Road Trip to Al Ain

I know I haven't written anything in the past few days, but in all honesty, I haven't really done much other than take it easy with my friends and try to to get over my sinus infection.

That is, until today . . .

We were sitting around last night and I got the notion that we should get out off the island for a bit. So after a little brainstorming, we decided we would take a little road trip to a city about 2 hours southeast of Abu Dhabi called Al Ain.

So this morning, Jeff, Danielle, Danielle, and I got up and took a taxi to the bus station. Tickets to Al Ain were only 10 dirhams (roughly $3), and we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus to leave. Here is a picture of what is essentially my back yard here in Abu Dhabi (you can see Abu Dhabi Mall and some surrounding hotels) . . .


Before leaving the island, our bus passed the Sheihk Zayed Grand Mosque . . .


Once off the island, the scenery changed quite dramatically from big city to miles and miles of this . . .


There were some really huge sand dunes, which made me remember how much I'd like to try my luck and sandboarding (like snowboarding, but on sand dunes).


After a pretty uneventful 2-hour bus ride, we finally arrived in the city of Al Ain. There were a few things that I noticed right away about the city that made it seem a lot different than Abu Dhabi: (1) there was a LOT more green space throughout Al Ain, and (2) everything and everyone seemed much more laid-back in contrast to the fast-paced hustle bustle I've grown accustomed to in Abu Dhabi.

As we approached the Town Centre area of the city, I noticed the clock fountain they have instead of a clock tower . . .


After we got our bearings straight, we decided the first thing we wanted to do was go to the camel market. Apparently, if we were at market at 8:00 am, we could have seen hundreds of men buying and trading camels (along with some goats). At 12:00 noon, however, the place was much less busy, as there were only a handful of prospective buyers and a few tourists like us there. I had a few people ask me if I was able to ride any of the camels, and the answer to that is no. However, the owners had some fun teasing us about touching the camels. I got to pet some of them, and one in particular really seemed to like it because it kept leaning its head over and rubbing it against my hand.



One of the highlights of the day was watching some camel owners trying to break one of his younger camels. He had a rope tied around the camel's neck like a leash, and he was trying to lead the camel around this open area. But the camel apparently didn't like that very much, because it was jumping up and down, bucking it's hind legs much like a rodeo horse would. I was watching this for a minute, then turned away to look at some of the other camels. However, about a minute later, I hear all of these men screaming. I looked back over and the wild camel had gotten away and was running around loose all over the market. There were about 5 men chasing it around, and the camel kept looking back at them like it was having a grand old time playing this little game. Eventually, the men caught up with the camel and roped it back in . . .



After standing out in the sun looking at camels for about 45 minutes, we were all ready to sneak ourselves some lunch and water. (Recall that it is not allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight during the month of Ramadan.) So we went to the mall, where we had to secretly eat our lunches in the stalls of the bathrooms. What an experience that was . . .

After our less than desirable bathroom picnics, we were ready to head to the Al Ain National Museum. Here, we were able to read a lot about the history of the United Arab Emirates and what it was like here before oil was struck in the 1950s. In a lot of ways, the culture was still very primitive up to that point. I saw some pictures of the island of Abu Dhabi in the 1960s and 70s, and the island was still pretty much all sand with some buildings scattered throughout--nothing like the island today, which is covered by hundreds and hundreds of skyscrapers and many more being built as I write this. Here is a view of the front of the museum . . .


And a model of a typical home setting in Abu Dhabi prior to the striking of oil . . .



After walking around all the exhibits in the museum, we decided to go to the Al Ain Oasis, which was like a big forest of date trees with paved paths to walk through it on. Probably the best of this was all the nice shade. We walked around for about an hour, and Jeff and I were able to pick some dates right off the trees to eat.

Finally, we got tired of walking around outside in the 105 degree weather without being able to drink any water, so we called it a day. We went back to the Al Ain bus station, got our 10 dirham tickets back to Abu Dhabi, and headed home. Here is a mosque I saw on the way home . . .


Overall, today was a fun day!

Just a side note: Since we will have about 10 days off coming up in the next few weeks, some of us have tentatively planned on making a trip over to India for a bit (Mumbai is only 2 1/2 hours from Abu Dhabi by plane). I'll keep you posted as these plans develop further.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt