vortex dot net dot en zed

on sunday mum had to work so darren & i decided to do some touring around al ain. we went and picked up our rental car and got straight into the traffic.  mum lent us her gps, which is a complete saviour.  the voice on it is a british computer voice called derek (at the moment anyway) so we all refer to it as derek.  derek copes very well with us, even when there are detours because the roads are being changed.

there are no street addresses here.  even things like malls and shops don’t have addresses and there are no letter boxes for the houses, so for the car rental place we just told the taxi driver to take us to the lulu centre as it is behind there.  you see signs advertising places and you just have to either get directions (by landmark) or follow the signs. many of the roundabouts in al ain have some kind of feature on them so you can use them like this, i.e. the one next to our place is diamond roundabout and has a short fence with diamond shapes in it.  we have also notably seen sheikh roundabout and i also particularly like water feature roundabout.  apparently there is one called pigeon roundabout which has lots of pigeons - the sheikh pays someone to feed them there all the time so it will be covered in pigeons.

the roundabouts themselves have some interesting rules and as no one indicates here you have to be very vigilant when driving. there is also this system of turning which we have started calling ‘hook turns’ - many of the main streets are set up so that you can do these u-turns at specific places. if you miss the hook turn you just have to drive along another 1-2 km until you find another one.

we went to the al jahali fort which is totally stunning but took a risk of going at 11am - it was already too hot.  by the time we got back to the car (a  very short walk in the scheme of things) we felt fried.

we then went to the al ain museum, which is quite old school (but thankfully beautifully air-conditioned). the security guard confided in us that although “the government said it was 45 degrees” he thought it was over 50.  this seemed a bit weird but mum explained later that the higher temperatures are sometimes discussed quite a bit like that because if it does get to 50 degrees all government employees get the day off - so some feel that it never officially gets to 50!

the al ain museum has a lot of handwritten signs and many which look 70s style.  it definitely doesn’t have the biggest budget!  the best things in the museum were the old black and white photos of al ain and abu dhabi in the 60s, the handwritten korans and an old well which is inside the footprint of the building (but has dried up).

after the sightseeing we headed back to our old friend bawadi mall for some lunch and a spot of shopping.  by the time we headed back to wait for mum to finish lunch we were tired!

in the evening we headed over with mum and her friend to the golf club/resort for a nice dinner. we braved the evening humidity to sit outside and it was well worth it - even just for the view of jebel hafeet roads all lit up at night.