2010

Well, it's a new year (5 weeks ago) and lots has happened.

Did I mention that back in March my entire team at work was sacked without any speaking to me about it? The way that whole episode was handled got my back up a little bit, I have to admit. So I did what any thinking man would do: looked for a new job myself.

That took approximately half an hour, when I rang up a guy I met at a conference in Venice and asked if he needed any building physics expertise.

"No, we have a team in house for that, so we won't sub out to Atkins."

"Actually, I meant in house."

"Shit! I've been wanting to head hunt you for 6 months."

Always nice to know someone loves you!! Anyway, long story short, I agreed to help some guys establish an office of a new firm focussed on specialist building services. Then it was just a matter of timing: did I resign from Atkins and walk out with my head held high? Or did I wait around to get made redundant and walk out with my bank balance topped up?

I chose the pragmatic route and a few months later moved into a new pad on the proceeds. See here:

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

But all that is secondary. You see, Sarah got pregnant. If you're wondering when that happened, let me out it this way: I'm thinking of calling our first born Jebel Akhtar. That would make me Abu Jebel, or Father of the Mountains, which is a pretty awesome moniker for someone who loves the hills as much as I do.

Anyway, she is due any day now. And by any day I mean I had my weekend leave pass cancelled, and I'm not allowed to drink so I can drive her to the hospital. (The zero tolerance policy here means I really can't drink.) Her mum arrived yesterday to support us through these interesting times, so now it's just a matter of time.

We changed doctors half way through the pregnancy. The first one came highly regarded, much like my evil endodonist when I was 14. Let's just say that her personality and mine didn't exactly meld, so we transferred to a guy who is so laid back, if we here any more relaxed he'd be dead.

Well, Sarah has blogged about her pregnancy for 9 months, so I won't go into too much detail. My life has barely been disrupted - I've had to absorb a few mood swings along the way and, now she's not working, some more costs - but I still go to work every day. All in, it's been pretty easy for me! Of course, that means I haven't had the opportunity to adjust in the same way as Sarah has. One mate told me it took him about 9 months to come to terms with fatherhood once his first was born. He also told me he made the mistake of checking out the business end during the delivery, and it was 5 months before he wanted sex again.

Soon enough I'll be writing about the fun of fatherhood. I'm hoping I can get back to my style of seeing the humour in the little day events, but for now, I'm signing off.

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

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.

y
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

Christmas

Ah, the festive season. Over here it starts with Diwali, the Indian new year, followed by Eid, the Muslim remembrance of Abraham nearly killing his son, then Christmas, the old pagan midwinter festival hijacked by the Christians.

Perhaps because of the large number of westerners here, or perhaps because of it's inherent commercialism, Christmas seems to dominate in terms of decorations. Thankfully, the pretty colours and annoying music don't start in September as they do in the west (or just after Easter as they do in Australia), but they make up for that by going all in. Shops, and I mean all shops, torture their customers and hapless employees with looped tapes of really shit music. No wonder suicide rates are so high over Christmas. It's nothing to do with lonliness, it's all about the lamentable tunes.

Meanwhile, decorations are everywhere. And real decorations, too: Christmas trees, signs that say "Merry Christmas", and nativity scenes. Yes, in a Muslim country they have nativity scenes because (in Dubai at least), they are tolerant of other cultures. Compare this to the idiocy seen in the West where councils can't put up decorations, nativity scenes are banned, and you can only say "happy holidays" or "seasons greetings" lest you offend someone. Personally, I think the only people to ever get offended are the wet lefty do-gooder apologists who think they know what's best for others. I'm pretty sure all the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, Jews, Pagans and Jedis living in countries like Australia or the UK or France accepts Christmas as part of the culture and don't get offended. Well I say, if you don't like it, get on a boat and leave. Then the Navy can do some target practice.

And here's another recent example. Sarah's school (run by a bunch of poms) put on a Christmas concert called "Winter Wonderland" (and not, oddly, "Taking the Christ out of Christmas"). This consisted of little kids singing Christmas songs, but not carols. (Santa Claus good, Three Wise Men bad. In fact, Sarah was nervous about one song as it referred to a Parson Brown, as that has religious connotations.)

Between songs individual kids would get up and tell the audience about Christmas in different parts of the world. The best part was the pommy kid: "the most important character... at Christmas time is Santa Claus." No jokes! It was all I could do not to shout out "what about Jesus?"

Once the kids were off the stage things got positively weird. Some guys dressed as snowmen, but resembling Santa's bovver boys - kind of a cross between A Clockwork Orange and Munch's The Scream - wandered onto stage and started to sing. Lucky the kids were gone or they'd have nightmares for years.

Back in the general population, though, there was one Christmas theme that didn't quite make sense: Wafi (a shopping centre) ran the following radio ads: "In the magical world of Narnia [mmm, ok], the lion awakes with a mighty roar [check]. In her castle, the Ice Queen knows she is defeated [check]. The woodland animals rejoice [check]. Children visit Santa in his secret grotto [WTF? Santa in a secret grotto? How does Santa figure in an alegorical story about the reincarnation of Christ?]..."

