To want to go to Abu Dhabi?

[ReturnoftheWhack]

Ok.

Here's the deal. A good friend of mine is living in Abu Dhabi teaching in a primary school and living on a western compound. She wants me to go and stay with her, I'd bloody love to. Thinking of three or four days in February.

Here's the sticking point.

DH is super scared by tales of terrorism, ISIS, threats etc. Currently doesn't want me to take kids to London due to perceived danger.

What are your experiences of Abu Dhabi? Do you consider it to be a dangerous place at the moment? Anyone got some facts I can throw at him?! This isn't a case of him not allowing me to go, I'll pay for myself out of my own money...he just worries, and that comes from a good place. How harsh would I be to just go anyway? To be honest, I'm desperate for a break. I've got two kids, 2 and 5, I work full time...the idea of a kid free few days is just blissful.

Actually CoYo Iraq was quite a nice place to live until 2003. Ironic that.
I grew up in Baghdad.

Actually CoYo Iraq was quite a nice place to live until 2003. Ironic that

Was it a nice place for everyone who lived there no matter what your background, political affiliation and beliefs?

It wasn't the worst. It wasn't like people were plucked.from their daily business and killed randomly. But in South America, Phillipino to name a few shit places it happens all the time but boo hook they don't have oil so nobody invades them to impose civilisation.

Go to Abu Dhabi....visiting the Gulf is a great experience. I lived in Qatar for 3 years, its a life changer. Just be aware you are in a Muslim country so be respectful in dress sense etc when you are out and about. (I mean no short skirts/shorts or vest tops). By the pool or beach is fine. You can drive to Dubai from there too. Make sure you pack knee length or long linen trousers or skirts if you are shopping and site seeing. Have a great time!

Anyone passing through Doha, do try to get to the Museum of Islamic Art. It's absolutely stunning. The terracotta warriors are there at the moment.

My sis was out there for years. We visited lots. Its a fabulous place and very very safe. Very tolerant, dynamic, exciting and fast paced. I can't believe mn sometimes, some of the comments here are ridiculous.

The answer to your question, Yello, is not many. It's not a convenient principle

That made me laugh! I think you'd get on with my DP because he has some not v convenient principles!

Here's hoping that human rights/poverty etc improve so you can go on holiday to more places prawn :-)

Sometimes I read these horrendous UAE threads and feel sad...sometimes I feel happy and grateful that more people won't come to visit....

I could wax lyrical about how on a day to day basis it is the most positive, peaceful place I ever encountered...and I consider myself well travelled. How everyone lives together happily, how we celebrate Christmas, Eid. Diwali, Ramadan, Easter, you name it. I've had some the best gay club nights out here, believe it or not. But no one wants to hear this.

I spent a week in the uk last month and was shocked at the homelessness and poverty and filth.

the UAE is a young country and it is far from perfect, but I have experienced more zakat (charity) and love here than I ever did in the uk. This initiative started in Ramadan and snowballed so quickly, it got a lot of international press....and continues all year round.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sharing-fridges-dubai-ramadanuss_5762d428e4b0df4d586f742f

But hey, believe everything you can google and read On the daily mail......

No you're wrong there. The oh so culturered and clever Arab haters get their bile from the Guardian. The Daily Mail hate everyone, rich and poor. The Guardian teach their enslaved fans that poor countries with horrific abuse.of rights are quaint because they are poor and have dark skin. The Guardian only hate the nasty Arabs because they are rich. Ironic really when the UK would be fucked without Qatar holding them up.

Not that I disagree with your point, but could you expand on how Qatar holds the UK up? I assume you mean "holds up" as in supports, rather than the Dick Turpin meaning.

The Gulf in general, certainly, with the billions earned from selling arms to Saudi (paid for with oil), for example, but I didn't know Qatar was doing so on any great scale.

It's not. It owns some trophy projects in the UK. That's pretty much it.

Yes the Guardian would say that.

Fit, the Emirati lady in question is not transgender - she is intersex. The change in insurance laws doesn't endorse sex reassignment surgery, unless it is to 'correct' a congenital issue. If you are transgender and, for example, did not 'pass' as female but wore women's clothes, yes, the police would intervene. We've had people deported fairly recently for this in Dubai.

Expat Hack, I had read that she had high testosterone but was not specifically intersex. www.thenational.ae/uae/lawyers-back-changes-in-uae-law-allowing-gender-reassignment-surgery

"Sex-change surgery will also now be permitted under the new law. Operations will be allowed if a person’s sex is unclear, or if a medical examination indicates that their physical features do not match their physiological, biological and genetic characteristics."

From what I understand from co-workers (in the bio-medical field) the Quran supports the idea that people can be born the wrong gender and that they should be allowed to live the gender they think they are. Obviously it's vague, but it's apparently more acceptable than being just plain gay.

