Totally Fabulous Fujairah Food Tour

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As a few of us were missing the food delights of Fujairah we organised a tweetup to join our good friends @daddybird and @kangayayaroo to eat ourselves full yesterday.

Our first pit stop was at Nepal Kitchen House where we had Peanut sandeko, chicken momos, mutton momos, thukpa (noodle soup), chicken chili, chicken tass (chicken and puffed rice), and aloo jeera fry (potato, cumin seeds, corriander). I loved the mutton tass last time and had been dreaming about it for this trip. Unfortunately the chicken tass whilst tasty, the rice was not as puffily nice as last time. :(. The chilli chicken and momos were delish though.

Mutton momos Chicken Tass 2

To give our tummies a rest we ventured up to Al Hayl Castle. The road was slightly bumpy but it was nice going through an old skool village (with beautiful doors for each residence).  The castle is the very old home of the Fujairah Royal Family (saw 100 odd years old).

View from top of fort Daddy, Kanga and Mita Al Hayl Castle 2

We then took our first tea break on one of the main streets, with the men coming to the car to give us our 1dhs karak chai.

Next stop was Salu Salo which is a Filipino restaurant in an alleyway. I couldn’t tell you which alley, but you can find it on Foursquare. Here we had: Bicol express, Bopis, Lumpia, Pinakbet, and Kare Kare were our choices. Bicol express is a stew in a coconut milk sauce. Bopis is heart and lung sauteed in tomato, chili, and onion. Lumpia is meat filled fried rolls, Pinakbet is a shrimp and vegetable dish, and Kare Kare is an oxtail stew in peanut sauce. I loved Kare Kare and Lumpia, but my mate G was a big fan of Bopis.

Filipino

After that lovely meal we had one of the best karak chai’s i have ever had at Finjan Cafe on the Corniche which was served in a clay pot! It was 4dhs but worth it.

Karak Chai

Our final meal for the day was at the very long titled Zamarod Al Afghani Rice Bukhari Restaurant. There we had mixed grill, mutton curry, lamb kofta, “special” flat bread and hummous. The hummous was freshley made and divine. Reminded me a lot of the lovely hummous we ate in Beirut. After a final cup of tea we left our lovely guests and headed back home. Full but happy.

Afghani

(Thanks to Kangayayaroo for the list of food we ate from her blog post (with the same title)  as I couldn’t recall them off the top of my head :)).

Working from Home

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Last week was my final week as a Solicitor. Did I feel good?

Yes!!

After 12 years  it felt brilliant to finally stop being an in-house lawyer and start running my own business – a decluttering service business (see decluttrme.com) It also feels good to say I am an entrepreneur, owner and even Managing Director (as it states on the trade licence and my business cards – slightly knobbish I know but hey it was offered to me). I am excited, scared and thinking as I type of how to get more clients.

I have faith that this is a great idea but it is a new concept in the UAE and it is a service that people have to get used to. Also you have the trepidation from potential clients to let you into their house and clutter. No one would want a stranger into your house to see the clutter and tell you that you need to change your space. There may be images of me coming in and just throwing everything away into a big bin bag, but the reality is different. Decluttr Me is about organizing your belongings into a neat easily accessible manner for future use. The bin bags will be used mainly for out of date food and torn underwear.

After years of helping corporations, I now have a chance to help people in a way that can change their lives even if it is in a small way. Also the items that are cleared away will be sold and their proceeds donated to worthwhile charities, or if they are not sellable items, provided to clothes banks for recyclable use.  I am still undecided on which main charities to assist. I would like to help a woman’s charity in the UAE and a charity in Kenya (where my family are originally from). I have been in touch with Dar Al Ber Woman Affairs Dept and hope to liaise with them for Decluttr Me and also to volunteer as well.  If you have contacts with worthwhile charities in both countries please let me know.

Starting this week as a full time business owner, I have been working in my apartment in my home office, which I formed over the last few weeks (see the picture with kitty included, the kitty does not want to leave my office…ever).

131002 Home office and oreo

I had been warned by friends, who are freelancers, of the perils of working alone and they weren’t wrong. The issues I have faced so far include:

–  Munching on chocolates, cookies (from Ben’s cookies – bloody tempting), salt n’ vinegar crisps;

– Making lots of cups of tea (not normal for me) and a big cooked lunch;

–  My two lovely cats sitting on my chair, desk, keyboard, blocking the screen and generally getting in the way;

–  No one to talk to except the cats

–  Distractions of new TV to watch – I had to start this home office the week of new TV coming out. The Ultimate Airport Dubai was very good by the way.

