Shrinking UAE
 

Weather was decent today, decided to go for a long-overdue drive to Hatta pools. We took the passports, just in case, as last time we were stopped on the road after the village. This time, there was a big border post set up, letting no one but locals through. So it got me thinking about what's been lost as an escape since I first arrived nearly 20 years ago:
1. Hatta pools
2. Jebel Ali beach (cracking spot for camping once, now just Waterfront graveyard)
3. Dibba beach (also for camping, but now not possible to access without hotel booking)
4. Can't remember now....

What else?

Apologies for the grumpy post :(

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

I think the Wadi Bih road is no longer open? Used to be a great drive.

Jebel Ali Beach along by the marine reserve was our go to camping place - amazing times there...

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

The Hatta Pools were closed off to non locals two years ago. Has to do with border crossing through small pockets that technically belong to Oman. Used to able to drive straight through these pockets but now they all have individual border crossings :unsure: Never quite figured out why.

Wadi Bih was closed off maybe four years ago? Apparently the locals in Dibba (Omani) didn't like the hordes of expats going up the wadi and camping and boozing. Bit of a shame. Had great camping trips up there.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Makes me want to have a look at the new UAE Offroad Explorer, must be getting thinner by the year!
Those little wadis near Ray and Shuwayhah in Hatta were stunning places to explore with kids and even camp.
We took the new Maliha Rd to Hatta, around the Oman enclave. If you haven't taken it, you should. The view of Fossil Rock and the saddle is stunning from that side.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

The Maliha road is the one that goes all the way Kalba, south of Fujeirah?

It's a very nice drive because the landscape changes substantially several times. Dry scrublands outside Sharjah to the rolling deserts around Fossil Rock, Fossil Rock, then the mountains itself and there's pretty villages up in the mountains, then a tunnel and you come out to Kalba on the other side.

Kalba is a world away from the UAE. And Fujeirah feels like someone designed it on Sim City circa 1995. Then we go through Khorfakkhan, which has a lovely cove and would be a great site for hotels and weekend destinations if only it wasn't dry, then hit Dibba for Sandy Beach for lunch and a few hours snorkelling around Snoopy Island. Then a long drive back to Dubai.

Great day out. I did it maybe twice a year.

Back in 2008-2010 we camped out around Ray a number of times and walked randomly across the landscape. The mountains were nifty, had a lovely purple sheen to them. I remember picking up random bits of rock and being able to crumble it in my fingers. I had mates that narrowly avoided a flash flood near Ray on a camping trip once. In the hamlets in the area you'd see local women still wearing that gold half-mask that used to be the standard Emirati/Omani dress appendage.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

What's been lost? Cyclone, Rattlesnake, Waxy's, The Bunker, Chicago Beach.....

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Kalba is still quite a different place - though that said a lot of small towns in that area are... I quite like it when there! There are some mangroves there but hard to get close.

Sandy Beach is still a go to - at least once a year for a night or two.

Been hearing the border post otherside of Dibba - as if you were heading towards RAK going via Wadi Bih and Ziggy Bay has been stopping and searching vehicles for alcohol. And arresting people on the spot. Just a heads up....

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

The real reason is because of local politics. Oman is very quietly unstable due to the health of the Sultan and lack of heir. Additionally the Arab spring allowed a bunch of UAE disruptors to come in and the rioters were found to be UAE Police....!
The North has always been a sensitive point, and porous borders are not comfortable for National security.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Arrested by Omanis or UAE on the return? ANy more info?

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I'm over on the East Coast all the time on my tunnel site. Going tomorrow in fact. Watch your speed on the Kalba road as they are doing roadworks along that section and have changed the trigger speed of the cameras and in some cases haven't changed them back in the now 120kmph sections.

Love getting out of Dubai. The change is topography helps to remind you that you are not stuck in a bubble.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Has to be UAE as all the checkpoints are installed by UAE not Oman. Oman checkpoints are much deeper into Oman. The hardening of the border is very unpopular with the large number of extended local families who straddle the border, especially those marooned on the Oman side (and on Omani wages rather than AD wages). The crossings are increasingly congested, especially those for locals only. My bf used to walk to school in Al Ain from Buraimi in 10 minutes (barefoot on hot sand he claims!). Same journey now requires 45 mins in a car to circumnavigate the "apartheid fence" (like the one in the West Bank) and queue at "Ma'bar Raffah" (nicknamed after the crossing from Egypt to Gaza).

