Picture sipping cardamom-flavored Arab coffee and nibbling on dates on a low sofa in the afternoon; sailing across the Dubai Canal at twilight in an abra to visit a souq; tasting different kinds of meze dips on pita bread in the evening. I experienced all this, with little effort, on my first day in Dubai.

Now picture a debilitating heat; an intense overbuilding of land, especially upward, with construction everywhere; a smug attitude of “mine is bigger than yours”; an area billed as Downtown Dubai that consists of two rows of ugly high rises with an overwide highway between them rumbling with traffic, all of it looking startlingly out of place in the otherwise cosmopolitan atmosphere. I experienced all this as well, with little effort, on my first day in Dubai.

This is the yin and yang of Dubai, the playboy of the United Arab Emirates.

United Arab Emirates   We have moved our attention from Australia to West Asia (the Middle East), and we need to review our geography. First let’s take a look at a map of the Arabian Peninsula. Once again, it’s in German, but English Wikipedia didn’t have this good a map, and anyway, on se débrouille/one muddles through. All the place names are recognizable, including Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE is here the VAE. We are at the eastern end of the Arab world, which extends west from here across north Africa; the green area adjoining Iraq is Iran (Persia), which is Muslim, but not Arab. I have been to the eastern Mediterranean countries on the left, and really have little additional interest in the area, but the uniqueness of Dubai and the rest of the UAE attracted me to this side of the region as a way station between Perth and New York. For completeness, on the lower left is the Red Sea, which doesn’t concern us here. What does concern us is on the right, the Persian Gulf (inland), leading via the Strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman on the Indian Ocean.

[A note on the transliteration of Arabic: Arabic has two K-sounds, which, in Arabic, distinguish words (“are phonemic”). English has the same sounds, but they do not distinguish words (“are not phonemic”). Try saying the K-sound, which is forward in the mouth, in “kid, can, ken” as opposed to the K-sound that’s much further back in the mouth in “cool, corn, queen”. The transliteration of Arabic into English makes an attempt to distinguish between the Arabic front-K by spelling it K as in Kuwait, or the Kaaba (the holy building in Mecca) and the back-K by spelling it Q as in Iraq or Qatar. Note on the map that German does not bother to make this distinction, which is not really necessary for Western languages anyway, and spells the latter two as Irak and Katar.]

Now let’s take a closer look at the Persian Gulf region. First of all, internationally it’s known by that name, because Iran (the former Persia) is on its north shore. But all the Arab countries on its south shore, from Iraq to Saudi Arabia to all the smaller ones shown, call it instead the Arabian Gulf, so there’s the politics of naming.

Some of these countries are kingdoms, such as the island of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Oman is a sultanate. Others are emirates, an emir being similar to a prince, making an emirate similar to a principality. There are nine emirates here, Kuwait, Qatar, and the seven within the United Arab Emirates.

[Note on this map the capital of Qatar, Doha, where I’ll be changing planes on the way back to New York. And this brings up a pronunciation point. Apparently, in the transliteration of Arabic, an H after a vowel represents a KH sound. This is frequently heard in the name Ahmed, which is pronounced AKH.med. Note this significant point in the pronunciation of Bahrain and Doha.]

Since the 19C, what is today the UAE had been a protectorate of Britain known as the Trucial States, the name referring to the truce between Britain and the emirates. This truce ended in 1971, when Britain withdrew and the UAE became independent, as seven sovereign emirates in a federation.

Note that Oman comes in three pieces, two of which are visible in this map. The Musandam Peninsula reaches north to divide the two gulfs, which are connected by the Strait of Hormuz. While the bulk of Oman is in the south, a smaller part of it is located at the end of the peninsula, beyond the UAE. Not all of the strait is good for navigation, and the sea channel lies in Omani territory on the south end of the strait. 90% of the oil coming out of the Persian Gulf passes through this Omani territory off the peninsula, then into the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean beyond.

Finally, reaching in closer still, we come to a our first map of the United Arab Emirates in order to see a quirk of Oman. It lies to the east, and also and the end of the Musandam Peninsula. However, here we see the third, and smallest, piece of Oman, the enclave called Mahda (MAKH.da), entirely surrounded by the UAE. And surprise of surprises, you can also see the enclave of the UAE called Nahwa (NAKH.wa) within Mahda. An enclave within an enclave (the hole in the donut) is a counterenclave. If you are “into” geography, you probably are “into” oddities such as this.

