Sharjah

Summer is over, the weather is good and tourists are streaming into the UAE.  And not just into Dubai - last weekend the final race of the Formula 1 season was held in Abu Dhabi, which meant real traffic, hour-long queues for taxis, and strange sightings across the UAE.  In other words, a perfect time to leave town and explore Sharjah.

Sharjah is the emirate directly north of Dubai.  It has taken us anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours to travel between downtown Dubai and the city of Sharjah.  This time we left Abu Dhabi on Friday morning, guaranteeing a relatively traffic-free trip.

Sharjah is the most conservative emirate and is famous for its cultural center.  It has nearly half of all the museums in the UAE and a well-preserved fort.




The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization had artifacts from the Berlin Museum of Islamic Art when we were there, but we enjoyed the permanent collection, which focuses especially on contributions to science, most of all.

We were most pleasantly surprised by Sharjah's corniche.  Sharjah is built along two bays, and there is a great running and bicycle path along both, as well as on a bridge which connects the two.  We were very, very slightly reminded of the amazing bicycle paths in Stockholm.

The Blue Souq is a pair of beautiful buildings right on the water.  We were eager to be charmed by the inside, but unfortunately it is more mall-y than souq-y.

We enjoyed getting to know one of the other emirates, and may be back for its most famous event, the Festival of Lights.

Emirates National Auto Museum

Yes, that is a really big truck!  

On our way back from Liwa, we stopped at the Emirates National Auto Museum, a collection of cars owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, known as the rainbow sheikh.  He deserves the name: among the many colorful cars in his collection are Mercedes in every color of the rainbow -- the leather seats, the steering wheel, and even the dashboard match the exterior of the car.

There was a interesting mix of sports cars, 1980s saloons, antique cars, and even some not-cars.  Here is a 19th century Mercedes bicycle (with a semi in the background):

A Star Wars scene pained on the side of a van:

And a reminder of home that we weren't dying to see:

But the highlight was the truck -- the cab and bed of the truck house a fully-loaded apartment, with kitchen, multiple bedrooms and a movie room.

The Sheikh was such a good customer that Dodge made a small version of the truck for his young son.

There were a couple of odd vehicles parked outside the museum: an RV in the shape of a globe, and the largest two-wheel camper in the word (certified by Guinness!).  We didn't stop and linger too long at these, as it was almost 120 degrees outside!

 

Liwa Oasis

After nearly a year of living in the desert, we finally made it to the desert proper!  Abu Dhabi consists of about 85% of the UAE by land mass, only a small portion of which is Abu Dhabi city.  Much of the inland area is known as the Empty Quarter, once the home of the Bedouin, and first mapped out by Wilfred Thesiger on foot in the 1940s, just as oil exploration was beginning.





The Empty Quarter is the largest sand desert in the world, but there are oases.

Oasis is a relative term -- there is a bit more sand than green.  The absence of the usual desert scruff means that the red sand can form incredible dunes.

The dunes are other-wordly -- they reminded us of Luke Skywalker's home planet. Apparently we aren't the first to think so; Star Wars was shot here in May.

In fact, the cast and crew rented out our entire hotel for a month.

It was very hot during the day, but grew more pleasant at sunset.  We scurried up some dunes to get the best view.

 We saw sand spiders....








...little lizards (too fast for our camera) and beetles.

But mostly just enjoyed playing in the beautiful sand formations as the sun set....and lolling in the warm dunes to watch the stars coming out. 

A fearless expedition to Lulu Island

After nine months of yammering about buying a kayak, we took the plunge, with a used inflatable kayak on Dubizzle (the Craigslist of the middle east, minus the racier sections).  We can't wait to explore all of the mangroves, inlets, and islands suggested by terrific sites like this one.  But we wanted something less ambitious to start with. 

And so we set out for Lulu. Lulu island is a long man-made piece of land directly across from Abu Dhabi's downtown, and is only accessible by boat.  For a few years, there were restaurants and talk of serious development (not a unique story).  But now it lies empty, with big red dunes and rows of palm trees.  

The set-up took a bit longer than expected...

...but eventually we figured things out.

Margaret is ready to launch, and hoping that the thousands of little fish don't nibble her toes before safely in the boat.

After a half hour of rowing (and looking neurotically every time we heard a motor boat) we made it to our destination.

We discovered some creatures hiding under rocks.

And made it back in time for a dip in the gulf!

Dubai Museum

Moving from the Bay Area to Abu Dhabi was a shock to the system.  However, Abu Dhabi is completely tame compared to the Dubai, the Wild West of the 21st century.  In Dubai, the buildings are taller, the traffic is worse, and brunch doesn't start until 6pm. We couldn't very well let our prized guests from Sweden, Katie and Nik, leave without a visit to this...place.  Here are they are, in stunned (and befitting) tourist mode. 

After a trip to the Dubai Mall (biggest in the world, of course), we took the Dubai Metro (biggest or most something, probably) to the Dubai Creek, home of the gold, spice, utensil, and textile souqs.  We found amazing jewels, including this very large bracelet.

The spice souq is on the Deira side; we rode an abra to cross Dubai Creek to get to the Bur side of the creek, where we stumbled into the Dubai Museum, which we had looked for but never found.

There were interesting exhibits of old boats...

...luxury desert housing....

...and signs we weren't sure made sense at a museum.

It was a surprisingly large museum, and we ended up breezing through the last few exhibits.  But we'll be back.  Once we made it out, it was time to grab dinner at Potbelly's (!) and retrieve our car at the mall, which doubtless is also the most crowded in the world.

Ras Al Khaimah

The Ras Al Khamiah Half Marathon bills itself as the fastest in the world. The first edition was only seven years ago, but in that time both the men's and woman's half marathon records have been set at RAK.  Our goals for the race were more modest: have a nice run and explore the northern tip of the UAE.

After the race, we went a few miles north to Dhayah Fort, which was built in the 16th century.  It was an important part of the emirate's defense, but was partially destroyed by the British in the 1800s and only recently renovated.  

Unlike Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah doesn't have oil -- its main industries are cement, tourism and fishing -- but it does have mountains!

We saw cows lazing by the side of the road, and goats crossing when the mood struck them (like Berkeley pedestrians!).

After driving by the cement factory a few times, we finally located Wadi Litibah.  It was only a few miles inland from the coast, but felt very far from the bustle of RAK.

There are farming families who keep herds of goats.

And fields which are irrigated by the wadi.

We went for a hike up one of the mountains.  Away from the wadi everything is dry... except for the occasional, lone tree.

As we went up it began to look more and more like another world.

After a bit more exploring we climbed down and started back for Abu Dhabi.  Along the way, we stopped a few times to gaze at flamingos, who were happily flapping in mangroves, dirty ponds, and even in golf course hazards!