A cyclic month

Matt: Dubai is perfect, well at least when it comes to the weather at the moment. There has been a lot of negative press about Dubai of late - the World press once positioned Dubai as this utopian play ground of Expats and gold paved streets, it was with envious eyes that most viewed the place, where people could make fast money and live the high life. So it's easy for them to turn on Dubai when things go a little dour.

The reality is that most of us living here are hard working folks just like the rest of you. We enjoy the weather and benefit of the tax free living, but it's all relative, half the time we pay more for our every day items than in the UK, food, clothes, entertainment, rent (Ouch)...

Now the latest news, is Dubai World has defaulted on it's debt, ok so a few banks share prices plummet as do stocks of various Dubai based companies, Dubai World is not Dubai or a reflection of the entire UAE. We are all still working hard, saving hard, making the most of things. It's not like the country has ground to a halt and no one is spending money. We're still in the middle of a world wide recession, of course people tighten their belts and are more cautious until they are told other wise. But most of us remain unaffected and get on with it, people are still at war, people are still starving, people are still abused, people are still disabled, get over yourselves you may have lost a small percentage of your wealth, but a much larger percentage of the world is still without clean drinking water.

Steps down..

So onto less heated debates. The Cyclic month - I grew a beard, all round my face and then sculpted it into a ridiculous Mo for Movember. Kelly hated it but hey it's for a good cause, raising awareness and money for testicular cancer.

Next I swam around the Burj Al Arab, the iconic Dubai hotel in a 1km swim for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières). This may not seem much to you, but I'm a terrible swimmer and it was really hard work for me. Kelly swam it in an impressive 12:00 minutes, I was lagging somewhat at 15:30..

Next Lenny and myself decided to get the kayaks wet. At the start of November we took them for a nice paddle around the mangroves of Um Al Qwain. We planned out a route that took us in a cyclic route of about 20km and planned to camp on one of the islands just over half way. We were fully loaded, the front and back holds of the kayak rammed with camping gear and I even had a desk bag clipped to the rear of my kayak. To say we were sitting low in the water is an understatement.

The tide was extremely low and when we reach the base of the mangroves we had to portage the kayak a considerable way, through very muddy shallow water, with hugh blue crabs to avoid, frisky little bugger too. This lost us a good hour which meant we had to readdress our camping options as we were unlikely to make the appointed island before dark. So I scouted a few islands and found an ideal campsite. We collected wood, cooked over an open fire and bedded down under the stars. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep.

This past weekend we decided to circumnavigate the Palm Jumierah, which was great, hard work in the open sea but we took our time and completed the 19k route in under three hours. Pretty satisfying. Now we know what's in store we can push it a bit harder next time.




Kelly, Scott, Cath, Lenny and Milo 'n Budd (The dogs) also went camping this weekend, we picked a off-road desert spot well away from the usual camping and dune bashing areas of the UAE's deserts. It was really good. A little exploration in the dunes to find a suitable spot , setting up camp and then the boys went to explore and have fun off-roading - we did a big loop through the dunes, luckily I marked the campsite on the GPS as finding it again would have been extremely tricky - it was hard enough finding an accessible route even with the GPS.

Now Christmas is fast approaching.. and the Family arrive on the 21st - all 9 of them - eeeek! Can't wait really.

Asian Adventure

Well I've just installed a little widget on my Mac to make it easier to post so I'm testing it out.

I'm in Singapore, it's a great city, very clean, people are polite and it's well organised, basically what Dubai aspires to I imagine.

Cooling off

Matt: Finally the weather is starting to cool down a little, it's gonna be adventure time very soon. I may have neglected to mention that I bought myself a Kayak eventually, been thinking about it for ages, convinced Lenny to get one too - the boys and their toys. We've got some good use out of them so far with a few trips to Abu Dhabi, in the around Dubai and the Mangroves around Um al Qwain too.

We bought touring Kayaks, so that we can stow gear in the front and read compartment and head off on multi-day tours. Really looking forward to being able to plan a few trips now the weather is cooler.

We've haven't been completely idle since the weathers been hot, there have been Dive trips, Wakeboarding and as I said Kayaking. But now it's time to get back in shape and start hiking, camping, dune bashing, kayaking, climbing and anything else we can think of doing. Might even try a few runs (I hate running)..I'm sure Kelly will whip my ass into shape with the running thing, she's like a machine when it comes to running. Kick my ass every time.

I have also decided to start drawing and painting more - it's been so long since I've done anything and I never was much good to start with. I present exhibit A: This was done completely digitally in photoshop, from sketch to painting. I know it's not great, the eyes are all wrong and the dimension of the anatomy a bit off, but it's a start. I need serious practice. It was mostly a study for technique - ho hum.