* * *

Christmas itself was okay as far as that kind of thing goes. Sarah's parents were over so we went to the park with a picnic after calling home to speak to the family. I called during the present opening ceremony so everyone seemed keen to get off the phone and get back to it, but I managed to cover everyone, so that was good. I might go back next year, though...

Weird Sports

Deep Water Soloing


Step one: hire local fisherman to take you out to the cliffs off Dibba.

Step two: climb cliffs

Step three: jump

Awesome...

Unfortunately, we didn't take photos of the really good cliffs and climbing, but I'll be going back so stay tuned...

Meanwhile, the Rugby 7s are on again this weekend and this time it's warm and sunny. It's sold out, the rugby was good, beer cost Dh240 for 12 cans (around AU$60!!!) but everyone had a grand day out. Unfortunately, I didn't take a camera. So stiff, you'll just have to come and see it for yourself.

Culture Vulture

One criticism a lot of people level at the UAE is that it lacks culture. Today I'm going to demonstrate that that is not the case, as in the last month I have experienced many fine examples of a culture much more sophisticated than the beer drinking expat pasttimes most people indulge in.

First up, Sarah and I have started going to free classical music concerts. These are varied affairs, with the first one being a piano recital by Sonya Bach.

Now, with a name like that, you'd think you'd be on a winner, but unfortunately the South Korean miss Bach was, while technically proficient at hitting the keys, very heavy on the pedal and had such weird interpretations of well known pieces that I couldn't recognise them. That didn't bother the audience though, who clapped like madmen and wouldn't stop, so she wound up trotting out about six times and subjecting us to two encores! The gall of some people, really! I always thought an encore was something you were invited to do, not just a live version of a hidden track to give yourself more time on stage.

Our second concert was much better, especially because Sarah was playing in it. She's in the Dubai Philharmonic Orchestra, a grandly titled ensemble of professionals and amateurs who play for kicks. This time they were playing with the Australian Jazz Quartet, which implies a sense of government sponsorship, and these guys had arranged some Mozart peices with a jazz flavour. They called it Jazz Meets Mozart, and it was Jazz Meets Mozart in an Ali Meets Foreman kind of way, or perhaps it should have been called Jazz Waylays Mozart In A Dark Alley And Leaves His Battered Body Behind The Dumpster.

Again, there were some examples of unrecognisable classics, but there was a great latin interpretation of something famous whose name I can't remember, but the comic highlight was this Swiss guy who sang the bassoon part of the Bassoon Concerto. Now, if he'd sang it in a classical style, maybe it would've worked. But he sang in scat (doobie-doobie do wah). People in the audience were openly laughing at this poor bastard. I guess it's technically tricky to do it, but it really just didn't work.

Number three was a quartet from Hungary at another free concert. These guys were good, but I can't rember their name...

That's about it for culture. Next up: sport.

Via Ferrata

So I got all geared up for a via ferrata trip, which is where you traverse a cliff clipped in to a permanently fixed steel cable. So far, so easy, but throw in zip lines across an 80m canyon, added to my paralysing fear of hanging over a void (which is why I hate climbing overhangs) and I had to bail.


Which is a pity considering the 5 hour trip out, the one hour wait while one of the guys who was late to the Oman border caught in a queue of 6 busloads of holiday makers (it was the Eid weekend), and another half hour wait while the same guy realised at the last minute he'd forgotten his pulley and had to go back down the hill to get it.


The problem for me was really the zip line thing. Ben bailed first, freaked by the cliffs, but I got to the zip line. And my god, what a sight.

It was really hairy. I checked a couple of times after bailing that I'd made the right decision, and then I checked the photos later as well, and I made the right decision. It was too much for me at this point. Perhaps if I'd done zip lines before, perhaps over the sea and not so high, but for your first experience to be so scary one of the organisers bails, well, that's pretty scary.

But the scenery was beautiful, so it was worth a trip out. Unfortunately, the photo-uploader isn't working too well, so you'll have to imagine it, or check out Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=784253645

Kuala Lumpur

I followed up my trip to India with another flying visit to Singapore (leave Thursday night, arrive Friday morning, leave Saturday afternoon) to hand over the biggest cheque I've ever written. As a result, I now own 1/3 of a very expensive flat in the heart of Singapore. (A 5 minute walk to Robertson Quay, for those who know Sing, and that's only another 5 minute walk to Clarke Quay, one of the hippest parts of town.)

The following weekend I was back, but this time carried on to Kuala Lumpur to see my parents who were stopping off there rather than Dubai on their way home from Europe. (The Dubai stopover was prohibitively expensive, so fair call.) KL has come along a bit since I was last there in 2002 (see previous posts) with grand new malls, cleaner streets, and the removal of the smell of raw sewage that I remember so fondly from last time.