–  The balcony is a few feet away to have various breaks;

–  Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook easily distract me, but to be fair they are mainly accessed for Decluttr purposes (honest!).

Working at home you have to be strict with yourself. I am continuing to wake up at 7am every morning, however I will start dressing up as if I am going out to work, as wearing my slob clothes doesn’t inspire the work juices. I also have to stop the snack food and breaks.  My friend wisely advised that you need a break and not to work 7 days a week. I hope to follow that advise and also not work in the evening as well. I do need a distraction from myself every so often so my social media viewings will be allowed.

I also think that it is a good idea to get out even if it’s to a coffee shop to work for a bit. There are places I have read where freelancers and entrepreneurs hang out during the day. I have been to one or two places and the clientele have annoyed me with their superiority complexes. The corporate side of me is not a fan of bs chat and behavior so it will be hard for me to summon the willpower to go to these “hubs”. I should try them out as they might not be that bad now…

One or two places I will be trying include the Archive in Safe Park, which was expensive but had great coffee and atmosphere, Bastakiya (as it is my favourite place in Dubai) and the coffee shops in Motor City (as MC is near me). I will be giving my review of these places and business hubs so that other newbie freelancers and entrepreneurs have an idea of where to go when they want to work outside home.

For now, I have to take a break from working and watch TV.

Hitting me with your bag is not a good idea

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I recently returned from a holiday and landed at my local airport. Flying through the corridors and through e-gate I was as normal superfast next to the luggage carousel; then I had to wait.

It was a busy evening due to the end of the Eid Holidays but despite there being some empty carousels, the airport thought it would be wise to unload luggage for two planes at the same carousel. So after waiting for 30 odd minutes, we were suddenly beseeched with Indian passengers from the Indigo flight whose luggage was coming at the same carousel.

As always with Indian people, they don’t understand invasion of space. This young man was a prime example of this. With his dell backpack he stood as close as possible to me, hitting and pushing me with his body and bag several times. I couldn’t move back as there was a man standing close behind me. I wasn’t going to move away from my spot as I had been here for long enough and I was sure my suitcase would come.

After a few hits, the young man’s suitcase came. When it came, I was whacked with the backpack and suitcase. As I cannot seem to control my mouth, I tapped him on his shoulder and quietly said “will you be saying sorry to me for hitting me so many times”.

The man turned around and the following was what was said to me

“I didn’t hit you”

“Yes you did”

“It was my bag that hit you”

“Will you be saying sorry”?

“No, I wont be saying sorry to you, you don’t deserve it” [starts yelling]

“So its fine to hit a woman and not apologise”

“You are not a lady. No one would go out with you as you are so ugly”

At this point another man piped up and asked me what my problem was. I responded to him telling him to mind his own business and was he ok about another man hitting a woman. He shut up.

 “So you are fine with hitting women then”.

“Yes you deserved it”.

(Under my breath I swore – slip of the tongue but very quiet admittedly even for me)

“See you are not a lady, you are a piece of shit and an idiot. I am from Dubai and you cannot talk like that”

“I’m from here as well so fine I will tell the police how you have behaved”.

“The police will do nothing, you deserved it”.

“Wonderful, so its fine to hit a woman like it is to rape women as well isn’t it” (Yeah I said that – not proud, but it shocked him enough to walk away slightly).

I finally gave up.

I didn’t move but during this time I was surrounded by other Indian men just glaring at me.  If you have seen a Bollywood movie you would have seen the mob mentality that prevails when there is an argument or fight going on. Same thing here.

I was worried, but I am too stubborn to move and to allow bad manners to prevail. He hit me. Any gentleman or normal person would have apologized immediately and moved away. He started being defensive, yelling and getting personal.  I am sure that this man and the men surrounding me thought I would shut up after being yelled at, but they didn’t realize I was a mouthy British girl. I was also concerned that no police or security came to help even though he was yelling very loudly at me.

