If it's Friday, April 26, it must be Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The days and places are just kind of blurring together. Besides no one on the ship can pronounce Fujairah. Unlike the ports in South-East Asia, the port here has very few cranes for container handling, but oh my, look at all those oil storage tanks. Doesn't that tell you something.
Fujairah, is right next to Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. It is the only Emirate on the Gulf of Oman, rather than the Persian Gulf. This Emirate is quite small, pretty much all desert; partly rocky mountains about 3,000 feet high and without any vegatation, and partly sandy dunes, also without vegetation. There are a few natural oasis, but most of the greenery, such as there is, comes from irrigation. As with the other countries in this part of the world, the money comes from oil. It does not seem as prosperous as Oman, but still pretty good. The roads and buildings are all in good shape, a fair bit of construction is underway, all is clean, and there are no slums.
Our fun today was roaring around over the sand dunes of the Arabian Desert in these Toyota Land Cruisers with four-wheel drive and tires deflated to 10 psi. Our driver was excellent, and gave us some serious thrills. Some of the vehicles had to stop because the passengers had bad motion sickness. Peggy and I shared a vehicle with a nice couple who, like us, seemed to have strong stomachs. So, it was great fun. I took a lot of video, but we were bouncing around so much in the car that it is not very good. Regardless, we plan to bore you all with it, when we return. In the meantime, here are some stills.
At our "pit stop" (ask Peggy about the squatters), they had ATVs that you could rent and roar around the dunes. We did not have time for this, tempting as it was.
The half of Fujairah that is not desert looks like this.
Till tomorrow and Abu Dhabi
P&G
Fujairah, is right next to Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. It is the only Emirate on the Gulf of Oman, rather than the Persian Gulf. This Emirate is quite small, pretty much all desert; partly rocky mountains about 3,000 feet high and without any vegatation, and partly sandy dunes, also without vegetation. There are a few natural oasis, but most of the greenery, such as there is, comes from irrigation. As with the other countries in this part of the world, the money comes from oil. It does not seem as prosperous as Oman, but still pretty good. The roads and buildings are all in good shape, a fair bit of construction is underway, all is clean, and there are no slums.
Our fun today was roaring around over the sand dunes of the Arabian Desert in these Toyota Land Cruisers with four-wheel drive and tires deflated to 10 psi. Our driver was excellent, and gave us some serious thrills. Some of the vehicles had to stop because the passengers had bad motion sickness. Peggy and I shared a vehicle with a nice couple who, like us, seemed to have strong stomachs. So, it was great fun. I took a lot of video, but we were bouncing around so much in the car that it is not very good. Regardless, we plan to bore you all with it, when we return. In the meantime, here are some stills.
At our "pit stop" (ask Peggy about the squatters), they had ATVs that you could rent and roar around the dunes. We did not have time for this, tempting as it was.
The half of Fujairah that is not desert looks like this.
Till tomorrow and Abu Dhabi
P&G
Peggy you didn't, did you??
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