Randy Lewis

DUBAI....THE RETURN....AND THE PRELUDE TO BAHRAIN

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RANLAY Racing Trackchaser Report

DAYS 1-5 – “I HAD TO GO BACK TO DUBAI” TRACKCHASING TOUR

It took me 60 years and 18 days to make my first ever trip to Dubai located in the Middle Eastern country of the United Arab Emirates. Somewhat incredibly, just ten days after I left Dubai I was back in town. I liked it so much I wanted Carol to see the place.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – FAST FACTS

Full country name: United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Capital City: Abu Dhabi

Official language: Arabic

Ethnic groups: 34% Arab, 8% Iranian, 50% South Asian

Establishment: December 2, 1971

Population (2006): 4.6 million

Weights & Measures: Metric

Currency: UAE Dirham (AED). Current exchange rate is one U.S. dollar to 3.67 UAE Dirhams.

Location: Middle East, on the Southeast of the Arabian Peninsula bordering mainly the Persian Gulf and partially the Gulf of Oman, as well as the countries of Oman and Saudi Arabia. The UAE comprises seven emirates of which Abu Dhabi accounts for 87% of the UAE’s total area.

Climate: Summer lasts from May to September, and temperatures at that time generally average 95 degrees F, although it can get up to 122 degrees F. The autumn/winter months (November-April) are much milder with pleasant, cool evenings.

Demographics: The UAE has an unnatural sex distribution consisting of more than twice as many males as females. UAE’s gender imbalance is the highest in the world followed by Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. The UAE’s most populated city is Dubai with 1.6 million residents. Some 96% of UAE residents practice Islam as their religion. There is no taxation whatsoever in the UAE. There are no income, sales or personal property taxes, although a value added tax (VAT) of 3% is being considered. Migrants, mostly of South Asian descent constitute 95% of the UAE workforce and are subject to a range of human rights abuses. Guest workers are brought in from Southern Asia, and a common practice is that they are underpaid as their passports are held by their employers.

GREETINGS FROM DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

CAROL AND I LEFT HOME ON SUNDAY MORNING. WE STAYED OVERNIGHT IN LOS ANGELES ON SUNDAY EVENING BEFORE BEGINNING A 29-HOUR TRAVEL ADVENTURE TO DUBAI ON MONDAY MORNING. WE ARRIVED ON TUESDAY NIGHT AND TOURED DUBAI ON WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY. THIS IS WHAT TRANSPIRED ON THE FIRST PORTION OF OUR ACROSS THE WORLD TRIP.

SEE THE PHOTOS; ENJOY THE PHOTOS

If you would like to see photos from today’s trackchasing adventure go to www.ranlayracing.com, click on the “Foreign Countries Visited” tab, click on “Dubai” and then click on “Dubai, Part 1 – The Prelude” for the pictures and story. Don’t miss them. They will show you some unusual sights never before seen at www.ranlayracing.com.

PART 1, THE PRELUDE

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED HAD YOU BEEN PAYING MORE ATTENTION IN SCHOOL

I will maintain my policy of affording anonymity to readers who send in interesting bits of information or who provide cutting edge analysis. Of course, their contributions do not have to be anonymous.

From Doha, Qatar

My last trackchasing trip had me visiting the Gulf state country of Qatar. I had two newspaper journalists write stories about my trackchasing. A third feature is being planned. This is the message I received from Raajiv Tripathi, the writer for the Qatar Tribune.

How are you doing?

Hope you enjoyed your trip to Qatar…..However I’m not sure if you had seen a small story I had written about you in my newspaper before leaving here.

I felt bad a bit as I could not use your pic with the story due to space crunch that particular day. Here is a link for the PDF page and your story in on the left hand bottom.

http://www.qatar-tribune.com/data/20090216/pdf/sports.pdf

This will help you in your track-chasing documents as well.

Wish you good luck and hope to see you soon.

