Trip to Khor Fakkan

Now that I am back in civilization, I can post a bit about my trip to Khor Fakkan. I'll try to give it a little more detail than a complaint about the taxi service.

Sunday the 8th, I said goodbye to Tim Fincher at breakfast, checked out of the Le Meridean Fairview hotel and caught a cab to the Diera Taxi Stand. The place is more of a bus station than a taxi stand, so I don't get the name, but anyway, I arrived just as the last call for the Fujeirah bus was sounding so I waited a half hour and caught the next bus. There was a little discussion between the bus operators and I concerning my three huge bags. It was determined that if the bus filled, I would have to buy two tickets (Dh25 each). If the bus was not full, one ticket would be fine. So, after wedging my bags into the back seat of the bus, I milled around the station, watching TV, drinking Pepsi, snapping a few photos before the time came and the bus pulled away towards Sharjah and then the freeway.

The drive out was quite interesting. After we left the city, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. First of all, the driver drove the thing like it was a sports car. Secondly, as the city gave way to the desert I realized that I was headed into something more different than anything I had experienced up until that point. Cities are cities, but the bizaar terrain of the desert, the Islamic hick town nature of the villages, and my brooding over the fact that I was leaving English in Dubai, gave the journey an alien mood. I arrived in Fujeriah and quickly negotiated a fare with a crusty Pakistani (ALL of the cab drivers out there are Pakistani!) man in his beat up early nineties toyota. [It's funny, they all have those funny carpet covers on their dashboards.. Who uses those things?? ; ) ] We drove most of the way along the coast and I was astonished at how many ships lay perched along the horizon. I counted 48 at one point. I couldn't tell which ones were oil tankers and which ones were empty container ships, but I'm sure there were both. We passed by an oil terminal, where the oil tankers pull up to load oil. This one was rather small and I would guess it wasn't used for intercontinental shipments.

So, following the directions I had secured over the phone, we pulled up to a little gate along the road, and I unpacked my bags. The hostelkeeper's name is Rudy. He's a philipino (I never asked him how he arrived in a place like that!) and he kept a very neat house. The rent was Dh45 per night (which is about $12.) I booked two nights, dropped off my bags and walked across the street to a local cafeteria called "Hi Broast Restaurant". I was nervous until they served the food. WOW! The chicken was great. They also had awesome flatbread, salad, hummus, and some tasty fried desert bread, which was my favorite. My first day in in hick town arabia ended with a trip down to the beach and an early retirement to work off (or prolong) my jet lag.