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Thanks! Very informative.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Comes out of nowhere too, it's amazing.

We did the Hatta pools years ago and whilst it was cool, the surrounding area was covered in rubbish and broken glass bottles. Such a shame.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

because people are happy to leave their crap everywhere.
I'm no rubbish nazi but KSA is the only country I've been to where I've considered getting a litter picker and putting some black bags in the boot.

Went to a wadi just outside Riyadh, lovely spot, clear flowing water, a big pond, fish swimming, date trees all around. Crap everywhere.

Mrs and her friend clear up some of the shite around us to make it a bit better. Five minutes later two guys come along with their Kabsa, finish it, put all the rubbish into the one plastic bag it came in and....

Throw the whole lot in the pond.

We just looked at each other.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

It baffles me. It's not hard to take a bag for rubbish, you've got a big car and rubbish weighs nothing so it's not hard to carry.

Just sheer laziness and arrogance that someone else should clean up after you.

Helmets, the lot of them.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

We all know who the main culprits are and its not the Westerners. My old man would have skelped my arse if I ever dropped any litter while in the mountains as a kid and we often came back with pockets stuffed full of wrappers and cans. Everytime we go camping here we end up bringing back a bit more than we took. It's such a shame. I've spoken to a few of the more westernised locals I know and they can't understand why the locals act as they do. I was doing a walkover (drive over) in the mountains the other week and you come across really nice villas surrounded by all kinds of crap they have literally thrown out of the front door. Its so strange.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

A lot of them just don't see it. It's not the notion that someone will come along and clean it up, but they just don't see the rubbish or why it's rubbish.

I see this in Asia. There are islands in Indonesia that would be gorgeous if they weren't otherwise filled with rubbish. Villagers dump rubbish into lots right next to their houses! They just don't care. For some reason their brains don't register that plastic scraps all over the place is ugly and a mess and that if the village got together for a few hours they'd clean up most of the place easily.

Likewise, I remember on my last Kenya safari we drove from one conservancy to another, crossing through a bit of the countryside occupied by a local village. The conservancies were pristine. The village lands were filled with rubbish. Plastic bags all over the place, plastic scrap all over the place, cans tossed here and there. Entire fields dotted with plastic rubbish.

It is weird.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

I've been to lots of Africa and most Asian countries but the filthiest place I have ever been, which almost made me weep with horror (and really, I'm not the weeping type) was Tunisia. Distributed across the tops of the piles of rubbish in the ruined castle, which forms a kind of park in one famous mountain village, were the stomachs and entrails of the sheep slaughtered for Eid al Adha. All stewing beautifully in the late Autumn sun. Roads and streets routinely had multiple mini-tornados of rubbish. Still an amazing country - but why do people destroy their own beautiful backyards like that?

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Attitude towards garbage is the litmus test of a first world vs third world mindset

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Depressing to see. I remember seeing piles of rubbish on some of the St Lucian beaches (away from the tourist resorts and in the residential areas of Soufriere)

Same when I went to Bali and visited the town of Kintimani next to Mount Batur. Piles of rotting 'tributes' given to their Hindu Gods, stray dogs and faeces everywhere, didn't stick around for too long that's for sure!

I've always told the missus that when I'm old, I'll probably be the one picking rubbish off the beach with a black bin bag to pass the time!

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

Libya was also like this.
I can remember the time Ghadafi was making a visit to a certain area and instead of removing the vast mountains of rubbish, they just built a wall so he couldn't see it.

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That was my old man when he lived in Asia a few years ago. He would walk the beach daily collecting rubbish and getting some exercise. He also arranged for old oil drum bins to be placed around the town and at the tuk tuk stops and would b0llock any of the locals he saw dropping litter. After a while they got the idea and started to get involved. I haven't been there in a few years but it would be interesting to see if the mindset has remained.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

One other bit of lost UAE that I still think of, right in the heart of new Dubai, is what used to be the lovely wild stretch of beach past the JBR buildings between the Hilton and Sheraton beach hotels. As recently as 2009 that was a nicely unkempt stretch of beach backed up with grassy dunes quite unlike any other stretch of seafront in the city. Both hotels were there but there was nothing else in between along the seafront except a dusty track.

Re: Shrinking UAE
 

4x4 beach too. Used to be so easy and pleasant to have a morning on an empty beach.