Easy life in Oman: woke up at the beach, cycled with a lot of tailwind on a very good road - even car drivers are very relaxed, stick to the rules and don't try to hunt down and kill cyclists, had some stops for good food and good coffee, all at Indian-run places, decided against a hotel (cheap hotel in Sohar: 140€/double room!) and found a perfect place in a palm grove next to the beach - this time a very nice, clean, sandy beach.
The mountains became very scenic, I would not have expected that in VAE. But scenic mountains also meant some very hard climbs. Furthermore we had a strong headwind, so we were pretty tired when reaching Hatta after noon.
From there we entered Oman but we will go back to the Emirates tomorrow: our target, the Hatta Rock Pools are on Omani territory but best accessible from VAE. Once we had entered Oman it felt very African: very beautiful landscape and a dust and stone road (surface model 'washing board') winding through many a Wadi.
The rock pools itself weren't very impressive at first sight, but they were very nice to bath in - today I go to sleep fresh as a field of flowers and full of good food - pasta, pesto and surprisingly Indian-tasting chickpea-dhal.
Sometimes I am really wondering how I could to make it so far. I have cycled from Germany to the Emirates but I still manage to start the day riding with half locked brakes for 15km - all the time thinking that cycling is pretty hard today and wondering why Yannik is going so much faster than me... As if that would not have been enough I was also wondering why my mobile would not charge from my Dynamo - until Yannik told me that my light was on.
We did not go very far today and we had many breaks. But we reached landscape! Mountains! I was told that there would not be any landscape in the Emirates but there is. Somewhere in the mountains we found a picnic place to put our tent. We left our stuff there and went for a short run - we have to train for Dubai Marathon!
After yesterdays half marathon and subsequent beers it was only reasonable to start the day late. I could have been lazy all day but Yannik had convinced me to start with him on the way towards Oman. We met at noon at some mall, organized food and had some coffee and some donuts. Then we tried to find the way out of Dubai/Sharjah. Fortunately at that time the traffic was not too bad. Nevertheless it once again was clear that these cities (and the whole country) are built for cars only. Too bad, the Sheikhs here really had a chance to implement some more intelligent traffic concepts than cars as they were building most of their cities from scratch. Well, on the other hand the whole country was built on oil, so they are unlikely to promote means of transport that do not require petrol. In Sharjah there was still sometimes a small lane on the side to cycle on, but as soon as we got to the countryside there was only a 2-lane highway with no space beside the 2 lanes. Countryside means: sand to the left, sand to the ride. In the late afternoon we finally saw some landscape features as some mountains were appearing on the horizon. We tried to find a place to camp in the dunes, but that was not so easy: most of the highway was fenced of and the gates were decorated with signs forbidding camping and many other things. We asked at a restaurant, but not possible. Eventually we cycled/pushed our bikes along a sandy road into the dunes when a pickup stopped and the driver asked if we would need any help, water, food,... We explained that we were just searching for a place to put our tent. The driver, Hamit, invited us to his families desert camp. A very nice and comfortable camp full of very very friendly people. We were treated to delicious sweets, tea, coffee, ginger milk and finally a huge dinner. It was great to experience Emirati life beyond the shining plastic world of Dubai and Sharjah. This desert camps are to Emiratis what a Schrebergarten is to Germans: a weekend retreat for the whole family where you can get away from the hectic city life, enjoy your time sitting around the fire and the children have fun racing with buggies through the dunes. Even though it is in the desert there is some infrastructure here: they have electricity, a truck brings water every day, another truck collects waste and most camps are guarded by a Pakistani guy during the week.
Hamit and other family members explained several times, that it was a pleasure to have guests because as a Muslim you have to help travellers, no matter where they come from and what religion they are.
Shopping Shopping Shopping!
I arrived in Dubai during Dubai Shopping Festival!
Everyone who knows me is aware of my great enthusiasm for shopping. So I did the only right thing: go shopping in the worlds biggest mall, right next to the worlds highest tower.
I actually had a mission: find proper running shoes in my size. It took me a bit to navigate trough this monster of a mall, but eventually I found a sport shop with some knowledgeable staff and bought my shoes. They don't give a new twist to my style because they look remarkably similar to my cycling shoes, but they are very good for running: I tried them out by doing a slow half marathon around Dubai creek.
Why am I doing this? On 27.1. is Dubai Marathon! I know it would be reasonable to just go for the 10km race, but nevertheless I would love to go for the full distance. I haven't been running for more than 6 month now, but I did a Marathon shortly before leaving Germany and obviously my travel style keeps me in a good shape. So I just have to get those running-specific muscles working again.
The half-marathon test round went very well - the shoes are good, no problems with the knees, I just felt the muscles a bit. Not so bad after half a year! It is already pretty warm here, but even that was no problem.
I know it is kind of crazy, but I think I'll go for the marathon! I have a training plan and my cycling scheduled now has to adapt to that.
In the evening we (Yannik, Dean & me) had to celebrate that decision with some beers (in a bar full of western man and african/asian prostitutes). I won't be running alone: Yannik will also join the race for the 10km.
Khoda hafez Iran, hello shining plastic city of Dubai!
Today the ferry ticket booking system problems were gone, so around 10 I had the ticket. I had a lot of time - the ferry was supposed to leave at 9pm, checkin at 6pm. Except for shopping for smuggled goods there is not much to do in Bandar. I just relaxed at the hotel and the waterfront. Nevertheless I managed to be a bit late for the ferry check-in: just when I was about to leave the hotel Internet came back to Bandar, so I quickly wrote to some couchsurfing hosts in Dubai. After the 8km ride I arrived around 6.20 at the port. There two other cyclist were also waiting for the ferry: Iranian Mousa and English Dean, along with Italian backpacker Giorgio - all of them more or less on the way to India.
Some minutes after 9 we could board the ferry - which was very nice! We locked our bikes at the car deck and went up to the passenger deck, which had 3 areas: one with soft benches (good for sleeping), one with comfortable Airplane-style chairs and an open area with more seating. The ferry was not full at all - one of the two car decks was empty and on the passenger area everyone could easily find a bench for sleeping on. On the bench area dinner was served.
Mousa had a Ney (kind of flute) on his bike - around 10 we left the port while playing music.
Between Bandar and Qeshm many ships were anchored - very atmospheric in the night with the quiet sea and all the illuminated vessels around.
We had a lot to talk and some music to play, so it was long after midnight when I tried to find some sleep. I slept a bit, but woke up a few times to look at the nearly full moon over the sea - it was just too nice to sleep. Around 7 breakfast was served - I had it outside, combined with the sunrise over the sea. Travelling by boat is just so beautiful - I really don't want to take an Airplane to get to India, but I fear there is no other affordable way.
We arrived in Sharjah around 9 and that is were the trouble began:
10:00 we could leave the ferry and followed a police car to the immigration hut.
10:15 all Iranians were sent to an 'eye-check', which was not necessary for Europeans - I have no idea what this was about
Then a long time nothing happened
11:30 two cocky Emiratis appeared who:
- looked like they had way to much opium last night
- really seemed to hate their jobs
- thus were very busy smoking and keeping their agal (that black thingy holding the headdress) in place
- finally started to stamp a few passports until
12:15 their computer broke down - they had managed to get maybe 10 passports stamped until then
12:30 after some discussion the Emiratis just left and nothing happened for some time
13:00 a bus appeared, brought everyone to another passport control building. Here everything went surprisingly comparably fast.
14:00 We could finally collect our bikes and get on the road!
We had the following objectives: money, food, mobile internet, beer, place to sleep - it took us some time until all of them were accomplished. Both Dubai and Sharjah look like a big disneyland, quite a difference when coming from Iran! It took us some time to get to Dubai - theoretically it is only about 25km, but as we wisely decided to the highways it was more than 50km for us. While waiting for our Emirati mobile to get activated we searched for and finally found a beer, the first one for two months - and, as it is Dubai, pretty expensive: 5€!
I could finally check my mail to see that couchsurfing did not work out. Furthermore, the couchsurfing website is blocked in the Emirates! I guess it is seen either as a dating site or more likely as something unwanted in a city relying so much on up-price tourism.
We all had different plans, so we decided to split: Dean would be collected by a friend, Mousa did not want to spend more than 10€ for a room (impossible in Dubai) so he went searching for a place to camp, I wanted to have a bed and a safe place for my bicycle.
I tried to go to the Dubai Youth Hostel about 10km away, but heavy traffic incl. road construction and tiredness made me turn back and search for a place to stay in the Deira, the old town of Dubai. I was very happy when I found a room at Al Uruba Hotel in the middle of the gold souq - only 170Dirham (more than 30€} /night, that is cheap in Dubai!
The room and hotel staff however are very nice. That was the point when I actually started to find some likable things about this crazy city: the gold souq area has some athmosphere (if you can ignore the constant fake-watch offers) and there are many Indian restaurants around. Fully veg.! And real Indian! Very tasty and very spicy! That is were I met again Yannik - he had taken another route from Yazd to Bandar and has been in the Emirates for some time already.
Started late, rolled down to the speedboats, after some waiting lifted Arthur and all my stuff into the boat, feared for most of the ride that a big wave would hit and one of the panniers would drown in the Gulf, but everything arrived, quite a lot of ship traffic here, checked in at a nice hotel, tried to book the ferry ticket for tomorrow, not possible because all of Bandar Abbas is cut off from internet today, tried at 3 travel agencies, no chance today, hope tomorrow everything works out.