And yes, people get deported for wearing women's clothes, but that's generally Saudi's coming up to party and getting out of hand or men dressing as women to get into women's bathrooms, rob, assault, etc.

I've met several transgenders here, men and women. Granted they've all been local so they are generally allowed to skirt the rules.

To be clear though Ego if your Passport states you're a man, don't try and enter the country as a woman!

I spent a week in the uk last month and was shocked at the homelessness and poverty and filth.

I've visited 31 countries. The vast majority of those in North/South East Asia and Africa. The worst poverty and sadness I saw was in Lansing, Michigan. At least in the slums of Mombasa it's warm and people generally look happy and are playing and laughing. In Lansing it was -10 degrees and most of those houses didn't have windows or heat, and there were people living in them!!!

Things aren't great here, but there is a lot of charity and hospitality and things are changing.

Prawn I am feeling increasingly more like you. Don't really want to go and support countries with poor human rights records (like AD and D) no matter what expats living there say.

Then don't come visit, but also don't come on what this thread has turned into, and tell us all the local paper has got it right, and those of us out here are all wrong.

I live in the Mid East and lots of my family and friends feel like the OP's husband.
My other half is from Africa (yep that big country) and people are always asking if it is safe to go there.
What I am trying to say is that it depends on the country in any region/continent. And the FCO advice for the UAE and for my husband's country are fairly similar.

As for terrorism - my non-European friends decided not to holiday in Europe this year because of what is happening in many European cities. So it is about perspective/experience.

Feb would be a fab time - horrible rainy British weather compared to late 20s early 30s. If she is on a compound - a pool within walking distance. Some shopping and wining/dining without kids. If it won't lead to divorce ... go ..

It's very convenient for UAE based expats to assert it's Europe-based Guardian readers who point out the UAE's miserable human rights record and talk about peace and positivity from their blinkered villas? How many of you have actually gone out to the labour camps and seen the conditions, or spent time on Saadiyat and other building sites? Because I lived in Dubai and AD and did. And imagine, The National was afraid to publish an article. (It even pulled an interview with an expat spoken word poet which was mildly critical of authority.)

The 'other holiday destinations are also bad' is a complete red herring. If anyone wants non-newspaper accounts of human rights abuses in the UAE (or elsewhere, for that matter), look at the Human Rights Watch UAE page.

How many of you have actually gone out to the labour camps and seen the conditions, or spent time on Saadiyat and other building sites?

I do. All the time.

I've been to Dubai loads and Abu Dhabi quite a few times. I feel much safer in either of those than in UK. The risk from terrorism is lower and you're also much less likely to be the subject of a random attack, partly because they are so strict about alcohol/drugs. If you want to go, then go (just don't break any local laws!). It's currently safer in UAE than Germany or France, would your DH let you go to those countries?!

thefitfatty me too.

gulfnews.com/news/uae/society/dubai-mums-team-up-to-help-workers-eat-healthy-1.1601670

Teahornet my 'blinkered villa' is right in the heart of old dubai...with all nationalities living together and yes with a large worker population too eg taxi drivers, bus drivers. our neighbours are Emirati/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Indian/Filipino/Brazilian/French...you name it.

we are not blinkered at all, we are fully aware of the country's short-comings. we get involved in the great initiatives to help to change and improve things - a lot more than can be said of people in the uk when i last visited. it was very much an 'i'm alright jack' attitude there.

no country is perfect and at least the UAE recognizes it. as the population is 90% expat, the vast majority of us choose to be here, which i think also influences the feeling of goodwill and support of others.

InTheDessert couldn't agree more.

And this is one of the situations where we're both just words on a screen who could be claiming anything, me as well as you.

For me, one of the significant differences between problems in the UAE and, say the UK (and I don't disagree with you about some of the horrors of poor urban America, incidentally, only my experience is in Detroit) is that there there is active censorship of any press attention to abuses, the detention, torture and confiscation of passports of activists continues, and that the law actually enshrines some of the significant inequalities. And a general use of affluence to mask how autocratic and undemocratic a place it is. I did find it an interesting place to live, because it's so fractured and the state has a stranglehold over the ability to remain of so many of its residents, which leads to a toothless media and a cowed activist culture, and a limited ability to identify with the UAE, or, in my experience, to give a shiny shite about the politics of the place.

Sorry, was directing comment at fatty, rather than to other subsequent posters. Cats, I'm delighted you think initiatives are ongoing to create genuine change, but my impression is that while so many inhabitants are still expat and hence comparatively powerless to effect serious change, these will be plasters on a festering wound. That's certainly how I felt about any things I managed to do while I lived there - anything I did was a temporary alleviation of poor conditions at an individual camp, or at a maid agency.

Sweetie I work in construction. In the Middle East. As an HSE. What do you do?