It wasn’t just the men, an old woman decided to slam her trolley into my leg after this argument, and then push me out of the way as well. I had given up by then to say anything. The purposeful way she behaved, showed that she was not amused with me arguing with this man. The general consensus was that it was fine for this man to do what he wanted and get away with it.

No one came to defend me, but the passengers from my plane (mostly Sri Lankans) did not behave in the same manner. It sounds awful but it was all the passengers from Indigo who acted like animals pushing and shoving at the carousel.

I did have a chance to do payback. I decided that going to the police would escalate the situation too much and I didn’t want to wait around; I wanted to go home. So I went up to the customs man and kindly asked him to torture the bloke for a while with his luggage and just generally harass him. I gave him a description of the nasty boy and went on my way. I was reassured they would sort him out. Luckily there was also a CID man nearby who heard me and hope assisted with the harrassment. 🙂

Fortunately for us ladies, the local men generally deplore mistreatment of women so they were not amused by my story of what had happened.

What happened is unfortunately not an unusual occurrence with men from the sub continent. They have this desire to push and shove going into the lift, metro, anywhere. They will not hold the door for you and will be rude to you especially if you are an Indian looking woman. It is a generalization, and there are some men from the sub continent that I have met over the years who are kind, gentlemanly human beings; but the majority that I keep meeting on my travels and here in this town fall into the general category of acting disgracefully.  

I don’t know if their mothers taught them to behave like that, they have learnt it from other men or have just been allowed to behave like this, so they just keep doing it. However they have been brought up, this behaviour has to stop. They cannot get away with bullying, hitting, harassing, and dare I say it, raping, women.

I will always speak up when treated badly but we all need to make a stand against these awful imbeciles.

Long weekend in Jordan

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8 years of living in Dubai and the only place in the Middle East I had visited before was Damascus. Since January I have made up for this complete faux pas by travelling to Lebanon (great), Kuwait (awesome hotel shame about the boring city), Oman (lovely) and now to add to the list, Jordan.

My friend G and I decided to do the normal trail of Amman, Petra and 2 nights in the Dead Sea Resort driving around in a pathetic Citroen C4 (it really struggled to get up the big hills – and there were loads of them).

Here is our travel diary for the four days in Jordan

Amman

We hired our car from Thrifty/Dollar. They tried to screw us around with a car with no boot shelf to hide our suitcase. After several minutes of being difficult we were giving a suitable (bruised) car.

We stayed in the Four Seasons Amman. Yes it’s bling but we wanted to spoil ourselves for a night. The sheets, as G will tell anyone who will listen, were amazing. Must have been a few 100 on the cotton count J.

Due to Emirates and their impeccable service of departing and arriving late to all destinations we had less time to explore Amman. We went to Rainbow Street in Circle 1 and saw a continuous stream of cute men. Whatever anyone says about Amman can be discounted by just staring at the hawt men. We went to Reem Shawarma which is supposedly the best shawarma place in the world. I can confirm that it was one of the best I had ever had and really helpful guys working there. Sitting on Circle 2 (a massive roundabout) we ate our shawarma and admired the crazy arse driving (they don’t believe in lanes).

The hotel was not seen much but we sat in the bar for a few hours and chatted away as we do whenever we are on holiday together.

Petra

After a lovely breakfast in our hotel we made our way down the main highway to Petra. It takes about 2.5 hours to get to Petra from Amman. There are no speed cameras but police patrols with cameras and ready to stop people for any reason. We were stopped twice but the police apologized for stopping us each time.

At Petra, I had organized to have a private tour guide to take us around Petra for JD50. Turns out that this fee didn’t include the entrance fee. We didn’t know and I had asked him to confirm the costs of going to Petra several times for a few weeks. After the tour had ended and we had given him his tip, he came back to us and accused us of being criminals and purposefully not paying him properly. Long story short, as I am still so angry with him, he spoke to us so disrespectfully that I ended up exploding London stylee in front of loads of tourists at the entrance to Petra to the point that I was shaking with rage. If you ever go to Petra don’t use a young man called Abdullah. Not only was he nasty and abusive he also spoke too fast, got annoyed if we asked questions and took our cameras to take photos and this was before he started his rant about us not paying him properly. We also think he was stroppy with us as we wouldn’t take a donkey/horse/cart to go around Petra or buy the tacky jewellery. He must have been getting commission for it. The animals looked in terrible condition and it was heartbreaking seeing them.

