Al Ain City Tour and on to Dubai

The Al Ain fort.

The beautiful Al Ain Cultural Museum...

That is preserving the old ways for the younger generation,

A traditional burial mound from years ago.

The beauty and coolness of the oasis.

A oasis worker harvesting the male seeds for fertilization.

Alexandra made friends with a UAE family.

A demonstration of harvesting dates.

Al Jahili Fort

and the commanding massive watch tower.

Mubarak bin London, with nomadic tribesmen.

Real name: Wilfred Thesiger, from Britain.

A skating rink in the mall (in the desert).

and a kid's playground.

A mosque we drove past.

Driving through the desert past dunes...

and flat areas...

with typical towns in the desert.

The tallest building in the world, which we will visit tomorrow.

Sunday, February 15th.

Today was a much more laid back, less stressful day. But first some interesting and important history:

The unification of the UAE was not a conquest — it was a careful political negotiation led primarily by Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Here’s how it unfolded:

Since the 1800s, the Gulf sheikhdoms were under British protection as the Trucial States. In 1968, the United Kingdom announced it would withdraw from the Gulf by 1971. This created a power vacuum and fear of regional instability — especially from larger neighbours like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Zayed immediately saw that unity meant survival. In February 1968, Sheikh Zayed met with Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai in the desert at Al Samih. They agreed to form a federation and invited the other Trucial States to join. At first, they hoped for a federation of nine states (including Bahrain and Qatar), but negotiations became complicated. BothBahrain and Qatar decided to become independent nations in 1971. That left the seven Trucial States to decide their future together. It worked because Zayed used: Personal diplomacy, generous financial support (Abu Dhabi had oil wealth), and a spirit of shared leadership. Smaller emirates like Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain were reassured that: they would keep their ruling families, they would control local matters and oil wealth would help develop all emirates. This was key — rulers were not overthrown; they became partners.

On December 2, 1971: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah formed the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and in February 1972, Ras Al Khaimah joined to make seven. Sheikh Zayed became the first President. It succeeded because: it was voluntary, rulers kept autonomy, oil revenue funded shared development, Zayed was widely respected for his humility and generosity, and there was a shared tribal and cultural identity. Unlike many Middle Eastern state formations, it was built on negotiation rather than war.

Our local guide, Mohammad, speaks five languages but his English pronunciation is sometimes hard to understand and today as he was telling us about the things we were going to see we heard, ‘port’, ‘horses’ and ‘dead’ trees… which caused some scratching of heads, until we figured out he meant fort, oases and date trees… much better.

This morning we went to the Al Ain Museum which consisted of three parts. First we went through the actual historical museum which outlined the history of this area and how people managed to thrive here. Initially the people were able to dig wells, but the water table kept receding causing them to dig deeper and deeper. There is a mountain nearby and the people managed to control and reroute the run off water thereby creating an irrigation system that watered the area and enabled to enlarge the existing oasis and grow dates and other important crops. The second part was a visit to the fort that was eventually built here to protect the people and the farms of the oasis from rival tribes. And finally, we walked through the actual oasis to see the palm trees. It was amazing how much cooler it was as soon as we walked in. It is not date season but we did see some unripe ones, and a man who has worked the oasis for thirty years demonstrated the technique for climbing up the trunk using a rope wrapped around it to get to the crown where the fruit is. Next we went to the Al Jahili Fort and Museum which exhibits the story of Mubarak bin London, whose real name was Wilfred Thesiger. He was a British explorer, photographer, and travel writer. He was one of those intrepid explorers who went where western white men had seldom been and saw people and tribes who had yet to be changed by the west. In addition to other countries he explored he spent five years in the 1940’s exploring the Arabian Peninsula with two young guides. Fascinating exhibit with great photos. He passed on at 93 in 2003. I am going to check out his books.

Then we went to a mall where we had lunch in the food court, after which we went to another fort where the previous Sheikh of Abu Dhabi (Sheikh Khalifa a bin Zayed Al Nahyans (2004-2022) raised the current Sheikh (Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyab). It too was a well maintained and presented museum that pays tribute to the current leader and  preserves the history of the UAE for future generations. That ended our tour of Al Ain and we boarded the bus for a two hour drive to the Emirate of Dubai, which is also the name of its capital city. We passed numerous sand dunes and some smaller villages before we saw on the horizon the skyscraper studded skyline of the city. We checked into our hotel and had an hour to get organized before we walked to a local Iraqi restaurant. The staff were all Syrians. I had a chat with a couple of them who were interested that I had been there just before the war. They served us the usual Middle Eastern type food with little salads, humus, baba ghanoush, kabobs of chicken, lamb and onions and for dessert tea, dates with tahini and some watermelon. It was a good meal with some lively conversation. Back to the hotel for the rest of the night.