While I was away (Part II)

The second part of our 10 day trip took us to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Did you know that there are seven Emirates making up the UAE? Did you know that of the seven Emirates only three produce oil? Of the three that produce oil Abu Dhabi is the one that accounts for 94% of the total oil production in this country while Dubai produces 4% with the balance of 2% being produced in Sharjah? Well now you know!!

Abu Dhabi is the capital of UAE by virtue of contributing 94% of the total oil revenue of this country and is the seat of the UAE government. It is a relatively new city having risen from its humble beginnings as a desert town 40 short years ago thanks in part to its vast reservoirs of oil sitting under its desert environment and estimated to last another 70 years at a production rate of 3 million barrels per day.

UAE has a total population of about 9.5 Million inhabitants and comprises of 600,000 indigenous people called the Emiratis who control the economy and own all the businesses and factors of production. The workforce of 8.9 Million is provided by people from across the world and from every conceivable continent that drive the economy with the vast majority of non-skilled labor coming from Asia.

All this information was given to us by a very knowledgeable tour guide originally from Sri Lanka and who has lived in the Emirates for the last 15 years.

The contrast between Delhi and Abu Dhabi starts at the airport. Whereas we had obtained our valid e-visas for both countries in Kenya, in India it took a minimum of 10 minutes for them to process your entry into the country while in Abu Dhabi this was done within a minute. The queues at the exchange bureaus at the airport in India need no repeating and the process in Abu Dhabi look literally seconds and with a promise that your remaining dirhams would be reconverted back to the original currency at the same rate on your way out of the country so that you did not suffer exchange losses. From entering the airport terminal to boarding our bus in India it had taken well over 4 hours while in Abu Dhabi this was accomplished within 45 minutes.

While infrastructurally the two countries are almost similar with wide highways and infrastructural development projects ongoing at a frenetic pace, the roads, streets and sidewalks of Abu Dhabi are scrupulously clean and free of congestion. Perhaps the fact that we arrived on a Friday the traditional day of rest in this predominantly Muslim country may have worked in our favor but this was F1 weekend and hordes of tourists were expected into the country. This is clearly a well-planned city unlike Delhi which seems to be two different cities of New Delhi and Old Delhi one representing order and sanity the other representing chaos and anarchy.

Day 1 was an exciting day of sightseeing and included a desert safari complete with a session of dune bashing, that insane sport where you follow each other in a convoy of fast moving 4x4 wheel drive Land Cruisers across the sand dunes in an exciting session of sliding up and down those gigantic sand dunes……something not for the faint hearted! Thanks to one of the passengers in the vehicle that I was in who succumbed to motion sick we got lost in the desert for at least 15 minutes and with a driver who spoke nothing else but Arabic we had no idea what they were conversing with his colleagues on phone as we wandered about looking for the rest of the convoy whom we found at the venue of the evening dinner among the sand dunes and loud piped music to our huge relief.

A delicious dinner under the clear desert skies followed and was finished off by an exotic belly dancer from Ukraine doing her thing to thunderous applause from the large crowd of tourists present. The desert safari is a must do experience for anyone visiting the Arabian Peninsula countries for the sheer exhilaration of speeding through desert dunes followed by an authentic dinner under the stars.

But we were here for Formula 1 the last race of the F1 season and which promised to be the culmination of an epic battle between two rivals that ironically race for the same team so as to determine the winner of the 2016 season. The event was at Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island a reclaimed island that is now a popular recreation venue hosting the F1 circuit, Ferrari World, Yas Water World, multiple upmarket hotels, the Yas Links Golf Club and Yas Mall the largest mall in Abu Dhabi amongst others. Yas Island attracted 25 Million visitors in 2015 just so that you can get some perspective on what good planning to attract visitors can do for a country and its economy.

I am not a particularly great fan of F1 but some among the group are diehard fanatics and do not miss an opportunity to catch up on the action on their TV screens while in Kenya. They had managed to convince a good number of us to experience F1 racing in the raw. In addition these events normally go on long into the night with an excellent after show concert and this night promised to be a thrilling one with a live Lionel Richie concert at the adjoining Ferrari World open air stadium which to me was the highlight of the Abu Dhabi visit.

Let me confess that my F1 experience is better in the comfort of my living room because it gives you different perspectives to the same race from the starting grid, to the pit stops, any accidents, to the tight turns and the straights all captured by a battery of cameras both on the ground, in the air and on some selected drivers helmets also.

The live experience is a bit of an anticlimax because you stay in one position as defined by your ticket and then watch the cars passing by at blurring speeds. Thankfully a well-positioned large screen TV close to where we were seated allowed us to follow the race in real time much as we would do from the comfort of our homes! However the overall experience of a live event including the atmosphere, the high pitched sounds of high performance motors, the excitement, the cheering crowds, the fireworks display, the aircraft displays, the adrenaline etc cannot detract from the fact that it was a once in a lifetime experience and definitely time well spent for the qualifying and final rounds of the last race of the 2016 F1 season.

So there you have it folks, my experiences during a recent trip to India and UAE are now permanently on paper, but before I sign off it would be unfair to forget those who planned and made the trip so memorable for the 31 of us on that trip.

To DGI and EKG (you know yourselves) your planning, frequent feedback and patience over the months that we planned the trip was a breath of fresh air and you are recognized amongst us all as having been invaluable to the overall success of the trip. To the 31 souls that made the trip (again you know yourselves) we made new friendships and alliances that cannot be taken for granted and which we need to cultivate and exploit for our future well-being and peace of mind.

Finally we need to keep encouraging each other in our resolve towards attaining better health for ourselves and our families and be ambassadors to society in regards to matters of health.

And let us also not forget that what happened in India and UAE stays there!!