Why Bike Touring in Dubai in July is a terrible idea!
We're approaching Dubai downt own and the next heat stroke. We are in Shahid Bahonar port in Bandar Abbas, Iran and shortly we'll take the ferry to Sharjah. Make it happen is the official slogan of the United Arab Emirates...
How do we get the bikes into the ship? Well, let's see about that! With this ship it takes about 10 hours to cross the Persian Gulf at the straight of Hormuz from Bandar Abbas, Iran's busiest port city to Sharjah, the Emirate directly north of Dubai. We actually hoped to get to Central Asia - The -stans- and the iconic Pamir Highway without flying. However when we had reached Iran nearly 3 months earlier Turkmenistan's borders were completely shut. Continuing through Afghanistan would require shaking hands with the Taliban several times a day... So reluctantly we bought plane tickets from Abu Dhabi in the Emirates to Samarkand in Uzbekistan.
In the meantime it has become possible to enter Turkmenistan on an expensive tourist visa on the condition that you pay for an official babysitter all the way through. But we had our tickets already. We are already a couple of hours on the ferry and slept most of the time. Just now woke up to the lunch. Some Iranian Coke, yogurt, a hot meal which basically contains rice and under the rice chicken kebab.
...with one tomato. Wow, I'm so sleepy. Fortunately the sea was very calm and I didn't get seasick for a change. As we are closing in on the port of Sharjah, the first officer gives us a little tour of the ship. The engine of this ship is actually a German water suction jet, 25 years old made by a German company called MTU. I heard the name before. It is powering this ship up to 30 km per hour or 16 knots.
I think the Iranians decided to steal our hearts till the last moment. A passenger ship is like an aeroplane. We call it the cockpit. Very nice. I’m for the first time in the cockpit of a ship. This measures the depth of the water...
There is one rudder per engine. Didn't know that... We are allowed to observe the entire docking manoeuvre. The dock workers seem to be migrants from South Asia. Actually only about 12% of the population are Emiratis,
with Indians and Pakistanis being the two by far largest migrant groups out of 200 nationalities. We are in the United Arab Emirates. Now the buses have arrived that will take the passengers to the terminal. Not us though. We have to sweat outside and ride our bicycles ourselves of course.
There are two buses: one for women and another one for men. Although we are sweaty and downright scruffy, we are treated with the utmost respect and particular courtesy throughout the entire immigration process. At the same time, we observe our fellow Iranian travellers, even elderly people and children, getting screamed at with a raised baton. Welcome to the Emirates. Now for real! We are in!
…in sweating mode, or? We have to do a 21km ride to get to the centre of Dubai, where we will figure out where we will stay, because staying outside is not an option since my last heatstroke. Let’s first get to Dubai. These days the low temperature at night in Dubai is 35°C with very high humidity. As we had learned the hard way the week before this is very dangerous. Fortunately, unlike in Iran, women here are not legally required to wear a headscarf.
We are looking for an ATM, which seems to be more difficult than expected to be honest. We need to eat something. We’ll probably not try to go to the Burj Khalifa today, because look at me… I am sweating like hell. I need a break. So we’ll take a hotel room, which is quite expensive in Dubai, but what can we do?! Tell also about the drivers. Yeah the drivers have been very rude. They don’t want to share the road with bicycles. So far not the greatest impression to be fair.
There has been a lot of honking and reckless overtaking, despite plenty of empty lanes. The lack of cycling infrastructure is probably not helping. Only the poorest of people seem to use bicycles for commuting and we wonder if there is a connection. I don’t know why but apparently there are not enough ATMs in Dubai, so there is a big queue in front of each one of them. By the way behind us is the modern version of the traditional old town. It’s completely rebuilt. The new old town of Dubai.
I’m getting crazy. Let’s get to the hotel, please. It's the absolute off-season. Hotels are not booked at all, this is why we got this room for about 45€ with breakfast. We slept very well. Very comfortable beds and air conditioning. We are well rested and ready to go out. I don’t know if I’m ready to go out, but yeah we want to explore the city a little bit and move towards Abu Dhabi, because it’s extremely hot and humid.. Even hotter than in Iran, 47°C is the forecast.
So step by step we want to get to Abu Dhabi where we will take our plane. Let’s see how far we can get today. We are approaching Dubai downtown and the next heatstroke. I already feel exhausted. I don’t think I can cycle at all.
This is completely mad. It is 45°C 80% humidity. Our bodies are rebelling. We feel dizzy. We need to get to AC immediately. It’s crazy. Straight? Yes, straight! Stay on this road. Burj Khalifa, dear. Just stay on the lane.
I’m going! No, no, no! Arev is panicking. Her heart doesn’t feel good. We need to get into the mall. It’s really stressful for the body. I almost passed out. While I was recovering in the lobby of the mall it took the security guards nearly 30 minutes to find a place where Mathias was allowed to park our bicycles.
