Oman trip

I haven't had time to blog for ages, as my sis was here, and when she was not, I was diving every weekend. It's been great to have so many visitors this year and thankfully there are tons to do outside of the UAE!

My sis and I and a friend made our way down to Muscat for 3 days. I had very high expectations as everyone told me that it was beautiful and they were right. We had a fabulous time, filled of course with tons of dramas which made the trip even more memorable!

Oman is such a lovely country, and the people are amazing -warm, friendly and so inviting. I never knew how big the country is (300,000km2) and there are only 2.8m inhabitants. It also has such a long and varied history, including conquering the East African coast (countries like Zanzibar and Mozambique!). We stayed for 2nights at a huge B&B where we had a triple room with our own outdoor patio, for the price of 1 night in a hotel in Abu Dhabi. They also organised a wonderful guide for us, who was very knowledgable and helpful and showed us so many amazing sites around Muscat. He also has 12 kids from 1 wife, and says that Westerners only know how to sleep at night. Yups, a very funny character who talked to us for 12 hours non-stop!

Muscat is such a nice city, it is so lived in, and established, which is very refreshing compared to life in the UAE. Locals are everywhere, driving taxis, selling things in the souks, and the souk was a real souk, not a fake air conditioned one that can be found in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. There is a nice vibe to the city too, and a beautiful promenade with lots of good food.

On our day tour, we went outside Muscat around the Wadis (valleys) and mountains. We also visited an archeological site (I saw a piece of pottery on the floor and asked the guy what it was, he replied in a blase manner that it's part of the ruins and said just take it home..). We drove through dried river beds, and swam in a beautiful turquoise freshwater lake called Wadi Tiwi. We also managed to visit a local's house for Eid in a small village, they were so wonderfully welcoming to us (the guy was our guide's friend). Unfortunately the host had a little boy who had never seen a lady with her hair down before and started screaming like he's seen the devil when he saw my sister! It was a perfect day trip however, ended with a wonderful turkish seafood meal!

We also had tons of dramas like getting stopped on our way back to the UAE at the border crossing. I suspect they thought we were on drugs because we were laughing so heavily at a chain of very funny events before turning up at the border. They stopped our car, took my sis and I into a separate room with all our belongings while my friend waited outside with the car and his stuff were checked by the male guards. The lady guard proceeded to spend the next hour checking every single piece of item we had in our bags. She also did not know what a tampon was when she saw it, and she also did not speak English so you can imagine the conversation! All the time we were inside, my friend was outside slightly panicky wondering if we were ever going to be let out. Finally after she scrolled through our photos and told my sister to stop smoking and find love, we were let go and proceeded to head back to Abu Dhabi.

All in all a great trip, really can't wait to explore other bits of Oman soon!

Photos are up on my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelle_d/

Dark side of Dubai

I've been having a number of very interesting conversations with some new friends recently, particularly about how crazy this country is - how lots of things happen under the table and really, there should be no expectations of 'justice' or 'reasonableness' one would expect of a more developed and westernised country. This is an interesting article published some time ago but it definitely is an eye opener to the world that we all live in..


The dark side of Dubai
Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. Johann Hari reports...

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.

But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.

Read more here...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

Grand Mufti of Dubai calls for curb on mixed marriages

Nice one...I shall not take any insult given I am a product of a mixed marriage albeit not Emirati!


The Grand Mufti of Dubai has called for restrictions on Emiratis marrying outside their nationality.

“In Islam, choosing your life partner is a personal freedom,” he said, speaking at a Ramadan majlis on Sunday night. “But personal freedoms can be restricted for the benefit of the public interest.”

Mixed marriages are more likely to end in divorce and their children are more likely to commit crimes, some experts at the majilis said.

“There should be very specific circumstances for when such marriages are allowed,” Dr al Haddad said. “Such as when a man is too old and cannot find an Emirati to marry him, or when he wants to take a third of fourth wife for certain reasons and no Emirati woman agrees to do so.”

Social experts have attributed the escalating trend to the large dowries demanded by Emirati women – as much as Dh800,000 – and to high wedding ceremony expenses that have reached Dh1 million.

Ramadan in Abu Dhabi

It's nearing the end of Ramadan and this post is kinda late, but better late than never!

This is my first Ramadan in UAE, save for my visit to Dubai 2 years ago for interviews, and it's definitely a very different experience to Malaysia. In Malaysia, nothing really changes, except offices shut 1/2 hour earlier, and there are tons of stalls open in the evenings where people buy food.

Over here, hours are dramatically shorter, most offices are only open from 9am to 3pm, including mine. Unfortunately my team doesn't follow these hours, so no good there :( All or most restaurants are shut during the day, and only open in the evening, so you can't go into a mall to have a meal. The only place to eat is in a hotel where the restaurants would be covered by a huge curtain shielding the food from public view.

You can't eat or drink or smoke in public. In the gyms they even move the water coolers to a separate room so you can only drink in the room. There isn't anything to do during the day as most shops are also closed in the afternoon and only open at 7pm but they all open late till 1am. I was at a mall one weeknight after watching a movie and eating dinner, and the mall was packed at 11pm, including little kids running everywhere. We were probably the only non Muslim person around though! I have heard that most people who are fasting just stay up all night until suhour and then they sleep at 5am and if they have to go to work they wake up again at 8am.

It's quite interesting to me, coming from Malaysia where even people who are fasting would be serving food in a restaurant while they are fasting. Here, there is no tolerance for people who are not fasting to eat, drink or smoke. What I find sad is that while this is supposed to be the Holy Month, where people help the poor etc, this is also the month where the most food is wasted. I went to an Iftar (open fast banquet) and the food buffet was incredible. And they have it at every single hotel in the city...that's kinda ironic for me. But there are tons of good charitable causes going on too, like free food boxes for the poor given out everyday at the mosque and at hotels.

All in all, its been interesting, i'm glad when it is over and when things go back to normal!

DVDs for sale

A few weeks ago, I had someone ring my door bell at 9pm on a weekday night. I open the door and there was this Chinese lady holding a big bag.

She goes : "You want dvd??"
Me: "Erm, no need, thank you"
Chinese Lady: "Very cheap, only 10dirham, all very clear. You don't watch dvd?"

I just stood there thinking, how bizarre!! I didn't buy any as my mum just brought my shipment from Malaysia!

10 course Malaysian Meal

Nopes that's not in Malaysia - but in the UAE, yippee for Reem Cafe!

Drama Drama..

I went diving in Daymaniyat Islands in Oman 2 weekends ago with a friend who visited from Hong Kong and a friend from here. The islands are about 100kms north of Muscat and apparently the best spot to dive in Oman. The diving was awesome, though the trip was drama filled from the start!

One of my friends is a newbie diver and she was requested to pay extra for a dive master, which I felt was good as she would have someone to take care of her. Unfortunately the dive master also had 8 other divers to take care of, so I had to take care of my friend as he also wasn't the most responsible dive master I've met. He even forgot to bring 2 tanks, and 2 divers shared air while diving (which is a BIG NO NO!!). However the dives were good, and we saw so many turtles and they were the most friendly turtles I've ever met!

On the second day, the boat captain dropped the boat key into the water before taking off. He also had the spare key tied to the main key, so we all thought there goes our diving trip! Who in the world keeps the spare and master key together? Fortunately after 1 hour of digging through the sand and sea, they found the key and we departed! When we came back to shore, my friends and I washed our equipment, got packing and headed home for our 4 hour drive home.

When I came home at 11.30pm, the compound was dark - after 3 days being away (think no air conditioning in my apartment in 45 degree heat!), there was no power!! The security guard said maybe it would come back in an hour, so we decided to head out to get groceries at 12am. When we got home, there was still no electricity but by that time, we were just so exhausted that I just slept on the tile floors where it was much cooler. The power came back on at 5am, and I had to wake up again at 7 to head to work. I also then realised that I left my wetsuit in the resort! Superb ending to an eventful trip - thankfully the resort was fantastic and got some divers who live in Dubai to bring back the wetsuit, and I've managed to already get it back!

My poor friend who was visiting definitely had a good taste of the Middle East!