He ruined a moment we had been waiting weeks to see, but we were still glad we saw Petra and sang the Indian Jones theme tune (had to be done!).

To be honest Petra is extortionate (JD 50 entrance fee is GBP50!!) and they have only dug out mainly tombs. It is a big area and we did go at a stupid hot time but I don’t think it was worth that money (plus the guide fee of additional JD50!). However when in Jordan you have to see it, so go and then you can cross it off your list.

Whilst I was exploding, G got directions from a lovely bellboy at the Movenpick Petra on how to get to the Dead Sea. It took 3 hours to get to the Dead Sea resort but we took a windy picturesque route through Jordanian villages, farms, mountains and eventually the Dead Sea. It was amazing and fun and calmed me right down after our time in Petra. You have to drive that road during the day otherwise it would be a nightmare, but it was awesome.

Dead Sea

We stayed at the Kempinski Ishtar Dead Sea. Lovely resort but shame about the hair conditioner being sooo shite and no wifi in the rooms. There was wifi by the 6 pools, restaurants and beach side but in this day and age you need it in the room.

The Dead Sea is the weirdest thing ever. As soon as you get into the sea you float up. You really have to struggle to move your legs downwards. I can also confirm that if you get the salt in your eyes, it will burn you to the point that you might need to ask a kindly couple to help you out of the sea to wash your face (G was busy relaxing with ears covered by water :S).

We slathered on the Dead Sea mud twice during our stay. Loads of people didn’t follow the instructions on the slathering process so here is our guide to do the Dead Sea mud experience:

  1. Sit in the Dead Sea for 15-20 minutes
  2. Slather on the mud everywhere (except your hair – remember the hair conditioner in the hotel was shit; it took half an hour to brush our hair)
  3. Sit semi quietly admiring the muppets in the sea for 20 minutes
  4. Go into the sea and take off the mud making sure you don’t splash the sea water into your eyes and relax for a while in the sea water
  5. Go to the shower and take off the remaining mud and any salt water in your eyes.
  6. Sunbathe.

Our plan was to do very little during our stay at the Dead Sea and we did that successfully. We ate, drank, tanned and swam a bit. After check out on the last day we went to the Baptism Site where John baptized Jesus. Once again we were hot but it was good. You get a free listening device to hear about the various points whilst you walk around. We went to the River Jordan (singing “By the Rivers of Babylon” – it amused us) and saw a massive group of American tourists on the other side (it had the Israel flag there) filling up bottles of the River Jordan (the water looked dirty) and baptizing babies and themselves (wearing special baptism t-shirts). It was rather surreal especially being so close to the other side of the bank. We didn’t expect the Jordanian baptism tour to be that well organized or within such a big area, but it was impressive. Bloody hot though as you are outside most of the time.

After that, we made the relatively short drive up to Queen Alia airport going through the non highway highway and not getting stopped by police once! . The airport is modern and clean and has decent shops so we quickly did our tourist souvenir shopping and ran for the plane. Two thumbs up for the airport. Much better than Kuwait and Muscat (Kuwait was beyond bad).

I’m glad I finally made it to Jordan and got to see a lot of it, which you may not see if you go with a tour group. It’s not somewhere I’d go back to in the near future, unless of course one of my lovely Jordanian friends got married there or something, but it is worth seeing. Just bear in mind that Jordan is relatively expensive so take more dollars than you would normally for your holiday.

The Chedi @ Muscat

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When I thought I was going to leave Dubai and the Middle East I created a bucket list of places I still hadn’t been to and decided to do as much as possible before I left. One of the places on the list was Muscat and in particular the Chedi.

I flew on Fly Dubai as it was the cheapest and its an hour flight; so I wasn’t going to spend loads on travelling. The flight was good but shame they confused us by saying the flight was due to be delayed for four hours!!!

On arrival I paid 5 rial for an entry visa (as a GCC resident you get a discount which is a bonus). To get a taxi you prepay and then have a mental Omani bloke drive like a maniac to the hotel. Once at the hotel the craziness dropped off.

This is a five star hotel so from the moment your taxi door is opened you are treated like a queen. I was asked to take a seat and was given a cold towel and a glass of orange and ginger juice. Check in formalities were done whilst I remained seated by a lovely Filipino lady. As I was too early she offered me complimentary coffee in the lounge and a wifi password to keep me occupied for a while. I also got a map of the hotel which as you can see if bloody huge.

In the lounge I could only get biscuits to nibble on but the waiter brought me loads to tide me over. Bless.

After waiting a few hours, a friend who has been here before suggested i pay the extra amount to upgrade. Upgrading would mean i would get access to the club lounge, drop off at the airport and free minibar. Plus it would mean i would get the room. So after sitting for 4 hours i finally got into a room.

The rooms were the normal 5 star standard of lovely, understated and Arabic designed. Lovely.

As quick as a flash i was in my bikini and had my beach bag ready to start exploring the 3 pools. I went in one direction and ended up in the Long Pool area. Each point of the pool had a section with a massive lounger (enough to fit 3 people) and steps into the pool. It was awesome. You could sit in the pool and the drinks would be brought to the edge to sip on whilst relaxing and topping of your tan.

After a while i went to the pool restaurant at the smaller pool area to have some lunch (Wagyhu burger and chips – when sunbathing i need a burger). Delicious and very proper.

After the meal and feeling very bloated I chilled by the Long pool for a bit longer. The whole point of this weekend was to do very little and to rest. I did a lot of that whilst on the massive lounger.

In the evening, i put on my semi fancy dress (thank god i brought it with me) and went to the club lounge for the free drinks. After a while of listening to couples chat, i went over to “The Restaurant”. Supposedly in the Top 100 list of restaurants in the world. Still feeling bloated i opted for Prawns in corriander (see picture) and also sashimi. Two starters might be weird but it was what i needed. There is another restaurant by the beach but with the mossies in love with me, i thought it best to stay away from there.

Being alone, the rest of the evening was spent chilling with my ipad and being lazy.

The next morning not planning very well, i sat by the beach after a lovely breakfast. At 12 I had the grand plan to go to the souk in Muscat, but of course the souks close from 12-4 in the Middle East so instead my lovely taxi driver took me to Muscat City Centre. It is the same as Deira City Centre in Dubai but smaller. I had lunch and then left there very quickly. I had the taxi drivers number so he picked me up from the mall and we organised for him to come and get me to take me to the souk later.

After checking out, i went to “The Spa” (yep they were clever with the names of stuff in the Chedi) and had the hot stone massage. To say it was painful would be an understatement but it did clear the really tight muscles on my top and lower back. Unfortunately the middle part of the back suffered for the next few days after. The spa was different in that there was no joint changing room, but you changed and got ready in each spa treatment room (each room contained a shower and toilet as well). It was like being in a hotel room with a massage bed and spa bath.

Finally after that i went to Muscat old town and saw the souk for a few minutes, buying the famous delicious halwa (saffron and regular) and some buqur (frankincense) for my parents.

Muscat is what you wish Dubai would be. Arabic designed everywhere even on new flyovers, growing but not high rise and with gentle kind locals. The locals work as taxi drivers, in shops, etc so you can talk to them to get an idea about the city. Even on a weekend the roads were quiet. The souk was old school with a covered warren of lanes with stalls selling various arabic things for locals and tourists. I wished i had planned better.

It is crazy to go to another country to stay mostly in a 5 star bling hotel but it was nice to get out of town. The only downside was the couples in the hotel. It was full of them; all staring as if us single people (3 in total) were freaks. Smug couples should remember that they could break up and that the grass might be greener on our side. Also a few unsubtle staff members at the hotel did ask if i was alone and then made a slight face. It’s not cool. Otherwise I had a lovely weekend away and highly recommend going to Muscat.

New Start

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I have decided to jump off the diving board and start a new venture. Decluttering.

If you know me, you will know that i’m an anal clean freak who likes to organise and clear up whereever i go. I have been known to go to friend’s houses and start cleaning up their mess while they chat.  I have decided to use these extraordinary skills to good use to help people in the UAE clear up their wardrobes, papers, anything and everything.

It’s still early days but over the next few weeks I will be testing the waters and seeing what you lot think of my crazy idea. Is it sane to step out of my corporate world box and do something so crazily anal?  Will I have any clients? Will I drive my twitter followers nuts with discussions on organising and IKEA boxes? All will be revealed.

I did amend this blog last night but on hindsight i have decided to start a new one just for the new venture.

