helping each other up rock faces and generally having a blast. In fact, in terms of all time greatest sporting days in my life, this is up there with getting virgin tracks through sweet, sweet powder on the Volcano run at Las Lenas in 2004 (which, before I got married, I had listed as the happiest day of my life!)

Snake Gorge was that good.

see http://picasaweb.google.com/njlander  and follow the link.

India - Part III

Oops, forgot something. It's election time in India at the moment, which means every vertical surface has an election poster glued to it, from walls, to rocks, to old ladies too slow to get out of the way. Maybe because there is not a lot of TV coverage, election news is broadcast by cars with loudspeakers. The posters, meanwhile, just have mugshots of smiling politicians, smiling the smile of men thinking about how much loot they will embezzle once elected. ALL the photos are either mugshots or full body shot of the guy walking or, occasionally, shots of the politicians AND their cronies. So lots of pics of Sonya Ghandi and VJ Singh in the background...

And it's funny, but I think the policy of saturating the populace with photos of politicians backfires as you get sick to death of seeing their stupid faces. For example, as we left Munnar there were two guys running localls: Congress and the Commies. Now, the Commie looked right dodgy and the Congress guy looked like a kind and benevelont uncle. But after an hour and about 4,000 posters, you start to notice the beadiness of the eyes, the shifty look, and the hint of evil. And pretty soon, you hate the guy from Congress (and the Commie, who is still right dodgy, but now also a child molester), and you know that if you saw him, you'd get out of the car and punch him in his stupid smiling face.

But then you cross an electoral border and the posters change, and finally you're looking at a Communist who has the look of a guy who tortures kittens, a Congress guy who looks a little gay, and photos EVERYWHERE of Raul F-ing Ghandi, one of the million or so Ghandis (some free, some in jail but still running) that seem to dominate Indian politics.

Would you trust this man?

Or this one?

And what the hell? Communists? Didn't India learn anything from 1991?

India - Part II

Trivandrum.

So next up we went down to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala. You can tell it's a proper city because some streets have raised sidewalks. The roads are the same as the villages, though: single laned and patchy.

Actually, driving (or being driven) in India has opened my eyes to driving in Dubai. I thought I understood after going to Mumbai, but doing real driving in Kerala is something else. For starters, everything is single lane - but in the Indian sense, which means that if a car is overtaking an auto-rickshaw, and a bus is overtaking that, and you're going faster, then it's ok to overtake the bus, car and auto-rickshaw. And if the same thing's happening on the other side, that's ok too - everyone slows down and starts driving on the (dirt) sidewalk. Sometimes, though, it gets too crowded and someone needs to stop and wait, usually honking at someone to get out of the way first.

"Keep Left" is more a concept than a rule

In fact, honking, as alluded to in my Mumbai post a while back, is a key part of driving in India. Sometimes it means "Hello there, I am approaching from behind, so don't be frightened"; sometimes it means "I say, can you please move over so I can pass"; or perhaps "Hey! Dickhead! Hurry the hell up and get out of my way!"


Anyway, We had a look around Trivandrum with a guide, which was excellent. He really knew his stuff and spent a lot of time explaining about Hinduism and the gods and their stories in the museum. He also took us to a famous handicrafts store where I picked up a great (stone) chess set for about US$40 and some paintings for about the same.

Trivandrum from the Taj Hotel

We took a day trip to Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. Just of the coast is the shrine on a rock where some great Indian thinker meditated for a few days some years back, and now it's a big tourist attraction. And while it's not a total Dog on the Tuckerbox, to be honest it's not far off.

We were meant to be able to see the three sees from this vantage point (ie, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal). I guess we technically could see them as this was the point they all met, but it was difficult to make out the different colours as we'd been assured. It's pretty crazy to think, though, that if you headed out from there, the next landfall would be Antarctica.

Kovalam Beach.
Final stop was the Leela Hotel, famous for being super luxurious, etc, yet bugger-all per night (around AED700 or so). And yes, it was nice, but it was a little bit colour-by-numbers. Maybe we've been spoilt by frequenting 5-Star hotels in Dubai so often, but the Leela seemed like just another super luxurious hotel that could have been anywhere on Earth. (Unlike the Coconut Lagoon which was definitely Indian and hence our favourite place.)

The Sky Bar, an alright spot for a drink

The Leela also nearly killed me. After surviving 10 days without illness, I was taken down either by cheesecake or lime juice on our last full night. The next day, our last, featured an all time record for me for bathroom trips (7 in 7 hours, 10 in 12h) which completely cleaned me out. So much so that I couldn't eat when taken out for dinner by the travel agent (and friend of Anand's) on the last night, nor could I eat last night at a friend's place here in Dubai!

So that's India. More photos, as always, at picasaweb.google.com/njlander. In summary, nice trip, great honeymoon, glad to be home.

India - Part I

Oh my god, I'm so slack - nothing since January. Apologies. Here is some news:

Munnar.

Munnar is tea country. It is where Sarah and I started our (overdue) honeymoon in Kerala, India. The town is high up in the mountains, about 3,000m above sea level, and the climate is cool despite the tropical latitude.

And there is tea: beautiful tea plantation on slopes of about 60°; a tea museum with working tea factory; whole leaf tea; dust tea; black, green, white and masala tea. We even stayed in a place called the Tea Country Hotel. Now, what type of tea do you reckon they served?

Tetleys.

(Tetleys, in fact, was served all over Kerala, and while way better than gut-rot Liptons, the standard hotel tea in Dubai, it is still really bad.)

Our time in Munnar also took in a trip to a dam which our driver, reluctant to carry on further, perhaps, or maybe eager to get back to hanging out with the other drivers, assured us was the same as Top Station. Now, I suspect that Top Station might have been near or at the top of the mountain and would have a killer view. The dam was picturesque, but the vista from a valley just isn't the same.