Exhibit A

Ushering in the summer

Matt: Summer is officially upon us here in the UAE. What does this mean exactly? Nope.. not lazy days relaxing on the college lawn, picnics, walks by the river and the occasional camping trip. It's kinda like winter in the UK, without the darkness, you don't stay outside for any longer than you have to, if you do you end up soaked, you stop having BBQ's, the beach is out.. The temperature soars here during the summer between 40 and 50 degrees C, with extremely high humidity. It's strength sapping, sweat inducing, claustrophobic heat. But are we bitter, are we downhearted? No.. in fact most expats up and leave for the summer, so things get a little quiet round here.

I escaped for a brief period, went back to the UK for the wedding of the year! My great friends Lenny and Megg (John and Morwenna) got hitched in Devon on the 13th June. It was a really fantastic weekend affair. The ceremony was in a lovely old church, circa 15th century, the reception in Morwenna family home grounds - a beautiful country house set in sprawling grounds, mid Devon.



Awww aren't they cute..

My Ushering duties were duly performed (the suit fitted.. phew) and the day went without a hitch - well maybe one, but that was supposed to happen ;)

Sharking

Matt: Finally Kelly sent me one picture of me in a giant tank of sharks.. Exciting!



"HE'S COMING STRAIGHT FOR US!!" I'm the one that isn't backing off and carrying a big stick.

It's Play time

Matt: So during these tough economic times when you working really hard just to keep your job, I thought I'd provide you with a welcome distraction and challenge.

Shoot some bubble and post your highest score as a comment. So far on my second attempt I reached the lofty heights of 71690 and I didn't ever manage to clear the board - I'm sure you can do better. Good luck.

Getting things done

Matt: Most people who haven't been to Dubai or lived here for any length of time think that it's a wonderful place and life is easy and mostly they'd be right, I love living here and have a great life, but I have a gripe..

Why is it so had to get things done here?

A few examples.

I need to procure some business software.So I call one of the largest software companies in the world, I call their office here in Dubai. I ask for sales, I get asked by the receptionist what it is I am after, so I explain my requirements to her. I get transferred to another member of staff, I explain my requirement to him, he then proceeds to tell me that they are a software company and the don't want to buy my software. Huh??. What?? So I re-explain that I want to discuss with someone my software REQUIREMENTS and see if they have a solution to sell to me. (now please bare in mind this could be worth tens of thousands of dollars to them). So he finally understand and says he will transfer me to his colleague. I hear fumbling on the line, then silence, then a little more fumbling, then 'Please hold sir' more fumbling and a little mumbling, waiting, 'bare with me sir'..wait, fumble, mumble. The guy clearly has no idea how to transfer a call and eventually after 5 minutes of fumbling noises he calls his sales guy over to his phone and hands it to him. Technical!. Ok so sales guy is on the line. Good. This should go a little smoother.

I have a brief discussion and then request a meeting
'I'd like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss my requirements. Please could you come to meet me?'
Sales guy 'I can do tomorrow'
'Great, can you meet me at 10am at xxxxx' I'm feeling confident we're getting somewhere
'Oh, can you come to my office (miles from me) to meet here'
'I'm afraid I don't have time to come all that way' hence i suggest a half-way point.
'Can you come to me another day then?'
'I'm very busy and it would be great if you came to meet me, I'm not at your end of town very often'
'Well, I'm out of town for the rest of the week after tomorrow'
'Ok, is there someone else who I could meet with?'
'No, this is my area'

so no meeting then...good sales, well done.

Next: Last Wednesday, I see a kayak in a shop that I really like and make an inquiry (I've been meaning to buy one for a while). Turns out the Kayak I would need is the slightly bigger version that they have on the promotional sheet pinned to this Kayak. So I ask if they have any in stock, how much it is and how long it will take to deliver. The friendly sales guy takes my name and number and says he'll let me know. So the next day I'm in the vicinity of the store and I haven't heard from him yet. So I wonder in and ask another member of staff, he tries to help but doesn't know and calls the guy I spoke to the day before on the phone, I realise it's the same guy so I ask to speak to him. He tells me that the supplier doesn't know but he'll chase it and let me know. Next day, I'm there with Lenny as Lenny is interested in a kayak too - so this is now 2 potential sales of kayaks that are worth over £1,000. I original guy is there and I speak to him.. do you have a price yet? No! but the delivery could be 6 weeks. Gulp! What? I am seeing the supplier on Monday Sir so I will speak to him then. Ok.. so it's now Tuesday - almost a week after my initial inquiry? I get a call telling me - Sir we still don't know the price - we might know in 2 days.

