After breakfast, I made the final hotel reservation of our trip, so barring\nany unforeseen changes, the rest of our trip is now solidly planned. Our\nrestaurant reservations for each night in Dubai have also been made, as we\nlearned at the start of our trip that it’s impossible to get into some places\nwithout booking in advance.<\/p>\n\n
We dropped off some laundry at a local laundrette and then drove into town to\nvisit the local livestock market. That was quite a hoot, with goats and cows\nbeing loaded, unloaded, carried and driven all over the area.<\/p>\n\n
We watched and smiled as goats were sold from the back of SUVs, and looked on\nwith pity as others were purchased and placed in unventilated saloon car\nboots, the lids slammed shut, and then driven away.<\/p>\n\n
A number of merchants placed goats on the ground or pulled them forward in\ntheir pick-up trucks, so that Eloïse could stroke them. While I was away\ngrabbing a few photos, an Arab man posed for his picture with Eloïse,\nwhich Sarah took with the man’s camera phone.<\/p>\n\n
I enquired about the prices and discovered that a goat would set me back some\n400 dirhams (± €87), whilst I could expect to pay a good 3000\n(± €650) for a bull. No doubt haggling would work as well here as\nanywhere else we’ve been.<\/p>\n\n
After the livestock market, we wandered through the oasis, lush and teeming\nwith tall date palms, crisscrossed by falaj<\/em> irrigation channels.<\/p>\n\n This oasis is where the original Al Ain began, and just 50 years ago, the\nonly way to reach here was a 5 day camel trek across the desert from Abu\nDhabi. Today, the journey will take you under two hours in an air-conditioned\ncar along a tree-lined highway. How times change.<\/p>\n\n All modern countries have undergone such changes, of course, but more commonly\nover hundreds, if not thousands of years. In the Arabian peninsular countries,\nhowever, such changes have occurred in a matter of a few decades. Somehow,\nthey have managed to assimilate such changes, including the great wealth and\nexternal (read: western) influences without losing their identity. On the\ncontrary, the governments of these countries have done much to protect their\nsociety, its traditions and values.<\/p>\n\n Our wander through the oasis brought us to the local souq, which was very\ndisappointing: just a handful of shops selling domestic appliances, hair\nproducts, scarves and such.<\/p>\n\n We walked to the Hut Café, which we feared may be shut (most things are\non Friday), but were happy to find open for business. The food and drinks\nwere delicious and the surroundings very pleasant, too. It was clearly popular\nwith locals, in spite of lots of concessions to the western pallette.<\/p>\n\n Soon after we arrived, the door was locked behind us, as typically no-one is\nallowed in or out around prayer time.<\/p>\n\n After lunch, we returned to the hotel, as Eloïse had become inconsolable.<\/p>\n\n Back in the room, she turned out to have diarrhoea, so she’s obviously a bit\nunder the weather. Perhaps it’s the heat, although Al Ain is famously cool by\nUAE standards, or perhaps she ate something dodgy. Hopefully, it’ll turn out\nto be a one day thing.<\/p>\n\n After Eloïse has slept a while and I had read today’s edition of Gulf\nNews, we tried to go to the Al Khandaq Fort on the Buraimi side of town. I\nforgot our passports, but that shouldn’t have mattered, because both of our\nguide books tell us that you can pass freely between Buraimi on the Oman side\nand Al Ain on the UAE side.<\/p>\n\n Unfortunately for us, that turned out to have ceased relatively recently.<\/p>\n\n This open border crossing has now been closed and a passport is thus required\nto go from one side to the other.<\/p>\n\n I couldn’t be bothered with going back to the hotel to pick up the passports\nand then deal with the formalities of two border crossings within as many\nhours, so we instead chose to drive into town and have a look at the Al Ain\nMuseum.<\/p>\n\n This turned out to be a nice, relaxing way to wind up the daylight hours. The\nmuseum wasn’t too large and had some nice exhibits, including a nice selection\nof old black-and-white photographs of various Emirati cities, back when they\nwere just small towns and the UAE hadn’t yet been born.<\/p>\n\n Dinner was at Luce, the Italian restaurant at the Hotel Intercontinental, just\nup the road from where we’re staying. It was really good and I recommend it if\nyou’re feeling saturated with Indian, Lebanese and Iranian food.<\/p>\n\n We thought our plans to go to the camel market tomorrow were scuppered, as it,\ntoo, is just over the border in Buraimi; or so we thought. In another fine\nexample of printed matter being out of date by the time the ink dries, the\ncamel market is now located on the Al Ain side, so no border formalities will\nbe required to visit it. I’m glad we asked at our hotel.<\/p>\n\n I also enquired about the new border checks and was informed that the Emiratis\ninstituted these a few months ago. It has nothing to do with the Omanis, so\nthey’re not checking passports on their side, either as people enter or as\nthey leave. Only the Emiratis are performing checks and it’s apparently really\nannoying to the locals, as some live on one side of the border and work on the\nother and commuting is now a lot more awkward.<\/p>\n\n Tomorrow, the camel market awaits, and then we leave Al Ain behind us, as we\ncontinue westwards through the emirate of Abu Dhabi to its eponymous\ncapital city, which also happens to be the capital of the entire UAE.<\/p>\n\n One final thought: I keep forgetting to mention that Wiesje has discovered a\nfondness for Arabic music. As we drive, she sits in the back of the car,\nclapping her hands and shaking her head to the upbeat songs coming from the\nradio. She likes other types of music, but Arabic seems to be her favourite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After breakfast, I made the final hotel reservation of our trip, so barring any unforeseen changes, the rest of our trip is now solidly planned. Our restaurant reservations for each night in Dubai have also been made, as we learned … Continue reading