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[RC] Dubai II - Steve Shaw

To understand the race over there you have to understand some things about the country. Here is what everyone coming over got to deal with!
Getting off the plane at 11:45 PM after 20 hours in the air is just the start. At the curbside at that time of night there are about 100 people standing with signs for the different shuttles and hotels. You never know what you are getting into or where. Every thing you ask is followed with a "No Problem." I was one of the lucky ones as I found someone with a sign for the Golden Tulip Hotel even though I was not on his list and my flight was an hour late. But I was not about to let him get away. I made it to the hotel by 1:30 AM. That was much better than Fred who got into the airport before me but to the hotel at 3:30 AM!
Everyone lives and dies by the cell phone over there. You are nobody if you don't have one and especially if you are talking on one. You have to get a international phone and special chip to use one or buy or rent one. You pay $10 a day for the phone and buy a card that gives you minutes. Then you have to accumulate everyone else's numbers to be functional. Having a list of numbers or being able to program someone's phone for them made you a VIP or invited to numerous extra functions!
On the highways they have video cameras that take your picture if you are exceeding the speed limit and it gets sent to the owner of the car even if it is a rental. Thus all cars in the country have a beeper on the car that goes off if you exceed 120 KPH. You get to hear this every time you drive anywhere. I haven't gotten my bill yet for the number of times I saw the flash of the roadside camera go off while driving. Over there they don't have stop signs, they have round abouts. This is good if you are lost as you can stay in the circle just going around till you figure out which opening to take. My record is 5 times around one circle. I bought a new map, but they only have half the roads listed on them cause they are building so fast. In addition, the maps don't have the road names or numbers on them for some reason. Also the new roads don't have road signs on them, they just go off into the desert. These are all three lane (in both directions) freeways. Wow! But you don't know where you are going. Everyone seems to drive at 160 KPH??
Everyone explains directions over there two ways, always precipitated by "Its easy, you can't get lost." First is the driving time followed by a number. The number represents how many times you will get lost trying to get there. Thus, to get to Fujarah from Al Jazeer it is 2.5 hours and 4. Meaning you will get lost 4 times trying to get there. There are camels all over the place and if you hit one ( how could you? they don't jump out like deer?") you have to pay for it. There was one that was dead by the side of the road to the race site that sat there for a week and got really rank. We never saw the wreck of the car or truck that hit it, but you can imagine.
Almost all of the roads have speed bumps that they call Humps over there (maybe because of the camels?) Sometimes they seem to be two feet high. NEVER buy a used car from Dubai.
Everyone bargains for things over there (except the gas stations, $3.50 per gallon?) Every bill you get for car rental or hotel charges has to be looked at VERY carefully. I would have paid an extra $200 if I had not questioned and removed stupid charges from bills. They try everything unimaginable. At the open markets you get to go down the aisles twice. Once to access the prices and the second time to bargain. Just looking at you, as a tourist, they triple the price. So you offer a third off and think you are getting a deal. Yeah, they are still getting double of what a local would pay. But it IS fun. Doc Beecher is the expert at it.
So, to sum it up, there aren't the same rules over there as what we are used to.
When I finally figured it all out, after two weeks, I got to leave for home the next day.
Steve Shaw





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