OMG - how hard is it to give someone money in this town?

So, if you multiply these experiences by a handful per day, you start to get an idea of how efficient Dubai can be. Frustrating, so you see - it's the rough with the smooth - Dubai - Nice weather, shame about the competency!

Words that need to be learned in Dubai: Ownership, efficiency, professionalism, responsibility, reliability.

Rant over..Peace out!

It's getting too hot

Matt: May is upon us and here in Dubai, that means things start to really heat up. We've already had a number of days up over 40 degrees. Scorchio!

This obviously hinders the outdoor activities somewhat, but we have managed 2 hikes in the last few weeks. Karen, Scott, Lenny and I went on a 5 hour hike up to a village called Shi'ri. It's a nice hike but it was really exhausting, the heat was a killer, it was definitely one of the 40+ days.

We met some locals at the top who shared their shelter and food with us. I had bumped into one of the guys, Souad, before at another village in the mountains, I use the term villages as this is what they used to be, people would live there hundreds of years ago. Now they are used as getaways, a scattering of crudely built rock shacks with a few modern twists, like generators in some cases :), only a few families build and use these shacks, they head up to chill and relax for the weekend in the cooler months.



When you meet the mountain locals, they are generally extremely friendly and very hospitable. It's really refreshing and a side of life in the UAE very few expats experience.

After struggling with the Shi'ri village hike, Jon and I decided to do the last hike of the season to some pools that we discovered when we did Jebel Hatta back in Feb. We estimated the pools were 2 hours into the hike, making for a 4-5 hour round trip. Perfect as it was another really hot one. I had been under the weather during the week and didn't feel anywhere close to 100%, this made hiking in the heat even more unbearable so when we did find the pools and find them full of water it was a joy. Although we did see snakes in the wadi and smaller pools - so were a little aprehensive, but not enough to stop us!


Matt takes the plunge..



Lenny enjoys the refreshing water, after a bomb!



Last week I also had the chance to go scuba diving - with a difference. Kelly was asked to write a story and took me along as photographer. So what was the difference? We were diving in the worlds largest aquarium, with 33 sharks and numerous other thousands of sea-life, rays, groupers and more than 80 other species. It was an amazing experience, there was no cage, just a wetsuit for protection and we had this in the back of our minds Click Here. It was very surreal, having dived so many times in open water and seen a few sharks and large fish at a distance, to have hundreds of them brushing past you was a scary and thrilling experience. I'm trying to get the photos and as soon as I do - I'll post them.

Other news, made it to the top of Dubai's newest climbing wall - result. Still lots of harder routes to conquer! That's all for now..

Peace out.

Racing through the year

Matt: Has it really come down to 1 post a month? That is bad.. I'm sorry! I figured you're all getting pretty bored with the same old stuff really, Oh look Matt is out in the Mountains again, oh look - Scuba diving.. etc.

So instead of telling you what I get up to at the weekend, I thought I'd tell you how an average week goes. This came about because a friend of mine asked me about training and keeping fit.

We all have a job to do, well most of us. So when and how do you fit in exercise or activity to keep the weight off and the body in shape?

I work pretty much 8:30am till 5:00pm and I try most days to do something active in the evening as I'm sat on my ass most of the day. Last week:

Sunday: 1hour Yoga session
Monday: Cycled 22k (outdoors) and went Climbing
Tuesday: 6k run (outdoors) with circuits in the middle
Wednesday: 20k cycle (outdoors) and session in the gym
Thursday: Cycled to the gym for a medium weights session
Friday: (my weekend) 5hour hike in 40degree heat - oh my!! That was hard.
Saturday: (my weekend) rest day

Unless I'm doing an activity with a friend I like to get my exercise done and out of the way so I still feel like I have an evening to relax or socialise. So I'm generally done by 6:30 - 7:00pm. It's pretty important to keep variety in your exercise regime. Think of this like an experiment, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you can't expect different results.

Motivation comes when you start to see or feel results and when you start to enjoy your activities. For me, climbing doesn't feel like exercise because it's fun. Try joining a sports team - when there is a focus other than just exercising you tend to forget it's exercise. Find a sport that interests you and needs a general fitness level to partake.. No Dewboy! not Darts. Ultimate, Basket Ball, Netball, Football, Tennis, Hockey, team sports push you and you have to apply a certain level of commitment to them, for the teams sake. You could see this as motivation!?!?! :).