Regards,

Raajiv Tripathi

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

The technology update will return in my next domestic Trackchaser Report.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

We faced the decision of “coach vs. business class” on our 13-hour flight from Washington, D.C. to Dubai..................more in “Tuesday, February 24, 2009”.

You won’t believe what attracted us to the Mall of the Emirates.…………..details in “Wednesday, February 25, 2009”.

What was the much-needed backup plan that we acquired today? ………..details in “Thursday, February 26, 2009”.

Have you ever been “dune bashing”? ………..details in “Thursday, February 26, 2009”.

What you are about to read is based upon a true story. Heck, I’m seeing some of this stuff for the first time myself!

THE OBJECTIVE, THE TRIP AND THE PEOPLE…AND A WHOLE LOT MORE

The Objective

RACE TO 30 INTERNATIONAL CONTEST

For whatever reason, I cannot get my fellow competitors to publish their international trackchasing plans in advance. I’m trying to go trackchasing in 30 different countries before the unofficial trackchasing commissioner, Will White does. I have seen races in 25 countries. Will has seen racing in 22 countries. Since no one lets anyone know ahead of time where they will be going, I’ll just have to keep trackchasing as hard as I can and see where things shake out.

I will tell you this. For all trackchasers who meet the most stringent trackchasing requirements (seeing a minimum of 200 overall tracks) here is a list of the top 5 international trackchasers as ranked by number of countries:

Roland Vanden Eynde, Vilvoorde, Belgium – 38

Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 25

Will White, Quakertown, Pennsylvania – 22

Chris Economaki, Ridgewood, New Jersey – 18

Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California - 12

I have trackchased in five countries where none of the above folks has visited up to this point. Those countries are:

Barbados

China

Qatar

South Africa

Thailand

The Trip

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2009

We left San Clemente for the Middle East on a trip that would require an unexpected detour.

Just a few days ago, Carol’s uncle, John Polakovic, passed away in his sleep. Today a eulogy was held for him in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Cucamonga. It made sense for us to attend the eulogy and then drive over to the Los Angeles International Airport where we would stay the night before departing for the Middle East. Since our Monday morning flight left at 6:30 a.m. this would make the logistical aspect of the trip easier to handle.

Honoring someone in death can be just as satisfying for the survivors as seeing someone in life.

Carol and her sister, Patty had just made a post-Christmas visit to see their “Uncle John” a few weeks ago. They were happy to have made that trip, since it was the last time they would have the chance to visit with him.

John was an attorney and enjoyed the outdoors. He started out as a cop on the Los Angeles Police Department’s force. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles he decided to go to law school at night. After he passed the bar, he spent his entire career as a criminal defender representing the “little guy”.

At today’s eulogy, there were several district attorney’s and prosecutors who attended out of respect for John. Several people told stories and shared remembrances. Most of the prosecutors told of a common theme. They each explained what a “pain in the #$%” John could be as he steadfastly defended his clients who were often guilty as charged. He never gave up trying to get them the best deal he could.

I remember playing golf with John in Hawaii. At the time, I was a very bad golfer. John was a good golfer. I was impressed with how patient he was with my struggling game. It would have been easy for him to have simply declined to play with me or been put off as we spent time looking for my golf balls in the woods. He never did that. I like to think that I learned something from his approach when I play with people less skilled at the game than I am today.

I also recall a conversation we had about how his clients paid him. He usually represented the “lowest of the low” on the criminal food chain. He told me this, “These guys don’t always have money, but they have stuff. I know they will pay me in one way of the other. Sometimes, it’s free lawn service or a car or whatever. They’re always good for paying me”

It was not lost on me today as the twins, Astrid and Mitch, just eight months old attended the service. They were just beginning life and someone they had never met had departed life. Of course, that is the way God meant it to be. Rest in peace, Uncle John.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Park and Fly!