Finally, let’s look at the map of the UAE that shows internal details of the seven emirates. Most apparent is that the smaller ones tend to come in many little pieces, which is also apparent with the Omani situation.

Six of them line up diagonally, SW to NE, on the Persian Gulf, and one is off by itself on the N to S coastline facing the Gulf of Oman. Also, in the pattern of the capital of Panama being Panama (often called in English Panama City), and of Mexico being Mexico (usually called in English Mexico City), all seven capitals of these emirates have the same name as the emirate.

The capital, Abu Dhabi, in yellow, is by far the largest emirate in size, but the size is deceiving. Most of that area is desert, and Abu Dhabi City on that peninsula into the gulf, plus nearby areas connecting up to the other emirates is the populated area.

Dubai is the other large, and well-known, one, here in brown, with a separate little piece over in the east. While Abu Dhabi has 86.7% of the total area to Dubai’s 5.0%, Abu Dhabi’s population of 38.8% and Dubai’s 30.2% are closer numerically.

The five other emirates are little known world-wide. Next up the coast is Sharjah, in green, which is the most split-up of the emirates, with pieces all over the place, even wrapping around the next emirate. Sharjah has 3.3% of the area and a high 15.7% of the population. Next comes tiny Ajman in red (0.3% area, 6.0% pop). It should be noted that, while Abu Dhabi City forms an urban area off by itself, Dubai, coastal Sharjah, and Ajman form a large, single metropolitan area, shown here from the air at night. The circle at the left jutting out into the Gulf is Palm Jumeirah, which we’ll discuss in a moment.

Finally on this coast is Umm al-Quwain in purple (0.9% area, 1.6% pop) and the divided-in-two Ras al-Khaimah, in gold (2.2% area, 4.7% pop). The only emirate entirely on the beautiful, mountainous east coast is Fujairah in pink, also split into at least two pieces (1.5% area, 2.9% pop).

I have meanings for five of the seven names of emirates. I learn now that “abu” means “father” and “umm” means mother, so Abu Dhabi means “Father of Deer”, and Umm al-Quwain means “Mother of Two Powers”. Ras al-Khaimah means “Top of the Tent”. Ajman is “Non-Arab”, referring to the Persians/Iranians who settled there from across the Gulf, and who live there to this day, continuing to maintain connections across the Gulf. Dubai, I see, might have come from “daba”, to creep, a possible reference to the Dubai Creek, a defining geographical asset.

I earlier compared Abu Dhabi and Dubai to mismatched spouses, with five adult children looking on. I now think the metaphor of seven brothers is better for the UAE. One, the eldest, is dignified, cultural, living in a nice mansion, conserving his part of the family fortune (Abu Dhabi). The second eldest (Dubai) is brash, a playboy, playing freely with his part of the family fortune. He lives in a flashy house, with all the modern doodads. Where Abu Dhabi wears a suit and drives a Rolls, Dubai wears leather and rides a Harley. The five younger brothers apparently look on in wonder.

Now let’s leave the metaphor and look at some facts. Abu Dhabi is the political center, is religious, and conservative. It remains the second-most visible, and is far less westernized than Dubai. Dubai is a brash, secular upstart, and the commercial and tourist hub. It’s moderate politically, stable socially, and rich economically. In Dubai, everything is biggest and best. It has the tallest building, the largest man-made islands, the most massive mall, the biggest hotel, and is growing furiously. It has a Ski Dubai, a Snowdome, a Dubailand Theme Park. One quarter of the world’s construction cranes are here. In 2013, the Louvre is opening a branch in the UAE--but something as culturally significant as that will be in Abu Dhabi, of course.

Of the smaller emirates, it should be pointed out that Sharjah is the Arabic cultural and historical heart. Close to Dubai as it is, it’s a world removed, conservative and traditional. In 1998 UNESCO named Sharjah the cultural capital of the entire Arab region.