A really important part of your health and fitness is your diet. When I say diet, I don't mean a programme to loose weight. I mean just your general eating habits. We all know what is good and bad for us, it does take a scientist or some new fangled fad diet to tell us. Eat more fruit, veg and lean meat and stay off the bread and pasta. Drink plenty of water. If it's natural and hasn't been tampered with by man, as a general rule, it's good for you.

Well that'll do for now :) good luck.

What an eventful Month

Matt: March seems to have been a pretty eventful month here in Dubai. I've been hiking 4 times since my last update with most of the hikes taking out newbie hikers, which is great. I love showing people the territory and mountains.

We conquered Jebel Hatta too, a 10 hour hike, climbing to 1600 metres. It was a tough slog and dark by the time we made it back to the cars to camp in the wadi. Where I was bitten to excess by mosquitoes and acquired a slow puncture on the car, which decided to blowout on the way home at 120kph.. All safe though.

March also saw a visit to new mountains, well new to me, I'm sure they've actually been there a while. Kelly and I took a trip to Lebanob and went Snowboarding in Mzaar. It was awesome.

Check the photos Album 1 Album 2

It snowed really heavily for the first two days, as you'll see from the pics. The sides of the roads were 6-8 feet deep with snow. We had lots of fun.

Miss Rankin Harper also turned 30 last week - so we celebrated in style with an 80's theme Fancy Dress party. Constructing the Proton Packs was an all nighter but worth it :)

A to Bih, and back again..

Matt:
The 17th annual Wadi Bih relay was a great success. With over 100 teams registered, the beach the evening before, was packed with campers.

Lenny and I pitched up amongst the revelers, opting to use the cars as a windbreak, it was extremely blowy and getting worse. We cooked some dinner, a pasta treat for the carbs and got a reasonable night - it was gonna be an early start.

Kelly, Lucy and Scott, opted to stay in Dubai and get up at some unearthly hour to drive to Dibba - there plan was to leave at 4:30am...OMG!

Sleep wasn't gonna be easy, the wind was blustering my small tent to the extreme. Lenny chose to sleep in the Prado, protected from the wind but a little cramped. We woke at around 6:15am and made breakfast and awaited the arrival on the rest of our Team.

By 8 we had the Prado (Thanks Megg) fully loaded with water, snacks and supplies, all ready and raring to leave the Golden Tulip Hotel and run the 76km relay race up into the Hajar mountains. The route followed tarmac roads for about 5km at which point the terrain changes to hard packed dirt, gravel and sand tracks. Steadily climbing over the 36km first half to an altitude of 1,200 metres.

Having run the relay the year before, I was the only one who really knew what to expect. But we were all keen and out to enjoy the day and that's exactly what we did.

A runner would chose a segment, anywhere between 2 and 5 km of hell and then run to the next check point, where hopefully the car with the rest of the team waited, for a touch and a handover..

There were about 26 segments of varying length and steepness. The course was a 'there and back again' run. We swooped at the top and the race ran back down the mountain.

There were lots of runners and teams so it was a really good atmosphere with everyone out to achieve something on a personal or professional level. Only downside was the cars driving past you, while it was great that many would shout encouragement , ALL would kick up a cloud of dust that you'd breath in in your exhausted state. I think we all ended the days wheezing and coughing.

We made a great time of 6 hours for the entire run. Really pleased, lets see if we can beat it next year.

In search of Adventure

Matt: Not unusual for me, I decided to go for a hike in the Hajjar Mountains of RAK this past weekend. Of course my trusty hiking buddy Lenny came along too. This was an adventure for us, because with our new found mountain companion, Karen, we'd mapped a vague route that has not been documented and that we'd certainly not tried before, using Google Earth.

We set out a few ways points around Jebel Sal on Google Earth, logged them on the GPS and printed of a screen shot of the area, then, with packs fully loaded we went exploring, to try to find a route up to a plateau, then loop back around to the wadi bed and along the track to our start point.

We met Karen at 8am in Wadi Bih, so that equaled an early start from Dubai - up at 6am, I seemd to get up earlier at the weekend than I do during the week, odd. We were on the rocks by 9am. Looking up at the route we planned to tackle from ground level, the ascent looked pretty straight forward. It proved to be hard going. It was a pretty steep ascent, from the moment we left the wadi bed we were climbing steeply towards the summit on very rugged terrain. We followed the ridge line that we'd seen on Google Earth which was all pretty safe. Walking along a mountain ridge provides you with great views on either side, you really do feel on top of the world, if not a little exposed.


A third of the way up.

