I had several comments saying "go for it, ask away" and other" I dare you" statements.
My courage was not strong enough to lead me to approach a total stranger with no prior introduction so I waited for an opportune moment. That time came not once but twice. Once in Al Ain, UAE and another in Muscat, Oman.
After spending one night in Abu Dhabi we left for Al Ain, the second largest city in UAE on the border of Oman, by way of a desert safari and camping excursion. Ryan will share that story with you. All I will say is that it was "totally awesome!"
Our second day in Al Ain found us visiting an old fort that was a short walk from our hotel. Upon entering we were invited by staff to sit and have a cup of Arabic coffee and dates. We gladly obliged. We sat down and being polite, greeted a local Emirati (he was wearing the traditional dress all men wear proudly everyday) and his friend from Ecuador. Robert and I expected the greeting to be the extent of our conversation. Not so.
Robert began chatting with Wasel (Emerati) and I conversed with Omar (Ecuador). Robert chatted about world economics in relations to our journey and Omar and I volleyed our conversation between his life and our adventure. Turns out they are both quite accomplished artists.
Since Wasel was born and raised in Al Ain he was wealth of information about all things Al Ain, UAE and Arab. He and Omar took us on a personal tour of the fort's exhibit and offered to take us around town afterwards. We gladly accepted. Half of us piled into Omar's car and the other half in a taxi.
First stop, lunch at a traditional Arab restaurant where we ate with our right hand only, the left is considered "dirty" and upstairs in the women and family section, not downstairs with the men. We had biryani rice served on a huge platter in front of us, lamb and some sort of salsa looking condiment.
Wasel handed us each a hunk of lamb on the bone. He instructed us to pull a piece off the bone, place it on top of the rice then pour a spoonful of the Arab salsa on top. He demonstrated proper technique of picking up the entire morsel, squeezing it in your right hand until it forms something that looks like a small ball. Once the perfectly formed bite sized ball was cradled in his palm he pushed it to the tips of his fingers using his thumb and slid it into his mouth gracefully.
Now our turn. I cannot use words like proper, perfect, cradled and graceful to describe your attempt at eating Arab style. We tried our best but with messy fingers, rice and lamb spilling to the table and pieces of rice on our face you could tell we were novices. The more we ate the bigger the mess. Practice did not make perfect for our lunch. And my guess would be if we continued to perfect this traditional eating stlye on the rest of our trip, say in well-mannered France, we would be met with repulsive looks.
After laughing our way through lunch they offered to take us to the local Souk. Perfumes, incense, fabrics, handicrafts and more is what we found. We were thankful to have a "local" to give insight. The perfumes and incense are like nothing else in the world. I could smell Arab insence everyday which is more than I can say about the Asian insence.
Upon leaving the souk Wasel asked if we wanted to stop for cocktails before dinner. We were a bit surprised at the offer since we knew he would not drink being Muslim and all. Turns out "cocktails" is the term used for a fruit drink, smoothie or other sweet beverage before dinner. We were having so much fun that we accepted this invitation too and ended up having dinner together to end the evening.
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| Wasel's gift to Ryan. Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. |
Omar and Wasel escorted us back to our hotel and we said our goodbyes, thanked them for a wonderful day, promised to keep in touch, took group photos and extended an open invitation to Alaska.
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| The whole gang! |
I can't forget the real taste of Laban and beautiful scenery of jebel hafeet and Dates ........
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