Dubai   It was obvious to me when planning that, since Dubai was the place in the UAE to be, it had to have a heart somewhere, and I did manage to find it. I see three areas in Dubai. First, way over on the east close to Sharjah is the older, more traditional area of Dubai around Dubai Creek, with Deira (the oldest neighborhood) to the east of the Creek and Bur Dubai on the west side. Of secondary interest is the more modern, quite pleasant residential and resort area SW of the Creek along the coast in Jumeirah, with many beach resorts. And then there’s the area now being promoted inland from Jumeirah as Downtown Dubai, the overbuilt, over-Manhattanized region I dislike. For my accommodation, rather than looking toward the beach resorts in Jumeirah, I chose to stay at the Sheraton Dubai Creek in Deira. It had the advantage of being free for five nights on Starwood points, but in any case was well-located, which is always my primary criterion. It was a good choice. This photo of the Deira area shows the Creek running north to the Gulf on the left, with most of Deira also to the left. The Sheraton Dubai Creek is the first building on the water on the left, above the triangular swimming pool. Although my freebie room was supposed to just have a “city view”, on arrival I was automatically upgraded to a Creek view. I’m located in an irregularly-shaped room to the left of that point jutting out to the water, above the pool. I have a fourth-floor view of the esplanade on the Creek, just as I have a sixth-floor view at home of the esplanade on the Hudson. Across the creek, in the distance, I also see the so-called “Downtown Dubai” area with the slender spire of Burj Khalifa. It looks like a misplaced ugly apparition arising from the city through the occasional haze. Closer in is the pyramid-shaped Raffles Dubai, a branch of Raffles Singapore. The brown, wooden boats along the esplanade are the traditional dhows, used today just for dinner cruises.

This Dubai map will give a better idea of the layout. Note how close the Sharjah border is to the right. You can see that the Creek isn’t tiny as the name implies, but neither is it a river. It’s considered a saltwater “tidal creek”, and is quite broad for its narrow length. Note Deira and Bur Dubai, and also note that they’re thinking of digging out the other end of the Creek to the Gulf so that Bur Dubai becomes an island. (!!!) This to me is typical Dubai thinking: not leaving well enough alone. The Jumeirah beach area is visible along the coast, as are some of the landfill developments that are finished or being worked on, such as Palm Jumeirah. The first E-W road you see south of Jumeirah is the Sheikh Zayed Road. He was the founder and first president of the UAE and this road is the longest in the UAE, running from Abu Dhabi all the way up to Ras Al-Khaimah. It’s on both sides of the central part of this road in the map that the “Downtown Dubai” development is built.

While Qantas, that I took from Bangkok to Sydney, is rated by Startrax as four-star, in Economy Class it’s rated just three-star, and was not particularly special. But from Perth I took the Dubai airline, Emirates, which, along with Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, is rated four-star across the board, and it was a nice flight, flying NW just off the coast of Sri Lanka and India. We were in about a half-hour early, at 5 AM.

I had decided that no tour would get me to where I wanted to go in the UAE, so I’d arranged for a car rental. Now I’d just driven on the left the day before in Perth, and, except for ten minutes in Burma, I was surrounded by left-hand traffic since I’d left New York, so I have to admit, it took a few moments to get oriented to driving on the right again. When I came to a roundabout/traffic circle (the first of many), I was tempted to go left around it, but followed the other traffic going right. This particular roundabout had a well-known Clock Tower in the center, which wasn’t the traditional style I’d expected. Also, quite unusually, these clock faces had the eastern Arabic numerals (2010/7), which you may want to quickly review. While Dubai license plates had just the western numerals that we know, Abu Dhabi ones had eastern on top and western below. Roadside texts, such as stop signs, were in Arabic above and English below, and some of the longer Arabic texts included either the one kind or the other of the numerals. Speed limits had both, one above the other. In addition, road bumps (“humps”) are quite common, even on some major roads.

I had to wait in the stylish atrium lobby of the Sheraton only about a half-hour for my upgraded room to be ready, and then I was ready for my first day of heat. My plan was to use the metro and walk the first day, drive south the second, and drive north the third, then return the car for my last two days of relaxation and writing.

