Day 117: Fujairah, United Arab Emirates

Wednesday, 3 May 2017
At Sea — Gulf of Oman … En Route to Muscat

Stats @ Ship’s Time 8:30p (GST) … UTC 4:30p (3 May)
Temp: 84.9F (29.4C)
Position: 25.03.52N / 56.39.65E

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.
~ Kahlil Gibran ~

I needed a break from the heat today — the forecast was for 103F (39C).  We didn’t have any sightseeing plans anyway as I’d had no luck getting tour operators to respond to me re: private tours in Fujairah — our third emirate stop in the United Arab Emirates … this one the smallest with only 1.5% of the land and located on the east coast of the Arabian peninsula.  Oceania had no tours that were of any real interest either.  Add to that the email we got from Orbitz yesterday re: a problem with our flight from İstanbul to Rome on November 3.  Well — all of that combined to make the easy decision to skip touring today.

That it was going to indeed be a hot day was apparent even as Insignia approached its berth at the commercial port mid-morning — the air felt stifling; not even the slightest breeze.  By 10:00a we were docked … and off the ship as soon as it was cleared.  A steady stream of passengers — all sharing the same thought of wanting an easy day out of the heat — joined us as we walked to the shuttle bus to the City Center Mall … a 20-minute drive from the port.

About half way to the mall, the bus was stopped by the transport authority/traffic police.  We pulled into a gas station for the driver to present his license and registration.  Turns out the registration had expired!  Or at least that’s what we understood from the driver’s comment that “the company might have a newer one.”  I don’t know if money exchanged hands, or if there was a ticket written, or if somehow a phone call to the company convinced the cop to let us go.  In any event, 30 minutes later we were moving again.

There were lots of vehicles in the parking lot.  Inside, however, the mall was almost deserted — just some local men wearing thobes [long white dresses] and women wearing black abayas … a few of whom had their faces covered.  From the shops in the mall, it was obvious that underneath the abayas the women had to be wearing western-style clothes as there was nothing else displayed in the windows.  I did not find it surprising that there were more people wearing traditional clothing here than in Dubai and Abu Dhabi — this area of the UAE is not nearly as developed.  And the style of clothing fit with the thinly settled, relatively untouched ambiance of the emirate.

Our plans — especially those for haircuts and mani/pedis — were based on our research of what was available at Lulu Mall … where the shuttles took passengers last year.  No problem, we thought.  City Center Mall was bound to have these services, too.  Right?  Wrong!  Yes, the mall was, as expected, quite modern.  Yes, it was filled with lots of stores — even a good sized Carrefour supermarket.  But no, it didn’t have hair dressers, barbers, or spas.

OK, then … let’s take care of our flight issue and we can deal with the rest later.  Unfortunately both the internet at the Starbucks shop and the mall-wide service blocked web-calls.  The good news, the billing cycle for our Verizon international plan had just rolled over, so we had plenty of minutes to make a phone call.  Long story short — though the call took over 30 minutes — we managed to work things out with Orbitz and switch over to a different flight to get us from Turkey to Italy to board our November TransAtlantic cruise back to the US.

That chore taken care of, we debated what to do about the rest of our plans.  Return to the ship?  Or grab a cab and go to Lulu Mall — five minutes and 10 dirhams away?  Since we still had an hour before the next shuttle to the ship, we opted for the latter.

At Lulu Mall, we found the Nayomi Beauty Salon easily enough.  This was the salon Mui had called when we were still home to see if we would need appointments.  No, we didn’t.  Sure, they could re-style and cut my hair.  Sure I could get a manicure and a pedicure … no problem.  But the women jumped back in horror when Mui followed me into the lobby and asked if he could get a haircut, too.  No, sir — not here!!!  So, Mui left me to my own devices and went off to kill some time.  He was apparently told he could take a cab somewhere to get a haircut … no pedicure, though.  But the directions were murky, so he decided to stay at the mall.  After buying apples at the Lulu Hypermarket, he settled in to use the internet at Starbucks.

In the meantime, I got my hair cut — feels good to have it short again.  Then I was shown to the salon where a Filipino woman gave me a manicure, while a Nepalese woman took care of the pedicure.  It was interesting chatting with them about living in the Emirates.  They both liked it.  They missed their families, but they were making enough money to send some home … so they were better off here than in their respective homelands.  My bill for the services was AED 310 … or ~ USD $84 … a bargain considering just the haircut would have cost me USD $90 on the ship … maybe even more since I wanted a restyle and not just a trim.

Our chores done, we hopped in a cab and returned to the City Center Mall to catch the shuttle back to the ship.  We could have taken the taxi directly back to the port, but then we’d have had to switch to the interport shuttle, so this worked out better.

All in all, not an exciting day in Fujairah … but a fruitful one.  Tomorrow we will be in another new-to-us country and we will resume sightseeing.

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