It was hot, really hot for this time of year, nearing 30 degrees and the climb was providing no shade form the sun, after the first 90 minutes or so of climbing, we were looking toward the summit and a 200-300 metre rock wall that was between us and the goal, it started to look pretty impassable without ropes and safety equipment. We pressed towards this face, hoping to afford ourselves a better view. The terrain in this region can be exceedingly deceptive, what might look like a sheer cliff from a distance can sometimes be a reasonably safe clamber and what looks easy can prove impossible.


This shows the route we took to the summit

We closed on the wall and could gradually see ways of progressing, so we pushed on, loosely following a ridge and generally passing within 20-30 metres of our speculative way points. It was a great feeling to finally reach the plateau, a vaguely flat expanse opened up before us, with inspiring views all around, we breathed a sigh of relief and head towards way point 4, which was close an old mountain settlement. The village (Sal) was a lot bigger than any we'd seen before, nestled in a shallow dip between large peaks, just before a drop-off down a sheer cliff to the main wadi bed. A perfect spot for lunch before we hunted for the route down.


Sal Village

We'd heard from John Gregory, a long time resident and hiker of the UAE, that there was a path to descend from this village, but you have to understand that a path in these mountains is rarely a discernible entity, the odd shoe scuff, a lightly warn boulder from passage, the occasional small cairn/pile of rocks amid the natural piles of rock, is generally all you have to go on and with dust and rain storms to disturb these it's not like following a track.

We could discern no obvious route from our position, we explored a little but no avenues revealed what we sort and this extremely steep descent wasn't something we could tackle lightly. We'd mentally plotted a path and began our clamber down, constantly checking and reassessing our route options.


The descent, before we found the path

After an about 30-45 minutes of slow climbing we noticed a couple of local villagers crest the ridge above us on the opposit side of the gully and begin to descend our way. It was clear they were on the 'path' and the we...were not. Fortunately ours paths were to merge at which point we began to see those signed we had missed before, the mini rock cairns - these are difficult to see sometime when you're on the right path, when you're 50 metres or more off track, you really have no chance. So we were thankful to be on route and stomped on steadily to the end on the hike.


A friendly native lizard basking in the sun.

We successfully returned to the cars after about 4.5 hours of hiking and had discovered ourselves a new hike.

It's always exciting to explore new areas and discover new locations, you get a real sense of freedom and pride knowing that so few may have been there before you. But you do have to plan well and be prepared, a knowledge of the area, terrain patterns and geography helps too. Certainly not recommended for inexperienced hikers or the unfit.

26 days of 2009

Matt: Can you believe that 26 days of 2009 have been and gone already? Where does time go, it's like life gains momentum as you get older. Remember as a child, waiting a week for something was like waiting forever yet now a week seems to go in the blink of an eye.

OH SO what's Occurring? Well the new year has bought much already. My very good friend Annalisa was proposed to on New Years eve, by a good guy, another Matt in fact. I'm really pleased for them both. Annalisa has been a special friend for a while now and it's means a lot to me that she has found happiness that she deserves. Well done guys, I'm stoked and I'll be there on the happy day.

It's been a busy month with work and socially. We have launched our Brand Assett tool, BrandNexus - this went live with DP World. It's a great tool and is being well received. We need to finalise a few sections and then start selling the product to the market. So many companies could benefit from this tool. We'll have a marketing website available soon and I'll provide the link so you can all have a little looksee.

News years day saw us heading out of Dubai into Oman and to Wadi Ray camping. Kelly and I, Rhonda and Cam - It was an entertaining trip, with new useful camping tools-a-plenty. We did a little exploring too, climbing the highest peaks in the area.

My friend Leanne came out to visit Dubai and I think it did her the world of good. We had a very busy week, shopping, socialising, sunning and basically living it up a little. It's funny when you've been in a bit of a rut for a while, you tend to accept this as the norm, Dubai opened helped Leanna see there is lots more to the world and you don't have to accept what's in front of you - with a little effort and courage - you can change those things you don't like or enjoy in life. Hope to see you out this way again sometime soon Misses.. Book up those lessons too and keep focused x

We also decide to take a trip this past weekend, most entertaining. Never before have I camped in such a ferocious storm. Yes, you heard right, a storm. The heavens opened and didn't relent most of the night. High winds, thunder, lightning, I woke to a clap of thunder at one point to find the tent at a very obscure angle, i was virtually sucking canvas. The Kelly woke up beside me a little dazed and very scared. I have to admit now that i could easily envision the us being blown down the beach tent and all. I ended up tethering the tent to the Pajero. Come dawn, you'd never have known there was even a light shower. Just on top of the mountain next to us, things were a little worse. Click Here

Peace out..