So there are a few things I have to lay on the table. Firstly, clearly my grand touring skills are a bit rusty and there seems to be a bit of a disturbing tendency for history to repeat itself. The last time Delia and I went on a grand tour was at the end of 2001 and we had some baggage issues then and just for the sake of consistency, we’ve had some baggage issues again.
Welcome to the Grand Tour Part 2.
In December 2001 Delia and I headed off on the original Grand Tour. We flew into Vietnam with our bicycles at the start of our cycle tour from Vietnam to Greece through China, over the Himalayas into Nepal, India across to Turkey and on to Greece (copies of that award-winning blog can be ordered at any good bookshops).
OK, it didn’t win any awards but my mum liked it. And no you can’t get it in any bookshops, I made that up too, but I do have a print out of it all if you really want to read it.
Back then as mum drove us to the airport she worried about a loose bicycle part I'd thrown into the bike box. Nah, it'll be fine, I told my mum. Of course, when we arrived in Vietnam the said part had disappeared necessitating immediate mechanical repairs after extensive haggling with street side bike shops who clearly knew they had us over a barrel. Johnno 0, Mum 24231.
The Grand Tour Part 2 is bigger and better in all sorts of ways. The main difference, of course, is there are now five participants, not 2, so maybe it should be the Grand Tour Part 2.5 if we get multiplicative and the logistical challenges facing us on the TGT2.5 have increased exponentially and are now quite daunting and baggage issues are just the start.
I don’t want to go into details but apparently, it’s possible to check your baggage limit 3 times and still get it wrong. How many university degrees do I have again? Anyway, the consequences of that basic mathematical error were eye wateringly expensive. So after settling the debt equivalent to a small African country, we got onto the plane.
Crikey.
Planes are different now. They are really quiet. You get your own screen and can play games and stuff. Extraordinary. Very different to TGT1 when we hopped on the Air Vietnam flight with a paper ticket, our fingers crossed and flight attendants wandering the cabin with mosquito spray. Suffice to say, it’s ridiculously civilised and Delia and I were able to safely ignore parts 3-5 of the family for nearly the whole 14-hour flight. Remarkable. I even watched a whole movie. I have form on this. We flew to Bali a few years ago and I watched the first 10 minutes of 7 films. Couldn’t commit.
So as I said TGT2.5 is bigger and better so we didn’t just have one luggage issue, we had to have another. We arrived in the stifling heat of Abu Dhabi at midnight local time or 6 am for our body clocks. All 5 members of TGT2.5 were a bit pooped to say the least and after clearing customs we collected our bags and caught a taxi to the hotel. All good so far. Or so we thought. We had boarded the plane with, well, I don’t know how many bags. A LOT. And as I said, my grand touring skills are a bit rusty, logistics are out of control, I was exhausted and I picked up the wrong bag didn’t I? Which bag? The one with all the kids clothes of course. Oh dear. So the next day in Abu Dhabi wasn’t spent doing touristy things but heading back out to the airport to return the bag (apologies to Elena from Moonee Ponds), try to track down our bag (someone else had taken it) and send on the parts of our luggage that we don’t need till Sweden straight there. That took a few hours.
Not many people go to cargo parts of airports but they should. Very interesting in a warts and all kind of way. We had a taxi driver, Emily from Uganda, take us and she turned out to be a bit of a star. She is one of the 7 million immigrants in the UAE working crazy hard, living in insane conditions. She and her husband live in a room they share with 3 other couples. Yes, that’s right 8 people in one room. Their space being separated by strung up blankets. Meanwhile her 2 year old son is back in Uganda being raised by her mum so Emily can send money back to Uganda to pay for her 4 younger siblings to go to school as her father died. WTF?!?!!? Oh yes and Emily is a qualified nurse and speaks 9 languages. Might remind the kids of that when they are complaining about Netflix not working.
The bag was delivered to our hotel the next day.
We didn’t any touristy things that day as we were all a bit wrecked by the jet lag but we did meet up with Ahmed’s mum, Manal. For those of you who are unfamiliar with who Ahmed is, he has been living in our studio for about a year now and has sort of become part of the family and is in the process of completing year 12 (we hope). Manal took the difficult decision to send him to live with his brothers in Melbourne a few years ago but living with his much older brothers didn’t work out and he ended up with us. Naturally, we had to visit Manal when we found out she lived in Abu Dhabi where we just happened to be going. And of course, she was pretty keen to see just exactly who these people were who were looking after her son. There was a bit of a bonus factor in all this. Manal gave us the tick of approval (after specific instructions from Ahmed not to behave like we normally do at dinner time) which made her feel better and we got to meet a lovely person who took us out to dinner several times to places we would never have otherwise visited. Win win win.
We did a few touristy things in our time in Abu Dhabi. We visited the Grand Mosque which is frankly amazing and so ornate it’s a little bit hard to believe but first, we had to don the appropriate attire. Ben, Finley and I had to put on black tracksuit pants over our shorts and Delia had to put on a full robe and head covering. In 40 degree heat!!! Just walking from the taxi to the entrance almost melted us. It’s hard to describe how stifling and overwhelming the heat is in Abu Dhabi. And it gets hotter in July and August!!!
We also visited the literally breathtaking Lourve which they built over reclaimed land producing an astonishing structure in the process. That seems to be the theme of Abu Dhabi. There’s this tendency to reclaim land from the sea and produce these extraordinary buildings in complete defiance of the fact Abu Dhabi is in the brutal desert. It defies all the rules of geography about where towns should be built and seems to revel in that fact. I’m really not sure what to think.
We visited the Falcon hospital, literally in the middle of the desert. It would appear the Emiraties take their falconing pretty seriously and the hospital looks after literally thousands of privately owned falcons every year as well as breeding them and releasing injured ones back into the wild after they’ve been nursed back to health. We got to watch a falcon getting, well, let’s be honest, an expensive and elaborate pedicure and then held one. Man those birds are unnerving. It was as though the bird was deeply unimpressed with my dad jokes (no surprise there) and the disdain it managed to convey was impressive. Never have I been less inclined to pat an animal despite the encouragement of the workers there, especially after they’d just sharpened its beak and talons. Maja, perhaps wisely, declined the offer to hold the falcon.
We also visited the Yas Marina Formula 1 circuit, (reclaimed land), and the Emirates Palace as well as spending a lovely evening on the Corniche beach (reclaimed). There were many things we didn’t get to do as truly the heat was too much and we retired to the rooftop pool as soon as we could. Overall, an interesting place but winter must surely be the time to visit.
Now we are on our way to London. Starting to get the grand touring skills up to scratch, but tell you what, Ben has to ditch the jokes going through customs. That boy is gonna get arrested one day.
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