We are inside the Dubai Mall. A little sweaty, actually completely soaked. We are looking for a restroom so we can change into a dry shirt. I’m feeling better already. That was really last minute. I thought I would faint. Not thought, I would faint if I didn't enter the mall quickly. Now we’ll check this place out. I wouldn’t actually think that I would come to the Dubai mall, but, you see, we do everything to survive.
Oh, and this is the waterfall… Can we please first change? Thanks! Horrible! Horrible idea to be in Dubai at this time of the year! Horrible! End stage capitalism. You can pay…how much is 299AED…75$ 75€, go inside and have fun with the fishes. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against capitalism per se. But we have to factor in the negative effects of our activities. While 75€ is a lot of money for us, it is actually by far not expensive enough! Our planet is warming at an insane pace thanks to us humans.
How long until an aquarium in a shopping mall might be the last place to see these magnificent creatures? With a staggering 22.3 tons of CO2 equivalent the UAE has one of the highest carbon footprints per capita in the world. While this madness is topped by Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, it still is pretty much as unsustainable as it gets. We are not in the Dubai Mall anymore, because we met Karl. He is a very busy Couchsurfing host from Dubai. Unfortunately he cannot host us today, but he still took the time to meet us and show us around. We just had a nice lunch and now we are in an Indian restaurant, having some special tea and coffee. And this is Masala Milk. You have different types of almonds and dates. And this is normal tea.
Normal Indian tea. As we already recognised on our arrival in Sharjah in the local society the few Emiratis stand at the very top. Below is the even smaller group of the so-called Expats, predominantly white westerners. They either have well paid jobs,
or come to enjoy the 0% income tax, which might make it easier to enjoy life in an absolute monarchy. As Karl points out, there is literally no theft, robbery or assault, making the UAE one of the safest countries in the world. However, at the bottom there is the massive group of overwhelmingly poor work migrants, that make up about 80% of the population. It’s 9 pm, should be cool enough or let’s say it’s not getting any cooler than this.
It’s time for the next 26 kms to Dubai Marina, where we booked an apartment. It’s 40€ per night. This city is not bicycle friendly. Not even in winter, much less right now. Actually it’s absolutely terrifying, the drivers are hostile. They are driving very fast. It’s terrible. Left or right? Right! We are in the Dubai Marina. All around us are skyscrapers.
Which does not make a lot of sense, because we are in the desert, so it’s not that there is not enough space. Is Dubai not about the biggest, the most, the superlatives? It is difficult for me to comprehend that all that oil money went to create this dystopian nightmare. Here, the biggest ferris wheel of the world. Surprise, it’s not working because it’s too big. I’m thinking why did we not pay 600$ more for the Tourist visa of Turkmenistan.
We could have saved this experience. On the other hand it is an experience. It’s very intense, especially after Iran. Seeing this contrast is absolutely mad in every imaginable way.
This is 180° the opposite of what we experienced in Iran… It is the morning of the 20th of July. Today we are going to take the bus from Battuta bus station to Abu Dhabi city centre. Say goodbye! Why?! My beloved Turkish pants. Now they are completely done. The cloth is so thin now that it just continues ripping… Sad day! Au revoir! Adios! Even at night cycling 20 kms brought us near physical collapse, so it is unfortunately impossible for us to cycle to Abu Dhabi. It's absolutely crazy! There is nothing for bicycles in this city. The sun is scorching...
On our way from the Dubai Marina to the public bus terminal we pass by some less shiny areas. If it wasn’t as hot we could venture even further away from the coastline. That’s where the poorest people live. Countless investigations showed that many are held in slave-like arrangements and terrible living conditions.
On the second to last day in the Emirates we visit the main attraction of the capital. So this is the one and only most impressive mosque in Abu Dhabi. So it’s typical for the UAE. We are riding around the parking lot for 10 minutes and every security guard sends us some other way because they can’t have a bicycle park anywhere. Apparently a bicycle is an offence. Now we are sent to a supermarket parking lot downstairs. We’ll see about that. Anyways, Sheikh Zayed was the one who united the individual Emirates.
His mosque was built with the goal to unite the cultural diversity of the Islamic world with the historical and modern values of architecture and art. To signal purity it is completely white from outside. The 35 tons hand-knotted carpet covers an area of over 5,600 square metres. Crafted in Iran, it involved around 1,200 artisans and took nearly two years to complete the 2.2 billion knots. The seven chandeliers incorporate millions of Swarovski crystals. The largest one in the main prayer hall is about 10 m in diameter and 15 m high, weighing approximately 12 metric tons.
Fortunately we were not allowed to stand under it! Visitors leave the mosque like they entered: through an underground shopping mall. That seems a bit weird, but on the other hand fully climatized shopping malls are the place to be for about 6 months per year, so it makes total sense! Despite all the impressive and glamorous numbers we actually think that the White Mosque looks more elegant from afar. Ok, there is no security guard to stop us. So here, like everywhere in this country, pretty much every road is like a 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 lane highway. There is one bridge to cross it for people that don’t have a car and of course because it only has stairs there is an elevator, but… look at this.