For now let me know what you think of the name “Shelo’s Closet”. Catchy, twee or downright excellent? Also if you want to give helpful advice for a new start-up lady, it would be appreciated. 🙂

The Golden Triangle

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Last weekend I went back to India to explore the North and see some of the famous buildings India has built. Once again I went with a group of mostly single people through Escape Travels Dubai. Some of the trippers have become good mates, as we have been on other trips together and bonded, the rest were the normal “socially inept” expats that bring so much joy to the rest of us (sic).

Our journey commenced from Delhi, where at 4am we jumped on a coach and made the long 5 hours journey to Jaipur.

Our hotel – Royal Orchid – was lovely and 5*, so suited me to a tee. I was on my own as I cannot share with some stranger unless it’s a gorgeous man. The bathroom had a lovely clear glass wall which would have been embarrassing for members of our group sharing rooms with others.

After a bit of a rest, we went to Jaipur Old Town and visited the Fort made of beautiful red brick and designed with ornate designs. I couldn’t recall all of what we were told about the place, as I was slightly too tired, hot and busy testing out my new super duper lens (with no training) but lets just say it was lovely. I have pictures to prove it 🙂

There was a chance to do overpriced shopping in the Fort itself. At one point a lovely lady in our group was on the brink of buying a 100% silk sari from a vendor. I had a feel of the sari and it was not silk (more like polyster) and INR3000; it was too much for what it was so I was a bit blunt with my disgust at the sari, which pissed the vendor off, but made me laugh (the lady didn’t buy the sari) 🙂

We were then able to go to Jaipur market and try and get some bargains. The rest of the group went running to get tourist tack whilst I dragged my friend Gillian to go to a sari shop. If you have never been to a proper sari shop in Dubai or India, you must. You get the men to show you loads of different saris (i was looking for a lengha sari) and try them on you to see if they suit you. I feel bad that they have to fold the saris back up later, but hey we had fun and I convinced Gillian to buy a sari and I bought a weird new designer sari for a 16 pounds! Bargain.

In the evening we had the joy of going to a Rajistan dance and dinner thing. The show was not bad but the food sucked massively. I was hoping for rich spicy curries to melt in my mouth but they had made food to accomodate the expats who can’t handle the spice. To say the food was tastelessly shit would be an understatement. Plus on our table we had an old bag sitting with us complaining non stop, but grabbing the food like she had never seen food before. We were glad to leave that place.

The next day we went to the Amber Fort. To get up to the fort you have to ride an elephant which is brilliant. We were in luck that we had a Michael Schumacher wannabe elephant who decided to overtake all the other elephants to get us to the top first. He was 25 whilst the others were older slower creatures. Good fun speeding up a massive hill.

The fort itself is beautiful and worth walking around. The views are spectacular and include a “great wall” of jaipur and lakes. It was tiring but we were lucky the weather was not so hot and humid to walk around easily. Getting down the hill you go by jeep which is as bumpy as getting on the elephant.

After taking some gorgeous photos we then jumped back onto the coach and started the next long 4-5 hours trip to Agra. We arrived in the evening at Jaypee Palace – another 5* star hotel but a bit old and ragged on the edges. We decided to forego the Bollywood dance excursion and instead opted for a relaxing drink in the bar watching people and talking about the trip so far. We then joined the group for another themed dinner. The food was slightly better but still mild flavoured. However, interpid Fajer discovered some chilli chutney which we mixed into all the curries we ate. Some of the group were planning to party in a room later, but quite a few of us were exhausted and wanted to get an early night in preparation for our early start to….

The TAJ Mahal!

If you have never been and had no desire to go there, you will not get the excitement of going to see it. However, when you get there and you see it from afar and then up close it all becomes astonishingly awesome. The Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world and whatever the naysayers were saying on our trip, I thought it was one of the most beautiful buildings I had ever seen. The majestic beauty of it is indescribable. My pictures won’t help explain how awesome this place is. You have to see it to believe it.

Moving on we went to Agra Fort. Its ok. The rooms where the Shah who built the Taj Mahal for his wife was imprisoned (by his son!) were opulently fabulous. However, its not the end of the world if you don’t go see the Agra Fort.

Next we jumped on our coach and guess what, we had another 5 hours drive to Delhi.

