View from Kaser Al Amwaj, Abu Dhabi, UAE. December 2010
Two snapshots
In the Jakarta years, Brian and I traveled back to the US via whatever carrier was cheapest. During the 1990s the airlines of the Gulf region were mostly startups and desperate to build a customer base. Emirates was known to have the cheapest flights between Singapore and Jakarta and was dubbed "pembantu airlines" (pembantu- Indonesian for maid/helper) because it was the cheapest way to get labor between the two countries. No one thought of travel on Emirates as glamorous. The Gulf airlines were also desperate to break into the huge market of Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia flying to Jeddah for pilgrimages to Mecca. Because of that, we could get on cheap flights from Jakarta directly to the Middle East and onward, skipping Singapore. In the early days of Etihad Airlines, we flew from Jakarta to Abu Dhabi, had a two-hour layover, and then on to New York. We had no idea what was in store in Abu Dhabi.
Before airports became mega-malls for shopping and dining during stopovers ( like Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Amsterdam, or Heathrow), Abu Dhabi had created one of the world's biggest and cheapest Duty Free arcades. Just one more ploy to entice flyers, Abu Dhabi Duty Free became legendary to long haul travelers. When the plane landed, people scrambled to get off as if it were on fire. It was amazing and a bit unnerving. Brian and I just waited for the pandemonium to cease and calmly deplaned. What was the rush? We had two hours in some dusty Middle Eastern airport, or so we thought.
The transfer bus door opened and people literally ran into the terminal. Again, we were like "what is going on? does everyone need the toilet?" Then we saw it - Abu Dhabi Duty Free "fantasy world shopping". It was amazing. It was cheap. Any and everything was for sale. There was a CAR !! (a car!). We talked about it on the continuing flight to New York - who on earth would buy a car at Duty Free? The experience stays with me simply due to its absurdity. On the return trip, we were ready to join the fray, by the way. We picked seats near the exit and after landing we joined the crazy fools trying to get off the plane first. I can't remember if we bought anything at all. It was more like joining an early morning Black Friday queue just for the experience. That was the one and only time I flew via Abu Dhabi Airport.
Fast forward 15 years or so.
On my first trip to Dubai, MWK had borrowed a car from a friend for part of the time so I could see more of UAE than just Dubai. One day we drove to Abu Dhabi. My FB comment was: Day trip to Abu Dhabi. It is VERY CHILL compared to Dubai. Kind of one of those probably a better place to work than vacation??
The multilane highway leaves Dubai via the industrial port of Jebel Ali. It provides counterpoint to all that glitz and luxury in the rest of the emirate. After that, just scrubby desert on an arrow-straight road passes one by on the way to Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE. The speed limit is high and we obeyed it (MWK did not want a ticket using his friend's car). Other cars blew by us so fast it was terrifying. I looked in shock at MWK who said, "accidents on this road are always fatal". Yikes!
We arrived in Abu Dhabi and bumbled around as it was the first visit for both of us. Where to go? My initial impression was just a bunch of tall buildings à la Houston or Los Angeles. At the time, the only touristy things in Abu Dhabi were a "traditional village" on a breakwater in front of the downtown corniche or one of the largest mosques in the world built with dazzling white marble. We went to the recreated village. The juxtaposition of the simple buildings with the gleaming towers of Abu Dhabi towering behind across the water was bizarre. The recreations, clearly a sanitized version of what life had been like in some glamorized past, overlooked an equally unreal present. Abu Dhabi was dependent on an army of foreign labor to build, maintain, and work in all those gleaming skyscrapers. Old fake overlooking new fake. We were almost the only people there and it felt abandoned - I wondered if anyone ever visited the place? A massive flag pole nearby with the Emirati flag stood proudly over the harbor. The view back over Abu Dhabi was excellent, but ultimately after Dubai, I thought "really, this is it?" We had lunch in a fast food place in a mall and drove back to Dubai. One of those experiences where I felt happy to have gone, but also I wondered why anyone would want to go there in the first place? At least I checked another box on my UAE "to see" list.
Little did I know that three years later, I would be living and working in the region. I never did return to Abu Dhabi though. I heard from my students in Abha that Abu Dhabi had since improved. Ferrari World had the world's fastest roller-coaster and a few more tourist attractions had been added. I honestly had little interest. Dubai was simply better.