Anyway, it is time for us to get back to proper bicycle touring. It is our first time flying with our bicycles and so we are a bit nervous about the safety of our iron horses. We are at Yasmina Cycles in Abu Dhabi. The shop is pretty close to the airport and these guys are so nice to help us pack our bikes and we even did a hub service, so we do not run into the same problem as before that our hubs are beyond help.
So we serviced our Shimano Deore hubs. And now we are about to pack everything including Arev obviously. I think we all could fit into that huge bike box. We are almost done with boxing.
This is my bike. Really big box, really heavy now, 30 kgs or something. We put some luggage inside. We have one Ortlieb pannier bag that will go into the cargo belly of the plane. Obviously we were worried that some of the attachments of the bags would break… so we gave it a cardboard hull. We are in the pick up, the bikes are in the back. That was quite the operation. Now we head to the airport. It’s about 3pm. Which is good, because I thought our plane leaves at 8pm, but it turns out it leaves at 5:45 in the evening, so it’s really time that we get to the airport.
Before we started our journey we had a terrible track record at taking flights, trains and pretty much any type of public transport. This is also the reason why we are cycling around the world… I'm kidding, of course, but making it to the plane feels like a real success, especially this time. I know, I know. We've been harsh with the United Arab Emirates. While we’re never shy to speak out about issues we encounter, we try to highlight the good.
We imagine finding more positive aspects had we come here in winter, because then we could have ventured out of the cities and into the deserts. Looks like we made it to Samarkand in Uzbekistan. All our luggage arrived. So now we have the task to put it all back together and then it’s only a very short ride to our hotel.
Because in Uzbekistan we have to register every third night, so we get some piece of paper and when we leave the country we have to show that we gathered some of these papers. And Arev got a knife in the airport because we need to open the cardboard boxes. Let's go! I need to check if our multitool is actually able to put everything together.
Ok, it’s here! Very good. No! We don’t have the thing to… No! We don't have the 8mm hex. We need an 8mm hex. That’s not good. Arev is asking at “lost and found”, maybe they have a hex key for us.
Now we can put our bikes together. That took about one and a half hours. But we did it! Hello, Samarkand! At the heart of this ancient city lies the Registan, a monumental square surrounded by three grand madrasahs.
As one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, Samarkand is a symbol of the Silk Road's historical significance and a treasure trove of Islamic architecture. The square has been a vibrant centre of trade, education, and public life for centuries, and remains a testament to Samarkand’s enduring legacy as a crossroads of civilisations. The plan is to cycle the Pamir Highway, which you might be familiar with. It’s 4600m high, the second highest international road of the world, which will be the biggest, at least the highest challenge so far. Today we are going to cycle to the Tajik border, because to get to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, we need to cross the Fenn Mountains. And there is the Anzob pass or the Tunnel of Death alternatively.
Getting back in the saddle feels great, especially here in Central Asia. Back on the road we quickly notice the rather odd composition of motorised vehicles. Apart from some very old Soviet-made Ladas and a handful of brand-new Chinese BYD’s, there are literally only Chevrolet badges. Particularly abundant is the Damas microvan. They are built by state owned UzAuto Motors, which has a monopoly on the Uzbek market due to extreme import tariffs. The autocratically ruled country is rated absolutely unfree in political rights and social liberties, and given its Soviet history corruption is absolutely rampant, which shows.
However, I find these Damas very cute. Do you speak English or Russian? Russian. Russian, a little bit? A little bit. *Uzbek 14 km to the border. It’s 11:05, so we can do it before it gets too hot…if we keep pushing.
Ah, sunscreen in my eyes. After passing a sheer endless stream of Damas microvans and some cows we reach the border town with Tajikistan. Food’s ready! Lunchtime. Let’s go! Traditional Uzbek food. One “Chorba”, which is the typical soup I guess and one “Lagman”, which is also very typical. Very good. Very strong broth.
Is this Ayran? Yes, Ayran. Organic. There are cows here. It’s homemade. It’s for free. Thank you.
Are you a health worker? Yes, doctor. So we get everything to taste here. Cheers. What do you say in Uzbekistan … I am happy to meet you! Let’s go! That's it! Cheers! I did not understand much! Despite our brief visit, we can tell that Uzbekistan is a fascinating country with a rich and long history. Join us again next time when we make our way to the famous Pamir Highway, one of the highlights of our entire journey. You might have noticed that our videos became longer rather than shorter. That means on average we spend about two weeks on the post production of each episode, as we can’t afford to outsource any of the work.
While it has gotten slightly better recently, we get under 40€ per episode from Youtube ads. That is 40€ per 14 days of work, accommodation, food, health insurance, visa, etc. for the two of us. Over the past 2 years we produced 35 long play episodes, and had to replace a ton of broken equipment like our drone, laptops, and several hard-drives. Our rainy days reserve is gone by now and frankly speaking if it wasn’t for our wonderful and generous supporters, we would have had to stop making our videos a while ago.
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See you in Tajikistan! Ride safely and may the wind be in your back!
2024-10-09 21:36