Delhi – what can i say about Delhi. I didn’t want to go on this trip because of the rape stories coming out of Delhi. Even up to the day of leaving i was freaking out about Delhi. Delhi is noisy, messy, smelly (people pee and shit in public everywhere (same in Agra and Jaipur and most probably most places in India)) and every other subjective you can use but its something to see. We stayed at the Crown Plaza Okhala which was the blingest of our hotels and a good end to our hotel stays but we were warned by the hotel staff to not walk around the area as it’s not safe.

I obviously wanted to go shopping for more saris so asked the concierge to assist finding an area for us to go to which was open for shopping on a Sunday (Easter Sunday as well!). Between a few of the staff, they found Lagar Najpath would be open and organised taxis for the 7 of us going. Four of us were lucky that we got a taxi driver driving an ambassador which was awesome. The two drivers agreed to stay at the shopping area waiting for us to shop and return to take us back to the hotel. To wait they would be paid 50rupees an hour. – thats 60p. We were so not going to argue with that. Because we felt safe in the knowledge that we had drivers waiting for us we were free to wander around in two groups and do our shopping. Four of us went sari shopping and picked up some gems and then due to us not finding anywhere good to eat, left the rest of the group and returned to the hotel to finally have some hot indian food. The rest, whilst we were slightly worried about them, were fine and returned an hour later after shopping for touristy stuff.

Our little group decided to not going to the bar/club with the others and had a late dinner and then went to sleep again. If you think we were boring, travel by coach across two states in India, walk around loads of old buildings in the heat and then tell me if you don’t become exhausted.

The final day we spent going around Delhi and seeing the beautiful Qatab Minar and the old colonial places. The “Britishas” as our guide kept calling them built a lot of the grand buildings in Old Delhi which seem to not be appreciated by the Delhites. It seemed to be a thorn in their side that the Britishas had built massive roads, well proportioned buildings and a sewage system. There is no pleasing some people.

One of our final stops was to India Gate which was built in memory of all fallen Indian soldiers. There was a parade of army people doing stuff every 10 minutes. It’s ok to watch for 5 minutes, max. The final stop was to a Gurdwara which was nice. As always Sikhs are welcoming to all and it was nice to walk around but the heat and tiredness had got to a lot of us by the end of this visit.

Being in India you see the poverty and the dirt, which was depressing. I saw signs in Agra and Jaipur about “Clean Agra, Green Agra” with rubbish piles under the sign. The irony seems to have gone unnoticed by the locals. I hope that the area could be more like Kerala which was much cleaner and beautiful but I fear the corruption and other factors will hamper the growth there. However, saying all that the trip was amazing and we saw beautiful buildings and people. If you go with a group and are sensible you will have a good safe time in India. Don’t be stupid and don’t go alone especially if you are a woman and enjoy Incredible India.

The trials and tribulations of driving.

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If you live in Dubai and have been on social media you would have most probably seen the uproar regarding the blog article which was published on The National website (http://blogs.thenational.ae/others/my-year-at-the-national/licensed-to-kill-child-ferrari-drivers-headed-for-a-road-near-you).  The author wrote a retracting article today, which didn’t help her cause, but it was worth a try.  I could go on about how stupid the girl is for a) writing such a terrible article and b) admitting her reckless driving to readers publicly; but to be fair she is 22 years old. She is young, she is silly.

The Editor wrote defensive comments on the Motoring Middle East FB page and a note on the original article. What they The National should have done as @mita56 eloquently says in her blog (http://mita56.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/a-harsh-lesson-at-a-very-very-young-age/) mentored the girl and proof read the article before it was published. The newspaper and the Editor threw her to the wolves, and we are horrible ravenous wolves on social media in the UAE.  The newspaper should apologise to this girl for putting her in this situation and to the public for acting so shoddily.  The likelihood of that happening especially the latter part is negligible. Accountability is not a word that is favoured with companies in this side of the world.

As bad as the article is, it has brought up the issue of driving in the UAE (again). Driving here is scary for everyone, even experienced drivers. I have been driving for nearly 20 years but I still get nervous occasionally. I have to explain to visitors that we drive defensively, always watching all mirrors and windows for drivers coming from anywhere and everywhere. People change lanes without indicating, people slow down and even stop in the middle of a busy road as they have realized they have gone the wrong way (favourite sport by Saudi’s – I wont start ranting about their driving), others like driving in the opposite direction to pass traffic. Different emirates have different kind of drivers; Abu Dhabi drivers are arrogant and like driving up to your bumper in the fast lane to push you out of the way, Sharjah drivers like braking suddenly, RAK drivers enjoy being in the fast lane in really old Nissan Sonny’s and not moving (I am generalizing but you get the jist).