We had booked a room on Sunday night at the Four Points by Sheraton Los Angeles International Airport. Long-term parking at LAX runs about $12-14 per day. We’ll be gone nine days. Several hotels in the area offer “park and fly” promotions. The Sheraton’s deal included parking for one week included in the room rate. Their price offered a small saving for the “park and fly” deal. It amounted to paying for the parking and getting the room for about half price. However, given where we were coming from on Sunday night and our early Monday morning flight it seemed to make sense to do it this way.

Today was going to be a very long travel day.

On Monday morning we began our journey to the other side of the world. When I put my finger on California on my world globe and then place a finger (from my other hand!) on the opposite side of the globe I end up pointing at or near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The Dubai time zone is 12 hours ahead of us. That means it’s almost perfectly on the other side of the world. We had the option of using our airline trackchasing partners to get there. However, the flights were fuller than I expected. When I travel with Carol, I like to have as many things “confirmed” as I can. I just feel better when she feels better. Maybe that’s why we’ve stayed married for 37 years.

I found a very low “internet only” airfare on Southwest Airlines. This would take us from Los Angeles to Chicago (Midway Airport) and then onto the Washington Dulles Airport. From there we would use one of our airline partners to fly on to Dubai.

We awoke in our hotel at 4:30 a.m. on Monday morning (4:30 p.m. Monday Dubai time). We would arrive at our hotel in Dubai at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday evening (9:30 a.m. Tuesday, San Clemente time). Folks, that’s 29 straight hours of traveling. Yes, it is what I do and it is what Carol sometimes does.

We would be in the air for about 18 hours in total. We left Washington, D.C. for Dubai at 10 p.m. Eastern time on Monday night. We were just in time to sleep overnight on the plane. Then, when we landed in Dubai at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, it was nearly time to hit the sack again! Yes, we arrived at our hotel at 10 p.m. (10 a.m. San Clemente time) and the local clock was telling us to go to bed for the evening. We did as we were told!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2009

We lost Tuesday and can’t find it.

I know there was a Tuesday because my “Tuesday/Thursday” golf group had an 8 a.m. tee time. I hope they had fun. Depending upon the time zone you want to use, we were in the air most of Tuesday. That just makes for a shorter Trackchaser Report!

I don’t have the big budgets that some of my fellow trackchasing competitors do.

I will say this. Carol and I can be frugal when we have to be. We started out poor. If the stock market keeps going the way it’s been going we may end up poor! The flight from Washington to Dubai was 7,084 miles. The flight time was 12 hours and 48 minutes. Business class was available. A round-trip business class ticket on this route runs $4,000-5,000 U.S. However, our sponsoring airlines allow us to fly for $%#% in business class. No, I cannot tell you that price. However, it is very very low. There would be no charge if we flew in coach. Free vs. small charge? Coach vs. business class? Everyone in life makes their own decisions.

I knew there were more than 100 open seats on this plane. That meant that Carol and I could each get a full row of five seats to spread out on in coach class during our long journey. That is exactly what we did. Dinner was served almost as soon as we got in the air. Following dinner, we both went to sleep. I slept for eight hours and Carol just a bit longer. When we woke up there was less than four hours to go in our flight.

We each checked our back pockets. Yes, the savings from our decision to fly coach was still there. We didn’t amass the small amount of retirement funds we have by wasting our money. Sometimes it pays to be frugal and sometimes it’s much better to spend freely. We were frugal tonight, but we will spend freely later in the trip.

Tonight we were both adding stamps to our passports.

Recall that recently I had 48 pages added to my regular 24-page U.S. Passport. I was anticipating trips like this. Currently I have nearly 70 stamps in my passport and expect to get many more before the year is out.

I can’t believe how easy it is to clear “passport control” or what some people refer to as “customs”. We landed at 8 p.m. Although there was space for hundreds of arriving visitors, we were the only people in the entire passport control area. The UAE customs agent did an electronic scan of our passports issued our UAE stamps and we were off.

We will be in Dubai on two separate occasions on this trip.

Our first stop will be for three nights. We will use taxis exclusively. The traffic is heavy and the taxis are cheap. The currency of Dubai is the dirham. One U.S. dollar will buy about 3.67 UAE dirhams.