We were staying at the Westin Hotel, a comfortable but ultimately colour-by-numbers affair that was centrally located and overlooked the Petronas Towers.

The great thing about this trip, other than seeing my folks for the first time in nine months, was that I got to do some touristy things I missed out on last time. Like go to the telecoms tower, see batik getting made in a traditional tourist trap, and see the elephant sanctuary.

Malaysia still has elephants, but these are large creatures that like to eat so often encroach on farm land. This is not ideal (if you're a farmer), so the poor creatures are captured and relocated and at some point seem to pass through a sanctuary in the Genting Highlands.

Now all that's very cool, the sanctuary is nice and the elephants are well treated. But then come the tourists. In this case, a school trip from Australia, and these little bastards smelt around 100 times worse than the elephants. My god, those little f*ckers smelt as bad as Indian labourers in Dubai. Seriously. It made me ashamed to be Australian.

Anyway, our full day guided tour also involved a trip to the Batu caves and, once again, I was too embarrassed to buy the souvenir I wanted to get last time: a T-shirt of the caves with my face superimposed in the middle.

The Batu caves are pretty cool and involve over 200 steps to get to them. These steps were clearly built before the invention of codes, as they have a rise of about 500mm in places and are possibly the most strenuous I've encountered. Mum sensibly passed up the opportunity to haul herself to the top, cover herself in perspiration and then get subjected to some infuriatingly bad Bollywood music on a continual loop at the top of the stairs. Once you get to the top, you go into the cave and it opens out to a sky cave... with a smooth concrete floor.

Getting back to KL, Mum and I went to the markets to buy genuine copies of various goods, from ties to belts to DVDs. (I couldn't pass up every Jet Li film condensed to 5 discs for MR55. I was assured they had subtitles, only to discover they are Chinese subtitles. Then again, who needs dialogue in a Jet Li film?) Then we went for a foot massage...

The previous week I'd had a massage at Changi airport: it was a clean and subdued place, with a nice young Thai lady who rubbed my legs. The parlour in KL looked as bad as you're thinking, and the nice young Thai lady was in fact an old Malaysian crone who seemed intent on going above the knee. As a result, it was somewhat hard to relax, especially with Mum on the neighbouring table laughing every time I expressed surprise: such as when the crone got me in a headlock then cracked my neck. What part of "foot massage" didn't she get?

After that, it was back to Singapore to wait for a day for a connecting flight, bought some souvenirs in Chinatown (another touristy thing I had never done before) and then home to Dubai. And my sixth flight in three weeks where I got to load up on movies... (see my other blog, link on top right of page.)

Nick's Food Tour - India

As my eyes wept, my nose ran and my ears started to ring, I realised that perhaps I should not have let myself be goaded by Arshad into eating the green chilli.

It was, however, possibly the best Indian meal I've ever had (and it thankfully did not degenerate into a murderous argument over the bill...). Luckily, I'd tasted everything before I seared the tastebuds off my tongue.

The restaurant was Kababs and Kurries at the ITC Grand Central in Mumbai. Despite the rather cavalier attitude to spelling, the food was excellent and not a chicken tikka marsala or other Euro-Indian dish in sight. The prawn kebab was subtle in flavour and made out of prawns the size of a baby's fist. The chicken was barbecued perfectly and went well with the yoghurt and the lamb was something else. Specifically, it was goat. It seems "lamb" is Indian for "goat meat".

Now, the fish (in kokunut kurry) was a little bland, but that may have been because I had most of it after trying the green chilli. (Fortunately, one bite was not enough to liquify my entire digestive system, but there were a few moments the next day when I felt like I'd been given a prostate exam by a doctor who confused the KY with Tiger Balm.)

* * *

Mumbai is a city of contrasts. Largely, it's the contrast between poverty and squallor, but you can also see that some people earn a rupee or two. The hotel, for example, was easily 5-star, I saw million dollar display homes, and I thnk I saw a car without dents. But the rest is raw. Like sewage. Particularly the sewage.

The grand old buildings look as worn as you could expect after 60 years of no maintenance, new buildings look old, and buildings under construction look like they may be under deconstruction. The lucky ones live in these. The not so lucky live in shanty towns on the footpaths, adn the really poor bastards live under tarpaulins on the side of the road. Suddenly I understoof why they flock to places like Dubai to work hard and live 8-12 to a room for scant pay: it's probably absolute luxury to them. It really makes you appreciate what you've got.

Children play on the streets in Mumbai, then grow up to play on the streets some more, only in a car. Traffic here is nuts. Not only is it one of the few places where you can still share the road with a bullock pulling a cart, but the bullock is actually the best driver around. I think Indian drivers have some kind of echo-location as they don't use their eyes at all, relying instead on constant honking. Once again, Dubai doesn't seem so bad.