On the way out of the lobby I spotted in the corner two low sofas with cushions, like just mattresses on the floor, and on the table between them was a coffee pot and dish of dates. I guessed correctly what this is, a sign of Arab hospitality, offered free of charge. The coffee, served in tiny, handle-less cups, was flavored with cardamom, which I figured out, but checked later to be sure I was right. Also remember that the best coffee is made from arabica beans. The dates were wonderfully sweet, and the coffee was served from a long-spouted pot I later found out is called a dallah. The only picture of a dallah I could find turns out to be in a very interesting place, on one side of the one-dirham coin, worth just over a US quarter. Also note on the left that the eastern numeral 1 is used. Now below the dallah are eight figures. Figure out--and be careful, it’s tricky--what year the first four designate, and what year the second four designate.

If you thought this was a 1990 coin, you let yourself be tricked. A zero is a mid-level dot, and a rounded triangle is a 5, so this is 1995. Harder to figure because of one digit is the second date (a “sagging, backwards 3” is a 4), which is 1415, the equivalent in the Muslim calendar. The two calendars don’t align perfectly, since the current year, 2010, is 1431.

It was a short, but sweaty walk to the brand-new Dubai Metro, for which I bought a return ticket to Burj Khalifa. The sleek, modern trains are driverless (as are the ones at Kennedy and Newark airports), working on the same principle of operatorless elevators. It started out underground, but then most of the way was on a sleek, concrete, elevated viaduct with enclosed station platforms. It ended up running along the south side of Sheikh Zayed Road, between the two rows of tall, ugly buildings facing each other on each side that look so out of place here. The only picture I could find of this area is a night view of the so-called “Downtown Dubai”. Zayed Road has a gazillion lanes in each direction, and nondescript high-rises are on either side, but nowhere else behind this out-of-place front row. It’s like two football teams about to start a game.

I thought the Metro would get me there directly, but Burj Khalifa is set back some distance to the south of Zayed Road, and I had to buy another ticket for a shuttle bus. The front of the bus was empty, and sitting in the back behind a small barrier in the middle of the aisle was a lot of guys. The driver had to point out to me the sign that said the front of the bus was for women and children only. Who knew? The Metro wasn’t like that.

You had to enter the massive complex through the Dubai Mall, which was very modern like any other one, except I found interesting the women’s clothing shop I passed. You could buy any outfit, as long as it was black, went down to the ground, and covered at least the hair.

Burj means tower. It was supposed to be called Burj Dubai, but when Dubai almost went bankrupt because of the real estate crash and world financial crisis, it was renamed Burj Khalifa after the president of Abu Dhabi, because of his support. The New York Times called the renaming “a rare streak of humility consistent with its [Dubai’s] diminished economic condition.”

At 828 m (2717 ft), Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, handily surpassing Taipei 101 (2009/44) at 508 m (1667 ft) and more than double the height of New York’s Empire State Building. It was started in 2004, finished in October 2009, and just opened on 4 January this year. While they claim something over 200 stories, the elevator zips you up to the observation deck which is only on the 124th floor, but which is still the highest observation deck in the world, part of which is outdoors. I’m not a huge fan of the building, but the saving grace of the design is its needle-like slenderness, especially given such a tall height. To describe its style best, though, I’d refer to a head of celery whose stalks had been cut off at varying heights around its perimeter. It’s at the top of one of those “stalks” that the outdoor part of observation deck is located.

Something as pretentiously outsized as this deserves satire. George Formby, the banjo-playing English music hall singer from the 1930’s, had a very popular song called “When I’m Cleaning Windows”, where he told about all the risqué things he saw going on inside buildings. Someone’s put together this clever video you might like combining George Formby’s music with Burj Khalifa. [If you’re at all interested in seeing the original version, here’s George Formby in “Keep Your Seats Please” (1936).

This first Dubai day without an air-conditioned car turned out to be a three-shower, two shirt-washing day (it’s a good thing I had three shirts with me). I found it amusing when I saw some post-card size cutouts of fried eggs that had been left lying on some of the very hot sidewalks. Finally, late in the afternoon I thought it might be possible to do the two other things I wanted to do locally in Deira, ride an abra. Today, there’s a tunnel under the upper end of the Canal and one or more bridges at the lower end, but the traditional way to cross the Canal was by taking a boat called an abra. It’s a water taxi that exists only on the Dubai Creek, a traditional wooden boat with a single engine in the center where the operator sits. Some 20 passengers face right and left off the rail-less sides. Abras used to be primary way to cross before the bridges and tunnel, but now are used mostly by the common folk, visitors, and nostalgics. But they’re used frequently, carrying 15-20 million passengers per year and growing. There are about 149 in use at present. There are three routes; the crossing takes about 10 minutes and costs just one dirham. Abras are part of the traditional creekscape and the city’s heritage, and show that Dubai does have a soul.

