Bony Pear

The abandoned cars of Abu Dhabi.

Nothing looks new for long in the desert.

Skyscrapers, cleaned yesterday, emanate dereliction. Roads are lost to sand drifts. Even kittens look old. We didn’t notice the cars at first. They are everywhere that you can find a car park. Shopping centres, construction sites, the side of the road, residential complexes and restaurants. They aren’t shit-boxes, or even middle of the range family cars. They are Range Rovers, BMW’s, Mercedes and Jaguars. Eight and twelve cylinder luxury cars, top end vehicles. These are special. And they have been forgotten.

The abandoned cars of Abu Dhabi.

They were dreams once, made real in the fast money world of Arabia. This is a place where, for the right price, anything can be made possible. The people who come here don’t come out of a desire to travel, an interest in the culture of the Arabian Peninsular, or its people. They come for money. And they don’t plan on staying. Out of the eight million people in the UAE, less than twenty percent are citizens. The rest is a transient population of expatriate workers. Money can get you anything here, but that’s not to say there aren’t any rules. This isn’t a place to break rules. Fifty years ago there was no oil, and the sheikdoms were separate. The discovery of oil changed the lives of the Emiratis dramatically. The new generation remembers nothing of the camels and tents of their forefathers, nor want to. This is a generation that grew up being given what they wanted when they wanted it. They know they rule here, and their superiority is without doubt.

When things go wrong in the Emirates they go really wrong. We met an American who was jailed for using coarse language over the phone. Phone conversations are taped here. Alcohol is illegal outside of heavily regulated areas. So is immodesty. The police will seize your passport if you are suspected of breaking their rules.

And the oil is running out. The boom is over. Expats, excited at the money being thrown around five to ten years ago, bought up big. Houses and apartments they would never have been able to afford otherwise. And cars. Now they can’t rent out their properties, or make their repayments. Wages have stopped going up. Jobs are scarce. You can be jailed for debt in the Emirates.

Sometimes it’s easier to just run.

Expats here don’t plan on coming back. They were here to take what they could. So they pack up their families, and whatever they can carry, get in a cab and leave. Their once shiny dreams rot away in the sand and the sun.

Abu Dhabi updates

This has taken sometime, promise we will be more active from now on, because there is nothing like being jobless and not wanting to spend money to eventually motivate you.

We went to an expat Canadian thanks giving in the United Arab Emerits. Expat crews are always strange. The mix of foreigners is similar to an Asian hotel buffet breakfast. It doesn’t always go together but you try and make the most of it. We met Hanz. He was tall with blonde hair. He had bootstrap style blonde beard. He wore red pants with a navy v-neck designer shirt and those shoes that aren’t runners but aren’t skate shoes, those weird Euro trainers. He was from Austria and he made no sense. His English was a broken mix of English slang with a thick Austrian accent and he misunderstood everything you said. I caught maybe every third word that tumbled from his mouth. He was also the most wasted person there.

We were some of the last to leave the party. On our walk down the dusty street trying to hail a taxi Hanz pulled up in his sleek silver car, voice muffled by the techno from his stereo. He offered us a lift back to our hotel. In the UAE drink driving is not done. The legal limit is 0. If you are caught drink driving you are often jailed for as long as the police decide. If you were in an accident and they found out you had been drinking, no matter how little, everything will be your fault. As we were driving the short distance back to the hotel a police car drove past us. ‘Oh no’ Hanz casually exclaimed, then reached for his pint size can of Heineken, which we had not seen was resting in the cup holder and takes a swig.

At the round about to our hotel he swerved and just missed an Indian woman, then he took the hotels speed bumps like a drunken equestrian on a thoroughbred, all the while trying to light a cigarette. In broken English he told us about this booze they brew back in Austria. He said it is around 80%. When describing the taste he holds an imaginary lighter to his mouth and says ‘its taste like Zis. It burns all your face. Your cheeks, your throat’. I said that sounded like it tastes dreadful. To his reply, ‘No, its taste good!’. I said Sam brews beer. ‘Brisbane?’ Yeah, I been to Brisbane. You know the backpackers? I saw the queen’.

Al Ain

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Ice buckets and gin, American sweets and the sun beating down on grey rock and red sand.  The only shade is thrown by dull green date palms.  A tiny Indian maid films her employers eating from the buffet with two cameras and they just eat, indifferent.  In the resort’s pool bar young Arabic men wearing dishdashas drink and hold hands.  The pale 1960’s light slides over pastel pink retaining walls, and outcrops of fake rock surround the chlorinated oasis.  Thatched roofs shade sunken bars. 

There was an Emirati wedding last night.  The men feasted on the lawn and the women danced in the grand ballroom, alone.  They arrived in BMW’s and Range Rovers.  Fifty years ago they rode camels.  They all look bored.

The bed in our room is wide enough that we can lay the wrong way on it and not reach the sides.  Varsity Blues is on television.  They cut any scenes with tits.  Sheik Zayed was born here, in Al Ain.  Quranic verse lines the highway back to Abu Dhabi.