For photos from the journey described below, please right click on the link below to open in a separate window: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xenosdbx/my_photos
On Friday I decided to set off with my camera and go in search of some “real Arabia”. The road towards Hatta and Oman from Dubai is uninteresting in that it is straight most of the way, but what does capture your attention is the changing scenery around you.
Beginning with the almost white sand around Dubai, the desert is speckled with small green plants and, every so often, date farms and expanses of brilliant green. We are now in July, but in January, the colours are even more luscious – especially the greens, but they fade during the course of the year thanks to the harshness of the sun and wind.
As the tarmac unrolls in front of you, the scenery subtly begins to change with the desert taking on new hues and gradually transforming from white to yellow to a light orange and then into burnt orange, finally ending in a rich reddish tone about 70 kilometres from Dubai. The vegetation has also significantly decreased by this stage in the journey and there are just dunes which have been carved and shaped by the wind, forming peaks and ridges which, when the light falls on them, create impressive shadows and contrasts which keep attracting the eye.
As the road intersects Oman, after the village of Al Madam, the landscape changes once again. Now flat for miles around, the only features are small trees, their branches fanned out above them like some kind of amateur parasol. Camels wander with their front feet tethered, looking for food to graze on or the shelter of the tree for a lie down and a conference with their fellow camels. The ground is a burnt brown combination of dirt and sand, with rocky formations hinting at what lies ahead….
After another 10 kilometres or so, the horizon changes. A few peaks can be made out in the distance, although the first time visitor will fail to pay attention. After a brief moment longer the gaze is automatically focused on a sea of mountains that fill the distance like the crests of waves on an ocean shore. Suddenly the vast expanse of the desert has been framed, defined and bordered and you are simultaneously filled with curiosity and a sense of foreboding from their dark shadows and menacing edges.
The visual impact of the mountain ranges is so impressive after the flatness of the desert. On this trip I decided to try and find a way into the mountains to investigate further. This meant crossing into Oman, but I did not have my passport with me. However, I took a chance and found a track off the main asphalt highway and just aimed towards the mountains. No check points, no border control, I journeyed into Oman in much the same way as the traders and nomads of past times would have crossed the land and before the idea of borders had even been thought of – albeit in a 6 litre V8 SUV, rather than on horse or camel back. . .
After a short while, I spotted a man who was hailing me from the side of the road – hitchhiking Arab style. I was in two minds about whether to stop – on the one hand wanting to avoid any hassles or delays on my journey, on the other keen to meet and talk with a local.
It was 48 degrees outside in the desert sun and so pouring from the milk jug of human kindness, I decided to stop and pick him up. He told me he was heading to a garden and jumped into the back of the car. Looking around at the barren land and the scar-faced rocky mountains, the idea of garden seemed rather unlikely, and I began to wonder if he had been in the sun just a little too long.
I offered him a bottle of water which he accepted with good grace and profuse thanks in at least two languages, one of which resembled English.
His broken English was enough to let me know his name – Sultan Yousef – that he was an Omani, married with a wife and a small three year old son.
He was fascinated by an Englishman driving in the desert – obviously not used to being given a lift in such a vehicle by a strange white fellow with a pile of camera equipment. He became even more confused when he asked me where I was going and I replied that I didn’t know – I was just driving around.
Once he got the hang of my name, which I had to translate into Arabic (Da’oud) he asked lots of questions about London, my family and of course my children. He was quite puzzled when I told him that I have no children – this is a strange notion for the Arabs.
We then exchanged manly conversation about the world including his observation that while many children is a good thing, they do cost rather a lot of money to feed and so on.
After 20 minutes or so together, we arrived at his destination. It really was a garden – in fact an oasis with a swathe of green across both sides of the road, provided in the main by the mass of date palms, their enormous leaves floating gently in the breeze.
When we stopped he invited me to join him and his family to drink some water, but I was keen to get on and declined. He wished me a long and peaceful life and went to join the others.
I continued driving through mountains listening to the country /rock / blues sounds of Mark Knopfler’s latest album Shangri La – which features outstanding musicianship from Knopfler and his band. Using vintage guitars and organs the whole album was recorded in an old Shangri La studio in Malibu (a historic recording studio from the Sixties) and the sound of the album reflects that time in music – including the ensemble recording of the whole band and the use of original instruments. Nearly all of the songs were recorded in one take – a testimony to the musicians and their approach to making music – quite different from the over produced, 27 take songs of modern music today.
Knopfler’s sometimes haunting, sometimes soothing guitar sound is not at all out of place with the barren rocky mountains that punctuate the desert in this part of Oman. They stand like spikes rising out of the ground, hard and aggressive, and yet driving through you soon discover that they harbor and protect valleys of date farms where locals still harvest one of the most traditional crops of the region.
In one particular valley, driving down dust and stone tracks and praying not to have an accident of any form – no mobile phone coverage, no help and no proper roads for at least 20 kilometres! – I discovered a quite remarkable herd of goats living between a date farm and the dry Wadi. Mainly black in colour (with a black & tan and black & white variant), there must have been between 100 and 200 hundred of these animals roaming around, sprinkled with a few sheep for good measure.
It was quite tricky negotiating my way around them - and you must try or the owner will suddenly appear and charge blood money for killing any of his animals. Indeed I have heard people have had to pay 10’s of thousands of dollars for camels which have been fatally injured in car accidents - and that is on top of the cost of completely fixing your car. Camels are pretty large animals and most accidents involving vehicles and camels usually see the vehicle in just as bad a state as the camel or sometimes worse!
In total contrast with Dubai, which is only about 120 kilometres away, this part of the world seems to have changed very little in the last 100 or even 1,000 years. Yes, there is electricity and there are some asphalt roads running through, but the rest of life seems to have been left alone with traditional farming of the brilliant green date oases and the tending to a herd of livestock which provide milk, cheese, meat and other basic materials. You can’t help wondering how long this will last and also weighing up the pros and cons of each way of life.
The return trip back to Dubai was uneventful with the exception of two camel traffic incidents which are commonplace here, but which are somewhat bizarre for the first timer. One was in the village of Al Madam again where a herd of camels trotted straight on to the two lane blacktop and nearly caused a truck pile up with several 16+ wheelers slamming on the brakes and swerving to avoid the beasts. The camels, much like their shepherd, seemed completely unperturbed and simply carried on marching down the high street next to the cafes, truck stops and shops, as though it were their natural born right to browse shop windows on a Friday afternoon . . .
The second incident was somewhat more predictable as I drove past the Nad Al Sheba camel race course in Dubai. Approaching a roundabout, I slowed to see a convoy of camels go around the roundabout being lead by a traditionally dressed Arab rider and a dozen or so camels following behind. This was made all the more amusing by the fact that they were all going around the roundabout the wrong way causing even more disruption. When I pulled out my camera for a photo, the lead rider stopped and smiled a huge white toothed smile and gestured to the other riders to stop and pose for the photo – much to the delight of the waiting traffic!
The contrast of the camels on the roundabout just a mile away from the bustling centre of one of the world’s most sophisticated and luxurious cities, is what modern Arabia is all about.
Neither image fails to take your breath away, but for very different reasons. The important thing for visitors like me is to see both sides, and indeed all sides. To try and penetrate a little further than the surface and get a feeling for the people who came from their tents in the desert and built the most modern city in the world.
For photos from the journey described above, please click on:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xenosdbx/my_photos