I walked, dripping wet, up the esplanade along the Creek for what seemed forever in the late afternoon heat, and finally reached Al Sabkha abra station in Deira, jumped on an abra and in the twilight, and crossed to the Old Souq Station on the Bur Dubai side. A souq is just a street market, often roofed over. The one in the picture is open on one side, but the one I was at, the cloth souq, is in a covered lane with shops on each side, each one with a salesman trying to hand you cloth to feel. After a short while, I took another abra back to Deira, still in the evening twilight.

By this point I was at the center of Deira, and I’d heard you “had to” see the gold souq. I found my way through the evening crowds, to find what was essentially a number of jewelry shops and coin dealers. By this time I’d “had it”, and found a taxi to take me back to the hotel. The rather low price of only 13 dirhams was certainly worth it. Starting the next day I’d be in my air-conditioned car most of the time.

That evening in the hotel I stopped at the Chelsea Arms Pub and sat at the mahogany bar. It could have been a pub in London, except for the fact that a few of the men were wearing white headdresses and kanduras, the typical white robes of the area. I had a pint (actually, two, to rehydrate) of Tiger beer from Singapore, and ordered a portion of meze, the eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern appetizer platter with hummus, taboulleh, and similar spreads and salads.

Day Two was the drive south to Abu Dhabi, and I got an early start. I drove down to the first bridge south of Deira and was immediately on the freeway that turned out to be Sheikh Zayed Road. Somehow driving right down the center between the buildings of “Downtown Dubai” was somehow even more disorienting than going down it on the Metro on the south side of the road. Coming back from Abu Dhabi (below) I got off the freeway to see the following two places on the Jumeirah shore.

Where land meets sea can be a most attractive place, which is why I’m not happy with Singapore spreading itself out with landfill. Dubai is defacing its gulf shore in a different way, by building what will be three “palm islands” plus other, less symmetrical landfill areas called the World, the Universe, and more. These are the largest artificial islands in the world. The total will add 520 km (323 mi) of shorefront to the coastline (!!!).

I visited the central palm island, which is the original, and smallest, Palm Jumeirah, and in this case, I’ll admit, the results were rather attractive. One drives out up the trunk of the palm, which has apartment buildings on both sides served by a monorail, while the fronds extending on both sides (guarded by security) have beachfront villas. At the end, you go through a tunnel to the outer ring, with has a gulfside boulevard (at last, I saw the Gulf!) and the Palm Atlantis Resort.

Also in the Jumeirah area is the iconic hotel Burj al-Arab (“Arabian Tower”), whose distinctive shape imitates the billowing sail of a ship. This, I think, is good modern architecture.

Abu Dhabi   But the main goal for Day Two was Abu Dhabi, and you didn’t need a sign (there wasn’t any, anyway) saying you’d crossed the border into it. The pavement sounded different, but that’s common. The difference was that the Dubai section of the road was sere and dusty, but crossing into Abu Dhabi there were trees planted everywhere. Sometimes it was just many kinds of trees on the wide median, sometimes it was groups of palms there or on the outside of the road. The whole atmosphere had changed. There was also a rest stop on the Abu Dhabi side, which made me smile, since it had so many of the American fast-food outlets. Don’t picture “exotic” here!

As I turned down the length of the flat-topped peninsula on which Abu Dhabi lies, the freeway continued right to the end. It appeared to be a comfortable, cosmopolitan, Arab city, with trees and monuments. At the end, perpendicular to my road, was the Corniche, which I drove along, with a harbor view, up to the Presidential Palace. I then turned back south toward the edge of the city to reach my main goal of the day, which in fact, I’d accidentally spotted it on the way in. As the freeway had risen on an overpass, all of a sudden this huge white vision, a mirage, appeared over the treetops. My jaw literally dropped in surprise as I audibly gasped. It turned out to be the highlight to my visit to the UAE, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. In this introductory view, note the four minarets around the courtyard, plus the 57 domes, including the three big ones.

After some trouble, I finally found the exit for it. Although it was finished in 2007, and almost sparkles with perfection, the areas around it, including entrances and exits, and some parking facilities are still being worked on. The previous view showed it from the courtyard view, but this is exactly how I approached it, from its side, and is even the very parking lot (of many available) I used.

I was still in awe, but convinced I’d never get in. I read it was only open in the morning, and with restrictions as to dress. Just in case, I had with me slacks I could pull on over my shorts, and even my jacket. And sure enough, there was a large billboard that gave visiting hours only in the morning, and saying men couldn’t wear shorts, and women had to have arms, legs, and head covered. Still, I walked up to the guard. Maybe I could walk around the courtyard?

No problem. He just told me to go pick up a kandura at the booth on the side. Now I’ve had experience with this before in religious buildings. In Spain, at least years ago, there’d be church ladies waiting at cathedrals who’d hand out head scarves or shawls to women for cover. Even a few weeks ago in Thailand, at some places they’d even rent (!!!) to both men and women, for the equivalent of a few dollars, billowing trousers or jackets. But here, they just lent them to you. Rather than go back to the car to get leg cover, I took him up on his offer. I checked with the guard just what the outfits are called. The booth had racks of black abayas for women, who seemed to require coverup more frequently than men. I asked the guard if they were burkas, but he said they were different, so I left it at that. There were no face coverings; a part of the abaya just swung over the top of the head as a scarf to cover the hair.

But apparently fewer visiting men came in shorts, since she had exactly three white kanduras hanging there to lend out. A kandura is simply an ankle-length white shirt that buttons below the neck, and there was no headdress involved. All her kanduras were apparently in XXL size, because, when I put it on (with glee) I looked like Dopey in the Snow White movie. The sleeves were at least a hand’s length too long, and the bottom trailed on the ground, so I had to daintily pick it up as I walked around. (Later on, inside, I apparently raised it a bit too high, showing some leg, and a guard told me to keep it down.) In the heat of the UAE I was again wearing my Birkenstock sandals, so I might have given the appearance of a “walking Jesus”. Then, at the entrance, you of course had to leave your shoes, at which point I became a “barefoot walking Jesus”. Inside, I saw a rather tall and husky westerner, also in a white kandura, and commented that his fit better than mine. Then his wife came up in a black abaya, and really looked quite fetching the way she wore the head scarf. It turned out they were from Yorkshire, and their stark accent sounded amusing, given the outfits they were wearing.

But back to the mosque. It’s the largest in the UAE, but only the eighth largest in the world. Sheikh Zayed, the founder and first president of the UAE, is apparently buried here, but I saw nothing of that. It’s built entirely of white marble, with gold and silver used freely for ornamentation. Its archways are quintessentially Moorish, reminding me of Córdoba, and the Alhambra in Granada, in Spain. The minarets, classically Arab and 115 m (377 ft) high, are at the four corners of the courtyard, which is paved, as you can see, in a floral marble inlay. The columned cloister around the courtyard is open on the sides, here at the left. Note in the cloister the gold capitals to the columns under the iconic Moorish arches.

Including the courtyard, it can accommodate 40,000 people, and the main prayer hall under the three largest domes alone can accommodate 9,000 (hence the parking places and underground parking garage; I wouldn’t want to be directing traffic on such a day). Note again the inlaid paving in this picture.

Inside the main prayer hall each of the three domes rests on an octagonal base on eight pillars, but each pillar is then supported by four columns. I found particularly impressive the fine marble inlay on these columns of leaves and vines, not too “busy”, and leaving a lot of white space. In the entrance hall there are much larger versions of these leaves and vines running ¾ of the way to the top of the room, with just simple white space above, in the apparent philosophy of “less is more”. In this picture, note the goldwork on the marble, as well as the carpeting and chandeliers (click to enlarge). Note also the abayas, as those are not all Arab women.

The mosque holds three Guinness World Records. The central dome is the largest dome of its kind in the world. It’s 32 m (105 ft) in diameter and 70 m (230 ft) high.

Of the three chandeliers in the main prayer hall, the central one is the largest in the world. It’s 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and 15 m (49 ft) high. These are three of seven Swarovski (of Austria) chandeliers in the mosque with a total of more than a million crystals. Here’s another view.