Kumarakom.

Four long hours after leaving Munnar we arrived at Kumarakom, just 175km away. We stayed at Coconut Lagoon, a very chilled resort on the backwaters where we could relax, get off Indian food for a bit (turns out Sarah doesn't like it) and get massaged.

Aruyvedic massage is a bit different to what I'm used to. For starters, the guy makes you strip, ties a cord around your waist, then tucks in a bit of material front and back for modesty, which he then takes off once you're face down on the table. The hard wooden table. With no hole for your face. Anyway, after some rubbing, he takes a small sack of herbs, heated to near the temperature of the sun, and tries to transfer the healing properties of thyme directly to your muscles by hitting you with the sack as hard and as often as he can. You basically come out of it smelling like a roast.

But it's good stuff: I had two in Coconut Lagoon, just focussing on my messed up, stressed out shoulders and back where the guy tried to squeeze the muscle knots into another dimension. God it hurt... But as I say, good stuff.

Back to Kumarakom, though, and Coconut Lagoon. This place rocks and would be perfect for a week long party. Anyone interested in a cheap holiday with a good crew: I want to recruit enough people to fill 50 rooms in around a year from now. There's a pool, you get there on a little boat, there's a great massage centre and free yoga every morning! Let me know.

Backwaters.

Coconut Lagoon is on the backwaters, a series of lakes and canals just back from the coast. Now, I didn't mean to rough it, I really didn't. I only wanted to spend an afternoon cruising the backwaters before heading back to the resort, but the agent suggested a houseboat, my friend Anand told me I should "rock the boat", it being our honeymooon and all, and there is something romantic about cruising around in a private boat being waited on hand and foot for a day and a night. But the truth is, after a couple of hours there's nothing new to see, and once it gets dark you realise that an afternoon cruise was certainly the best option.

Of course, I should have guessed that the water on the boat would not be from a tank of pristine, or even semi-clean water when I stepped aboard. And I was foolish not to twig when we washed our hands and they dried sticky. But it was only when I gave into the accumulated grime, sweat, suncream and mosquito repellent and stepped into the shower that I realised the taps drew directly from the fetid river that smelt of sewage (due, no doubt, to the high levels of sewage in the water).

Overdue

Wow, I've been slack: no posts since October. So withour further ado...

It's winter again in Dubai and one of the things I love about this time of year is not the perfect weather (low 20s, sunny and clear), or even the occasional rain. It's the clothes.

People who have been here long enough adapt to the hot weather. The blood vessels move closer to the skin, never to return. Thus we get cold easily. And I'm guessing that the longer you're here, the closer to the surface those blood vessels get: the other day I was going to the shops at lunchtime. It was about 21°C and a bit cloudy, but looking around I saw people in winter coats, beanies and scarves. (Actually, I think it's a bit psychological as they also rug up for work, which is climate controlled...)

Since October's post I've gotten married, of course. But let's wind back the clock...

* * *

I've covered the whole really-bad-proposal chapter, but not the preparation. This is perhaps the best part of the whole process for the bride-to-be. She has been practicing for it since infancy, when she would play with her dolls - wedding between Barbie and Teddy, Barbie doing the dishes while Ted's away (remember, it was the 70s back then), that kind of thing. Then bedtime stories of Prince Charming, and later, dreams and plans of flowers and revolting bridesmaids dresses. (OK, I'm totally making this up, but I'M A MAN.)

Miss Tobias, soon to be wife to the luckiest guy around

So the question is asked and the bride-to-be immediately initiates the Plan and starts asking the hapless groom-to-be esoteric questions he doesn't quite realise the importance of. "What type of flowers should we have?" "What music should be playing as I walk down the aisle?"

And she imposes peculiar restrictions, such as not seeing the dress beforehand, which may involve not going into a certain room in your house for some time.

Would you look at the time!

But I'm being unfair on Sarah - she did a tremedous job of organising a superb wedding from across the world while I chipped in occasionally, trying to be helpful, but always feeling somewhat inadequate.

Of course, they say a wedding is all about the bride, but I'm not so sure. I think it's all about the mothers. A wedding is, of course, their chance to have the wedding that their mothers wouldn't let them have. The dress is wrong, the invitations are wrong, the list of invitees is wrong. My favourite was getting hassled for not wearing a dinner suit (this grievance later turned into disappointment I wasn't wearing tails) despite the fact it was a 5:30 wedding and my mother kicked off before my sister's 5:30 wedding because the groom was wearing tails before 6:00pm!!

But it all came together beautifully on the day. I was a little worried Mum wasn't going to dig the mariachi band or the magician, as she kept giving (still gives) me a hard time for having a 'non-traditional' wedding, but it turned out they were a big hit. It was the priest that got her goat.

Just the day before my family was saying how they hated it when people clap at weddings. So when Grant, our priest, told the congregation that weddings, though serious, are not solemn - so please clap - well, let's just say it didn't go down too well on the front row of the right hand side of the church. I was actually accused of putting the guy up to it - as if I would court that kind of misery.

Job done

As with everything, though, it worked out superbly. Both mothers had a great time, as did the guests (even those who took exception to Dad's speech about my dating restrictions as a lad: no blacks, no Chinese, no redheads and no Irish Catholics) and most importantly Sarah and I had a ball. It was tremendous seeing all our friends and family out in support, and a big thanks to those who came in from interstate and overseas to be there.

Presenting Mr and Mrs Lander

But jeez, I wish someone had told me to run my fingers through my hair before the photos...

More pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=njlander&target=ALBUM&id=5288941129582699105&authkey=bU9E6f2d0-k&feat=email