Driving in the UAE

I was asked by someone I know down under what it was like to drive over here.

I needed to use but one word...


Majestic.

It's actually a really good term to describe driving on the wide open roads over here.
Driving at 140-150kph on wide open roads, its something else. You become hyper aware. Driving at 90kph on open roads back home in australia sends me to sleep, but here at 120+, I'm awake, and I'm paying attention.

During the day it's beautiful to watch as the sand dances across the road blown by the wind from passing cars.
On especially windy days blown by the Shamal, it becomes like driving on silk.


You might be used to 2, 3, or even 4 lane roads in each direction near where you live. In dubai, major routes are 6 to 7 lanes in each direction. and this isn't just the main distributor for a short duration. This is 100km long stretches through regional and urban areas.

Speed limits range up to 120kph, with speed cameras set to 30kph above this.
Headed down to Abu Dhabi on Sheik Zayed Road they're set to 160kph.

What oyu find on these long commutes between  dubai and abu dhabi sis

Cooperative speeding. You'll find lead cars generally in SUV's for higher viewpoints taking leads between speed cameras, with convoys lined up behind them.
As he approaches a live speed camera, not all are active, he will flash his left indicator and slow down.
Good signal for the 1-5 cars behind him to do the same. And so we will drop back to 150 for the camera, then take off again. With some of them going all the way 200+.


Getting where you need to go is fast and efficient. More so than any other city I've been in.

When rock bottom isn't low enough

Last night I shared a meal with a kind pakistani of 20 years.

Earlier in the afternoon he was out washing his early 90's corolla.
Faded paint, manual gearbox, one of the windows held up with tape. I loved it.

So I tried to start a conversation (think simple english wikipedia). It went quite well.
I saw him later in the evening walking back with my loot from the local carrefour (not measured in sq km). He seemed to be just out in the carpark talking with friends. They look to had been there for hours given the small mountain of spent cigarettes. He offered to carry some of it up, and he wouldn't have a bar of it any other way.

I offered for him to come in, sit, and join me in a drink. While talking I tried to demonstrate to him where belgium is, as "where are you from" is a conversation piece that is universal to everyone in this Tossed Salad of a city.
Using google maps on my laptop he was amazed at the satellite and map view of europe.

The next talking point "what do you do" is another to which I learnt about how he lives.

He's a conductor for a school bus.
He can't read english or arabic.

He lives in his 1bdr apartment with 8 other people.
He earns A$200 total a month.

His father with which he lives has been in Dubai for 37 years.


I realized that I had never met someone who earns so little before. Even beggars in sydney receive more.

But he seems happy enough. He's not much of a thinker, a simple man who values kindness.
He will get to sleep well at night, the thoughts of the day won't be keeping him up.
In many ways, a much happier life than any we might live.

Door to door Begging

I'd had people selling services, rallying for my political support this weekend, even asking me to consider converting to their religion.
But not begging for money

So I did what any understanding person he was looking for would do.

I invited him in, pulled some food out of the fridge, and tried to share a meal with him.

His English was fine at the door explaining his problem. "Brother had accident, very sick, no money for food" while he was showing me the bandage under his shirt.

Once I invited him in, his english suddenly took a turn for the worse.

Squeezing his name out of him was tough (Ashaf)

For someone with money problem he wasn't very hungry. When even beggars turned down the food I eat, it has certainly made me think twice as to whether I should be eating it.

I tried to understand more of his story, but I couldn't get much more than his brother was working a car/plane/mangling machine (described holding his arms out moving them up while growling) when his untimely demise resulted in his return to pakistan (?). However ashaf appeared unable to follow his brother to pakistan, and lost his job because of his brother's self-manglement (?) resulting in him now being not very hungry, and needing money for new bandages from the local pharmacy.

So he quickly beat a hasty retreat, relieving himself of my company and showing himself out "Ok, ok".

I think with the next one I will offer them 20 dirhams to clean my apartment.