Finally, that Persian (Iranian) carpet is the largest carpet in the world, covering the entire prayer hall wall-to-wall. It’s 5,627 m² (60,570 ft²). (The courtyard, in comparison, is about triple the size at 17,000 m² [180,000 ft²].) Note the Islamic green background in its relatively simple pattern. I knew there had to be seams, and, walking barefoot one can easily find them. It turns out there’s a narrow strip of carpeting carefully sewn on top of each seam, and the floral pattern on this strip matches the rest of the carpeting PERFECTLY, rendering it totally invisible, unless you’re searching for it.

I have seen a lot of architecture around the world, and this building to me is clearly a most impressive structure in its blend of traditional and modern styles, and in its simplicity, making it one of the most beautiful. It was the high point of my visit to the UAE, and do note again that it’s in Abu Dhabi, not Dubai.

Northern Circuit   In all honesty, there’s not too much to see in the other emirates, but on Day Three I made a Northern Circuit tour to them all--and more. I left early again, about 6:15, and it took a leisurely eight hours. Sharjah was nearby, as was Ajman. You could tell the downtowns ahead by the sudden appearance of high rises in each jurisdiction. Umm al-Qaiwain was just up the road, and it wasn’t much further to Ras al-Khaimah at the northern end of the UAE shoreline on the Gulf. But then I had a pleasant surprise as I cut east cross-country and entered Fujairah, my seventh and final UAE emirate, since the eastern region along the Gulf of Oman is the mountainous part of the UAE. Don’t picture any greenery, as the mountains had a moonlike quality, but were attractive in their austerity, to say nothing of just the change in scenery from the previous flatness.

It was better still when I promptly reached the east coast itself. The upper part of the region in particular had beautiful sea views, particularly of the grey-beige cliffs plunging into the sea northward in the Omani part of the Musandam Peninsula. Also in this area, right on the side of the road, was the Al-Bidiyah Mosque, the oldest and smallest in the UAE. It wasn’t larger than a large walk-in closet, and was open only for religious use. The sign explained that radiocarbon analysis placed construction as early as 1446 CE. It was of stone and mudbricks coated with many layers of whitewashed plaster. It was an interesting comparison to the mosque of the day before.

But the east coast had something else attracting me, the Omani enclave Mahda and the UAE counterenclave Nahwa, which was another of the many pieces of Sharjah. I discussed in 2004/13 our interest in enclaves (or from the other point of view, exclaves), in particular Baarle, where Dutch Baarle-Nassau and Belgian Baarle-Hertog are intertwined with each other. This would be almost as good.

I had noted on the map the side road going inland to the enclave and counterenclave, and felt it should be no trouble to find. Months earlier, I’d read an article, that I had with me, by someone also interested in going there, who hired a driver to find them--which they eventually did--but the driver didn’t really know what he was doing. I felt that, armed with my map, I should be able to do better. Still, the turnoff from the main road was, quite unusually, poorly marked, as though one country didn’t want to help your finding another. Part way down the road I asked someone “Mahda?” (with my best KH), and he pointed ahead. Shortly, although there was no international border marked, there was a simple sign saying Mahda. Put simply, if you didn’t know you were changing countries, you wouldn’t know you were changing countries. A little further along was the “Oman International Bank, Mahda Branch”, so I had further assurance I’d made it. But as the UAE didn’t want to point out the enclave, the enclave didn’t want to point out the counterenclave, but I knew it was a few kilometers, so I kept on going, disregarding signs to other places. At an intersection, I asked a passerby “Nahwa?”, again with my best KH, and he pointed ahead. Finally, around a bend, without seeing any town name, I came across a village as neat as the earlier one, with a building that said Al-Nahwa Police Out-Post, followed by the Al-Nahwa Power Station and the Al-Nahwa Health Centre. I pulled over with a big smile and a silent Yippee! One more enclave and counterenclave on the list!

There was something interesting that happened on the way. I’ve heard of dry river beds flash flooding on occasion, sometimes drowning unwary campers. I also know that a wadi is the Arab word for a dry river bed. As I was driving along the paved but winding road between Mahda and Nahwa the road narrowed and dipped into what was clearly a wadi, then a few minutes later, did it again. On either side of the road in each case were three metal posts, painted white at the bottom, but otherwise red, with a sign saying if the water reaches the red, don’t drive through. I’d never seen that before.