A taxi that leaves the Dubai airport starts with 25 dirhams already on the meter. However, taxis that pick up fares anywhere else in town start with just three dirhams on the meter. I suspect this differential is to compensate drivers for their wait time at the airport. Tonight’s driver told us he waited an hour and a half in line before picking us up.

Our taxi driver was from Pakistan. When he learned we were from California he was proud to comment on the success of Slum Dog Millionaire, this year’s Academy Award winning best movie. “It won seven academy awards”, he told us. We did see this movie and thought it was great. At the time, we commented about its Oscar winning potential.

Our home for the next three days will be at the Renaissance Hotel in Dubai.

The Renaissance Hotel chain is owned by Marriott. We’ve stayed in several of their properties in the U.S. This is a very upscale hotel chain and will make our stay most comfortable. It is a 5-star hotel.

When we checked in we were given a room on the Executive level, the sixth floor. We were escorted from the second floor of the hotel, where most people would be checking in, to the sixth floor. Here we were given special treatment. Our entire hotel experience would include a complimentary buffet breakfast in the private club lounge, internet and health club (separate for men and women).

It was early. We had time for some touring.

It was only 9 p.m. when we checked in. We had both slept for eight hours on the plane. We were feeling pretty good considering we had just completed 29 hours of travel from our hotel in Los Angeles to our hotel in Dubai.

The concierge clerk at the Renaissance told us the “Gold Souk” would be open until midnight. Souks, sometimes spelled “Souq” are historical markets from the olden days in the Middle East. The Souq I visited in Qatar was really a lot of fun. There were many things to buy and all kinds of people for “people watching”.

However, I wasn’t planning to even visit the gold souk in Dubai. Carol and I are not much into jewelry or gold for that matter. Nevertheless, with nothing else cooking, we decided to go. As we were sitting in traffic, and there is a lot of street traffic in Dubai, our driver told us the gold souk would be closing at 10 p.m. not midnight. That wasn’t good. We would have only about 30 minutes to see things at that rate.

If you’ve ever been to 47^th Street in New York to see the electronics business district then you will know what the gold souk was like. It wasn’t old like the Qatar souk. It was a series of stores that went on for blocks, almost all of which sold gold jewelry.

What we found very annoying were the “touts” who pestered us unrelentingly wanting us to “see my shop”. They wanted to sell “fake” Rolexes and designer handbags. Carol doesn’t like that approach nor do I. We left after being there for just a few minutes.

We had time for just one last stop before calling our first night in Dubai a day.

The Renaissance has several bars and restaurants. We stopped in the Sails bar for a beer and chicken satay. The bill came to about $30 U.S. Eating and drinking in these hotels can be expensive. Although we had each slept about eight hours on the plane just six hours ago, it was time to go to bed again.

It was 11 p.m. Dubai time. That meant it was 11 a.m. San Clemente time. Carol insists we only refer to local times when we do international travel. That seems fair. This is the last time I will mention the differential until we cross back into the U.S.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2009

We both slept well on our first night in Dubai.

As a platinum level member of the Marriott “Rewards” club I am treated well at their hotels. Our stay in Dubai will include breakfast in the Club Lounge. This is probably a $50 U.S. value, or more, for us each day. It’s important to live like a king, you just don’t want to have to pay full price for the privilege.

Our breakfast was delightful. There were only 4-5 people in the Club Lounge when we arrived at 6:30 a.m. The turkey bacon and fresh baked breads were delicious. The juices were all fresh squeezed and the fruit was fresh.

We spent the balance of our breakfast making our tour plan for the rest of our time in Dubai. We hope to see and do several different activities. Of course, I will take photos of everything. That way, when you plan a trip to the United Arab Emirates you can use our trip for possible travel tips.

I wanted Carol to see what I had seen on my trip to Dubai last week.

