Blogs from Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 3

July in Abu Dhabi is overwhelmingly steamy and hot...approx 45+degrees everyday! Wearing the most breathable & lightest of clothing..always carrying water with you..and planning your day so as not to be out in the heat too much. In fact you can barley cope with being outdoors at all..so it is a time to be staying inside with the airconditioning or finding a pool to lay by... Al Ain is about a 2 hr drive from Abu Dhabi heading straight in to the centre of the country. That is, it is desert as soon as you leave Abu Dhabi until you reach this oasis town in the heart of the UAE deserts. Historically Abu Dhabians have travelled to Al Ain to escape the summer heat....in the past by a long and arduous camel train ride. Today ... read more

Al Ain, is the oasis town in the centre of the United Arab Emirates, where for many years, tribes & locals from Abu Dhabi & surrounds, who worked on the coast for their fishing/pearl diving & trade, travelled inland to this oasis in the summer months for some cooler relief. What was once a long arduous camel ride is now a 1 & 1/2hr freeway drive from Abu Dhabi island. It nears the border of Oman, surrounded by the Hajir mountains which divides Oman & UAE....so that's a bit of background! We headed off, zooming down the freeway, passing turban clad men wandering & squatting by the sides of the desert highway....hitching rides or doing the long walk home in the mid-day heat... past "farms"..the kind you get in the desert... penned off areas.... sand-dunes & ... read more

Sunday 21st September When you drive from the Emirate of Dubai into the Emirate of Abu Dhabi there is a marked difference in what you see. Abu Dhabi is very green thanks to the last sheikh.The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan learning that 15,000 years ago the Arabian Peninsula was a very different place to that we see now with thick forests and very green but after it was exposed to a long spell of drought the forests died and were buried giving the oil that they have today-decided to retun the greenery to Abu Dhabi and tied to hold the encroaching desert back.The sands were drifting onto the farms and plantations - he developed extensive projects to level the dunes and sand hills and cover surface areas with mud. he set up green ... read more

I had done several months of research before actually heading for China in June 2006, but the thing that stood out was the share size and the distance involved in travelling around this country of 9.59 million square miles. My journey took me to the eastern more developed and richer part of the country. My plan was to use Hong Kong as a point of entry into China. Visas could be easily obtained from here. Then a flight to Beijing, a train to Xian followed by another train to Shanghai. And then on to Xiamen which would then put me in a good position to return to Hong Kong and back to Bahrain. Putting the Great Silk Road and Tibet on the itinerary would have made the distances too vast and the train journeys too long. ... read more

没想到我第一次看到企鹅竟是在寸草不生的阿拉伯的土地上。 连续三天的假期，从18号到20号，是回教徒的哈芝节。阿联酋这里的哈芝节比起开斋节还盛大，公务员一共获得5天的假期，即从18号到22号。由於公司在前3天才通知放假三天，所以仅能在阿联酋里打个圈走走。 Al Ain 简介 Al Ain是放假前一天才决定要去的。Al Ain在阿拉伯字里意为眼睛或泉水(the spring)。它位於阿联酋的最东部，与阿曼(Oman) 接壤，人口仅有约43万人，却是阿联酋第四大城市。从阿布达比到Al Ain的距离其实和到杜拜(Dubai)的距离差不多一样远，开车以时速120公里，只要一个小时多一点点就抵达了。与其说它是个城市，其实称它为一个小镇更为贴切。因为这里没有像杜拜的高楼大厦，也没有像阿布达比般的喧哗，只有很安逸的三四层小楼。 在进入市区之前，交通圈和路旁都种了花草树木，空气也比较新鲜，没有那么污染。Al Ain的历史久远，听说在四千年前就已经有人居住于此，以前被称为布拉米绿洲(Buraimi Oasis)。Buraimi是与其接壤的阿曼小镇。Al Ain重要的地位除了历史因素外，它也是阿联酋第一任统治者，Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan出生的地方。由於拥有地下泉水，它因此成为古人的落脚地，也成为今天阿联酋的文化重镇。 阿联酋的世外桃源 Jebel Hafeet 阿联酋是一个地广平原的国家，境内的山岭并不多，其中就在Al Ain里面。 我们于9点多才出发，来到Al Ain已经是接近11点了。第一个目标是到Jebel Hafeet。Jabel Hafeet据说是阿联酋最高的山，它位於Al Ain城镇郊外。从远处望去，Jebel Hafeet就像在平地上突然冒起的驼峰一样¬。 沿着路上褐色的指示牌，我们来到了山脚下。Jebel Hafeet的山路堪称世界最艰难建造的道路之一。它海拔接近4000英尺，有60个弯道。不过对於它的建造和知名度却远远不如其它的建筑物。 我们一路冲了上去，道路共有三条车道，两个上... read more