I returned the car that afternoon and took the Metro back to the hotel, giving me 2 ½ days to relax and write while hibernating indoors away from the heat. (Actually, I need the opposite term: I was estivating.) I also got to know Sandeep Kar, the Sheraton restaurant manager, and on my last night in Dubai and of the trip, he invited me to the Ashiana Indian restaurant in the hotel as his guest. There was a nice selections of chutneys to go with the papadams, and, since I’d wanted to sample a number of things, he arranged for the chef to put together three small portions of main courses, a lamb dish, chicken tikka masala, and dal. For dessert there was pistachio kofti (Indian ice cream). It was a great way to end the trip.

I needed an early call (3 AM) to get the hotel limo at 4 for a 5:55 flight. I’d already flown with Emirates, and, although they did fly directly to New York while Qatar Air had a stop in Doha, I chose Qatar. While both flights left very early, changing planes in Qatar would give me another country, the Qatar fare all the way to New York was half what the Emirates fare had been just from Perth, and Skytrax gives Qatar five stars in all categories, even coach. It was a one-hour flight from Dubai to Qatar, but it’s in another time zone, so for the first time ever, I experienced leaving at 5:55 AM and arriving at 5:55 AM. After a short layover, the flight from Doha to New York, scheduled for 14 hours, both started and ended on Sunday, since we were “flying with the sun”, leaving at 8 AM and arriving at 3 PM. Coming to the US from the Middle East, security was extra tough, and there was an additional full security check right at the gate accessing a US flight.

You could tell the five-star quality on Qatar Air. Even in Economy Class, a menu was distributed, and both the breakfast and main meal later had 2-3 choices of main course. The menu said there were sandwiches, cookies, and ice cream available throughout the flight, and one just stepped back to the serving area and helped oneself. If you didn’t, later on they brought them around, anyway. You could also ask for a Heineken (which I did, since I could), and wine was available with the meal. The main meal I chose included hummus and pita, and was listed as “chicken kapsa”, a traditional Gulf dish. Also, at the front of the cabin, once we had taken off, three (with room for a possible four) cribs had been attached to the front wall (families had been seated in that front row). They just looked like large drawers, but were both convenient for the families and isolated the babies from the rest of the cabin.

I originally had mistakenly figured we’d fly west over Africa, but once I’d checked a globe I found that the straight-line flight actually went up Italy, through France, and turned at about Southampton, then continuing along the transatlantic shipping pattern along North America. On a Mercator map, this route would appear as an inverted V, but actually, it was straight-line. But in reality, the flight went further east. We went up the Gulf, across Turkey and the Black Sea, and overflew Warsaw and lower Scandinavia. Then, I realized we’d be overflying Iceland. Only a few weeks earlier, at the party in Sydney at Ruth and Neil’s, Peter and Janet had phoned welcome and birthday greetings from a ship off a fjord in Iceland, which just proves that what goes around comes around. We then did gradually move from a NW heading to SW and overflew lower Greenland and came down central Quebec, Vermont, and the Hudson Valley to New York to conclude our 11,447 km (7113 mi) flight.

Illustrating the round-the-world quality of this trip was the similarity of weather changes of the arrival in New York to the arrival in Sydney. I’d been in intense heat in Singapore and Bangkok and appreciated the fresh late-winter jacket-weather of Sydney, and again, after the heat of Dubai, I appreciated the early-fall jacket-weather of New York.

Statistics   The Travelers Century Club realizes that the seven emirates of the UAE are different political entities (just like England and Scotland, for instance) and counts them as separate destinations, so for me, Dubai was destination 132, Abu Dhabi 133, Sharjah 134, Ajman 135, Umm Al-Qaiwain 136, Ras Al-Khaimah 137, Fujeirah 138, and then Oman 139, and Qatar 140. On this RTW trip between Singapore and Qatar I added 16 destinations to my total.

I have a new update for lengthy nonstop flights, published last in 2009/44. My minimum for the list now is ten hours, so the recent Qantas flight of 9h doesn’t make the cut. Otherwise, I add three new 2010 flights for a total of seven: