ABU DHABI

I liked Abu Dhabi. It's a strange place, a bit bland to look at and it seems to lack a strong cultural identity. I guess this is not surprising given that the city as we know it sprang into existence only recently when the progress-loving Sheikh Zayed gained power in 1966. Prior to that, the emirate consisted of a few camel herders living in mud huts in a vast expanse of desert. When oil was discovered in 1958 there were only 15,000 people living in Abu Dhabi, and now barely fifty years later it's the capital of the United Arab Emirates with a population of around 1.5 million. It doesn't have the buzz or eccentricities of its neighbour Dubai, and if truth be told doesn't seem to have much personality at all. I was only there three and a half days yet managed to see all the major sites except for one massive mosque.

So why did I like it? Basically because I was there with good friends who had an insider's view of which sites are worth visiting and also a car to get us there in comfort. Travelling by taxi is a bit of a nightmare because of the bizarre system of street addresses. Basically there isn't one. Despite the fact that the streets are all signposted using a grid system, nobody follows or understands it so you have to describe your destination by using landmarks. Obviously a bit of a challenge for a clueless tourist such as myself. This is where my fabulous friends' local knowledge and car ownership came in handy. I was visiting a mate who I haven't seen since he left Vietnam for the UK five years ago. We kept in contact once he moved to Cambridge but despite the best intentions to catch up we could never manage to be in the same country at the same time. He was one of only three people who I knew were living in Britain when I decided to move over here (the others being in York and London) but in a display of spectacularly bad timing, he moved to Abu Dhabi just one week before I landed at Heathrow. So it was great to finally catch up and spend some time hanging out with him and his wife.

I arrived at the start of the weekend (Friday-Saturday) and on the first day we checked out the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village and were treated to a strange performance. It consisted of two rows of Arabian chaps clad in the traditional long white robes (called dishdashes) and headscarves singing across at each other while swinging canes in unison. The tune was quite catchy, but unfortunately distorted through crap speakers. It was a world apart from our destination the next day, which was the gold-encrusted Emirates Palace Hotel. It can be described by only one word: opulence. It's a massive complex with its own private beach and the day we were there they were setting up a stage for the upcoming Elton John concert. Riiiight.

All in all it was a fantastic trip and my mid-journey recovery from jetlag made me even more excited about heading back to London and getting stuck back into life. I've been on holiday for the last six months and as fabulous as that has been, I'm really a bit over it and looking forward to working again. Well, more looking forward to earning money than the actual working part. I haven't gone completely mad.