Life of Wry

Trip Day #3

Karen and I had flown all day Wednesday, and through the night, and into Thursday.  The approximately 12-hr clock change messed with our sense of time, so I pretty much lost track of what day it was and how long we’d been up and whether it was a good idea to sleep or not.  In fact, I hadn’t had much, if any, sleep.  It was dark and stormy in Frankfort, making it hard to appreciate that it was, in fact, morning. (Side note: while most time changes across the globe happen in hour-increments, that is not the case in Nepal, which advances time in increments of 15 minutes. I might have thought that was against some global time rule…but it isn’t. So the time difference between Abu Dhabi and Kathmandu is something like 2 hours and 15 minutes.)

The layover in Frankfort was short and, after some snacks, we boarded Etihad Airlines for a 6-hour flight to the United Arab Emirates.  They are an extremely classy airline with great food and service and it seemed a good idea to stay awake.  It was interesting as we flew over places like Bagdad, Tehran, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and dark again as we flew into the UAE.  It looked beautiful at night: orderly, well-lit, modern, developed.  We got through immigration pretty quickly and were greeted with excitement by Laura and Leslie (Leslie had come in from Norway a few hours earlier).

Wuhoo! Now we were four.

It was awesome walking out of the airport and into the very warm night air.  The exhaustion made it all the more surreal.  Laura took us on an informal tour of the city on our way to her place.

On the way, we stopped for a quick look at the Emirates Palace Hotel (oh my), and saw our first gold vending machine.

Laura lives in an apartment suite in a high rise luxury hotel in downtown Abu Dhabi (this shot is from the following day):

When we got to her place, she set out some olives, dates, bread and cheese with thyme, and champagne.

But of course.

And after being up for Ican’tevencountthehours, we finally crashed. Leslie and I had our own room down the hall, gorgeous and modern, and pretty soon were buried under our respective piles of down for what would be an indescribable, lusciously deep sleep.

This is what we woke up to on Friday morning (their Friday morning; we were still twelve hours behind).

Sunrise over an inlet on the Arabian Gulf (we call it the Persian Gulf).  Note lots and lots of construction.
Laura said the sky is never a pure blue, even though it’s always cloudless (last year’s rainfall: zero).  Sand is everywhere… there is a light haze to the air caused by the constant presence of sand.. though I didn’t feel it.

And it’s warm: temps in early April were high 80s and 90s.

I stepped out on the balcony and shot these…  an early morning pair of cricket games in progress on the desert sands.

A bit to the left was an expansive view of oil wells and tanks. That is, afterall, their source of significant wealth.

The country unified its 7 disparate emirates in the late 60s after oil was discovered. Pretty much all of the development seen today is new since the 70s.   Amazing.  Abu Dhabi and Dubai, UAE’s two largest emirates (and cities) are built on oil money.

We had a great breakfast buffet downstairs that included pita bread, hummus, olives, salmon, cafe latte, and a veggie omelet–heaven–then walked over to Laura’s health club where we hung out on lounge chairs under swaying palms, read and talked, had lemon/mint drinks, and were treated to jetlag-fixing, pre-trek massages, sauna, steam, jacuzzi… the works.  Kind of amazing, really.  We also learned that nudity is forbidden, even in the women’s locker room.

For lunch, had more of this: pita and hummus, tabouli, kibbeh, eggplant.. lovely beyond words, and even some rose wine. Not bad!

That evening, we taxi’d to the largest mosque in the UAE–the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque–which is named for the founder and first president of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, for whom countless things are named, and who is also buried next to the mosque. The whole mosque was finished and opened for worship just 4 years ago.

It’s the 8th largest mosque in the world (it has 4 minarets and 57 domes, and can accommodate up to 40,000 worshipers!) and has the world’s largest single slab o’ carpet (this was an impressive worship room; it alone holds 9,000 folks).

It was quite beautiful, and a treat at night because of the lighting. We saw lots of marble tile work (from Italy) and some incredible chandeliers (from Germany).

Much pretty floral tile work, gold columns, expansive plazas, and more. Walking around required appropriate cover, which they provide.

Afterward, we went to dinner with some of Laura’s expat friends (90% of population of UAE is expats) in a casual local restaurant.. another great middle eastern meal (more cuisine happiness for me).

We’ll take off for Nepal in the morning.