I had spent a grand total of eight hours in Dubai coming and going to Qatar last week. Nevertheless, I was anxious to show Carol around. Our first stop was at the Dubai Mall. This is the largest shopping mall in the entire world. It has 1,200 stores. They even provide a full color map so shoppers can find the store they are looking for. It’s only been open for a year and customer traffic seems to be a bit on the slow side.

The mall has a huge ice rink in its center. There are also tall waterfalls that are very impressive. However, the most striking feature of the mall, other than its sheer size is its aquarium. This is a biggie complete with several sharks.

We rode in a taxi to the mall. Lots of people get to the malls and around Dubai in taxis. At any given time there are 30-50 taxis waiting in line to pick up passengers from the malls. I have never seen anything like it!

Next up….was another mall!

Yes, I wanted to see the Mall of the Emirates. Don’t get me wrong. I am not really that into shopping malls. However, one does not often get the chance to see the largest shopping mall in the world. Nor do they get the chance to see what the Mall of the Emirates held as a special surprise.

This mall is smaller than the Dubai Mall. It has only about 800 stores! However, both Carol and I liked it the best as it seemed a little “classier”. There was one item that drew us to this shopping center.

It had an indoor ski mountain!!

That’s right. Right here in the middle of the desert, where the temperatures go as high as 120 degrees in the summer time, is an indoor snow skiing setup. The ski building is housed in a structure that looks like your sunglasses case from the outside. Please don’t miss the pictures of this, it is simply amazing.

Folks pay about $60 U.S. to ski or snowboard for two hours. Carol’s a better skier than I am but neither of us skied today. We were able to take pictures through large viewing windows of the entire ski setup.

We spent the next couple of hours having lunch in the mall’s food court. Food courts in these malls are very large. We visited three malls in Dubai and each one had a food court with more than 15 outlets. Several of them are “cook to order” operations. The malls also have several sit-down restaurants in them as well.

Following my Indian food lunch, we decided to see a movie in the mall. We picked “Adventures of a Shopaholic”. Carol said that I slept through most of it. I dispute her definition of “most”. The unique thing about our movie experience today is that our seats were reserved. We simply used a touch screen computer to confirm where we wanted to sit.

Our first full day of touring was finished.

Considering Dubai’s time zone was a full 12 hours ahead of ours we did pretty well with the change. I think our decision to use cabs exclusively was a good one. Dubai’s traffic can be simply horrendous. It might be the worst I have ever encountered although driving in Boston and through Chicago can be very bad.

We noted that many places, including most of the food court locations do not accept credit cards. I’m glad that Carol had come prepared with local currency. Folks have been very polite and willing to serve. Many of the workers are from neighboring countries including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I have never heard, “Thank you, sir” and “Yes, sir” so much in my life, most of which was spoken in an Indian accent.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009

Back up plans are an important part of the RANLAY Racing trackchasing plan.

Most of the time, my primary logistical plans work. However, I want to have backup plans that give me options when the primary plan fails for whatever reason.

It was with this thinking in mind that made our first stop of the day the Delta Airlines city ticket office. We rode the hotel’s shuttle bus to a shopping mall near Delta’s office. Our objective was to buy some backup airline tickets on Emirates Air. We already had tickets on Jezeera Airways from Dubai to tomorrow’s destination of Bahrain. However, if Jezeera canceled for any reason, we needed a backup or we would miss the race entirely. It took us the better part of an hour and a long walk in the hot morning sun but we had our backup plan in place…..we would come to appreciate this decision as the day went on.

Shopping malls are big in Dubai.

Shopping is popular in Dubai for a couple of reasons. First, it is very warm much of the year and the malls are air-conditioned. Additionally, Dubai is one of those places where “people have money” and are willing to spend it. It is not dissimilar to Southern California. People like that appreciated the art of shopping. I might not visit a major shopping mall in an entire year at home. On this trip, I spent a good deal of time in three of them during my first two days in Dubai.