The problem here is that we have (nearly) all driven badly here for so long and gotten away with it. We have had to drive badly to accommodate other people and their bad driving which makes it a vicious circle. There does need to be education on how to drive, but the police and RTA also have to stop bad drivers from driving on the road.

A prime example is an awful girl I have had the misfortune to know. She passed her driving test only a few months ago. Within one week of passing her driving test she drove to Ras Al Khamiah – she drove in the opposite direction of the traffic. She didn’t get stopped or fined. The next week she had an accident somewhere in Dubai. Another time, she damaged her hire car twice so badly in one weekend that the police had to drive her home, but they didn’t confiscate her licence. She has gained more fines and points in the few months of passing her test, than I have ever received in my lifetime. The hire car company has given her approximately 3 new cars since she started driving. She then decided she wanted a big car, so she bought a brand new Pajero. Luckily she is that silly that she paid a huge amount to get a “Limited Edition” Pajero; it means we can spot her a mile away and drive away from her.  Considering how many times, the police have been called to deal with her accidents they have not reviewed her file and thought she should lose her licence.

She is one dangerous driver but what about the rest??  Ok driving dangerously is a subjective test but if you receive a certain amount of fines and accidents shouldn’t that tell the RTA/police that they have to step in and remove the person’s right to drive?

As we are ranting about driving here are my pet peeves of driving on a daily basis here:

  1. Not wearing a seatbelt,
  2. Driving without your lights on at night,
  3. Driving with broken lights at night and never fixing them,
  4. Kids not being buckled up in the back,
  5. Kids sitting on parents laps especially drivers laps in the front of the car,
  6. Kids hanging out of the windows,
  7. Kids driving 4×4 (I once saw kids about 11 driving a massive 4×4),
  8. Driving up to the bumper of the car in front,
  9. Driving really slowly in the fast lane,
  10. Driving in all the lanes when the slow lanes are empty – all should drive in the slow lanes and then overtake to the faster ones,
  11. Mini-van drivers driving really badly with loads of people in the car,
  12. Mini-van drivers bursting their tyres every bloody day; do you know we get a heart attack when those tyres burst in front of us,
  13. Not putting your fog lights on when its foggy,
  14. Putting on hazard lights when it’s foggy or rainy. FFS!
  15. Driving slowly in the fast lane whilst talking on the phone. If you want to talk on the phone go to the side and lounge around there for a while,
  16. Not indicating when changing lanes or keeping on the indicator when you are not intending to bloody change lanes.

I could go on but I will control myself for now.

I am very bad at not indicating when I change lanes but do so nowadays cos I know I’m acting terribly by not warning others. I indicate at home so I should do it here as well.

At the end of the day we need to all start changing and hopefully others will follow our lead.

Faith in Humanity

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Recently something remarkable happened in the midst of losing Amira.

I had put up flyers in my neighbourhood regarding missing Amira including my mobile number. One day I got a call from a little girl saying she had seen my flyer and was going to go look for Amira. A few minutes later i got another call from her asking what were Amira’s normal haunts were so she could investigate that area first. Over the next few hours I got updates from the little sleuth until the evening – she called me to say she had to go for dinner but would continue searching the next day.

This little girl who could have been playing with her mates in the big play area had such a heart to go look for Amira. I was so touched by her kindness that I decided to call the mobile number in the evening to talk to her parents about her kindness.

In the evening I got through to the father of the little angel and thanked him for bringing up such a remarkable girl and to tell him what she had decided to do that day. You know what the man did; he gave me kind words of encouragement for finding Amira and said his family would continue to look for my little Amira. The little angel had learn’t kindness from a remarkable father.

The next day, the little sleuth called me to thank me for calling her dad!! I had to thank her. She was the one who showed such kindness. 

I never heard from her again (or ever met her) but that one day of kindness has touched me. In a city where kids normally are major spoilt horrible brats, it was refreshingly lovely to have a kid be so proactively kind.