Abu Dhabi rises out of the grey reclaimed sands like a sheik’s glittering Lego land of steel, glass and cement. The apparent creation of a competition between crazed architects, no doubt touched by the sun as temperatures soar towards the fifty F mark.
Pakistani, Indian, Nepalese and Filipino labourers when not constructing freeways and buildings, pluck stray strands of weeds from the velvet green ground cover beside the sweeping freeways that are already so clogged with luxury cars that tunnels are being bored beneath the city. With petrol at something like 20 cents a litre, and free housing for the “Arabic people” as our Filipino lady driver sniffs, everyone owns a shiny fast car.
Behind walled compounds with exotic gates, the extended royal family and sheiks live in splendour one can only imagine. (Though the Home Décor stores filled with over sized, stuffed, silk, carved, gilded and painted furniture from the set of an OTT movie where Cleopatra meets The King and I, give some clues.)
Opulence abounds. And the golden edifices in Myanmar now seem restrained elegance in comparison. Life is lived behind closed doors in air conditioned lego land luxury housing estates fringed by dusty date palms transported fully grown overnight.
The morning haze, the faint smear of grit in the air is a slight inconvenient reminder of the surrounding desert.
A “heritage village”, a tourist construction of low adobe buildings gives a vague sense of the city’s insignificant pre oil life. But despite its artificiality as you gaze across the inlet of the Arabian Gulf to the skyscrapers, there is a charm and a sense of a slower pace of life compared to the modern lifestyle.
The women, swathed in black silk abayas, still manage to radiate an air of wealth and luxurious ease as they stroll the shopping malls (complete with ice skating rink and ski slope) accessorised with luxury brand sunglasses, handbags and shoes, manicured nails, and elaborate mehndi henna painting on fingers and toes, followed by a drift of exotic perfume oils.
Gone are the grubby and interesting souks and old bazaars. They are now highrise housed and souvenirs of toy camels and embroidered shawls are replaced with Formula One memorabilia promoting the annual ultra race.
The men are uniform in their handsome arrogance, crisp immaculate kundaras and head scarves, branded aviator glasses, iPhones and iPads in action as they appear to wheel and deal.
It seems a sterile city. We eschewed the excitement of “discovering the desert” via dune bashing buggys, camel races, the sunset BBQ and free mehndi hand painting and belly dancing. But a lavish hunting exhibition displaying the finest falconery, camels and saloukis, gave a hint of the wealthy sports of sheiks and princes.
A lavish Getty, Guggenheim and Louvre are due to open.
Western restaurants where alcohol is served are only found in the international hotels. Our search in the hot night air for local street food and eateries led us to the best of every international fast food joint util we are pointed to a dark alley filled with nightclub dives and a Pakistani restaurant where the odours have my belly cramping in gastronomic protest before we’ve crossed the threshold. We end up at a superb Thai Fishmarket restaurant attached to an International hotel on the waterfront. Massive luxury boats nod quietly and one wonders how infrequently they ever move from the dock.
As a tourist passing through, breaking the journey between Australia and Europe it as difficult to get a sense of what lies beneath the surface of this superficiality and obscene wealth. Staff are cosmopolitan, this is the place to come to make money and then return to your own world.
It was only in a well stocked bookstore (remember them?) that I found in lavish coffee table books the old photos and stories of the way of life of the desert from travellers and explorers, intrepid photographers carrying their precious glass plates on camel backs, whose memoirs and experiences give you an idea of how it used to be.