Today we spent a couple of hours in the City Centre shopping mall. We found our time in these malls to be very relaxing. We didn’t have to be anywhere, like we might at home. We also weren’t looking for anything in particular to buy. We have some beautiful upscale malls in Southern California. The Dubai malls were as nice as ours and so much larger.

However, the highlight of our day would be our “Desert Safari”

I had attempted to do a desert safari in Qatar. However, it was canceled when a huge sandstorm developed. Today, “4 Star Travels and Tourism” picked us up at our hotel in a specially outfitted Toyota Land Cruiser SUV. It had padded roll bars!

I get many of my preplanning travel ideas for the foreign countries I visit from www.tripadvisor.com. They have excellent forums where people “who have been there” tell newbies “what the drill is”. Depending upon the forum, sometimes I am the expert giving advice and sometimes I am the rookie seeking whatever tips I can get.

Our desert safari would include “dune bashing”, camel rides, an authentic Arabic buffet dinner and belly dancing. How could we go wrong with all of that? To top it off, they picked us up at the hotel, drove us some 30 miles out into the desert and then drove us back to the hotel after the entire shindig was finished. It wasn’t very expensive either, costing only about $50 per person.

Dune bashing rocks!!......it rocks hard!

I’m not going to be able to verbally explain the adventure of “dune bashing” very well. Even my pictures don’t capture the event. Nevertheless, I will try.

The deserts go on as far as the eye can see in the UAE. The sand is as fine as the sand in an hourglass. The desert sands are very hilly. Some hills seem to go straight up for 100-200 feet or more. Today, we would be dune bashing in brand new Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs. The SUVs had padded roll bars just in case things went array.

With six passengers in our Toyota, the driver took off to try to scare the $%^# out of us. He did a good job! We sped over hill and dale in the desert along with two other brand new Toyotas from 4 Star Travel. There were times when we would travel along the edge of a ridge. The sand would “give way” as the SUV fought to maintain traction. Our SUV was in the #2 spot of the three-unit caravan. I sat in the right front passenger seat where I could get the best photos.

We drove over some sand dunes that had a nearly vertical drop of up to 50 feet. Sitting in the front seat, I had the best view of where we were about to go. I could also see what the SUV ahead of us was driving through just before we did it. It was very exciting!

After more than an hour of dune bashing and sunset watching, we arrived at what looked like an old-fashioned Arabic camp. Here I took a short ride on a camel. I’ve always wanted to do that. Carol was feeling a little under the weather from the dune bashing and declined the camel riding opportunity (of a lifetime).

Next up, was an Arabic buffet that featured BBQ lamb and chicken direct from the grill along with a wide assortment of all “the fixins”. There were probably 200 people who had wrapped up their dune bashing with several tour companies and shared in the buffet. We all sat around on pillows and ate at tables located just a foot off the ground. With temps in the mid-70s, it was a very comfortable evening. Following dinner, we were entertained with recorded Arabic music and live belly dancing. This desert safari was a highlight of the trip. I recommend it to anyone, although you had best be in pretty good shape and not afraid of heights, speed and steep descents to go dune bashing.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until about 10 p.m. Our day would start early tomorrow morning. Of course, my long laid own plans for a trackchasing adventure in Bahrain would not go off as planned. However, when we deviate from the plan, the fun really begins!

Stay tuned.

Coming soon!

How do fellow P&G retirees really think?

I have some really big news set to break by March 15, 2009 or so. This date could slip into mid-April. Despite frequent questions, I can’t tell you what this is about until the appointed date.

Why I fear Ed Esser.

Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

Randy Lewis

Alberta’s #1 Trackchaser

My iPhone is making my laptop seem like a boat anchor.

TRAVEL DETAILS

AIRPLANE

Los Angeles, CA – Chicago, IL (Midway) – 1,724 miles

Chicago, IL (Midway) – Washington, D.C. (Dulles) – 588 miles

Washington, D.C. (Dulles) – Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 7,084 miles

RENTAL CAR - DUBAI

No rental cars – we took taxis

World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser