Selling my baby - Dubai-style

I can’t imagine how I could have been so worried. I mean, I had four days left until my car insurance ran out. OK, so my car registration had expired and so technically speaking I was driving illegally, but that is par for the course in the Emirates, and only attracts a fine of 50 dirhams – or less than $14.

With no residence visa any longer in my passport, I was not able to renew the registration, so my poor baby would have to go.

My alarm went off at 8am. And it was the weekend! That’s how anxious I was. Before I even went to make myself some breakfast I thought I’d post an advert up for my poor baby; then I’d down some cornflakes and coffee, before cleaning her paintwork and readying her to take her over to the Mall of the Emirates where I would put her on display near the RTA car registration compound. 

It didn’t quite work like that.

Everyone who is anyone in the UAE knows that the way to sell things is to put adverts up on dubizzle.com and souq.com. Both web sites advertise for free, presumably to attract visitors in order to attract advertising.

At 8.45 I signed in to dubizzle and entered the vital statistics. Well, that is to say, I entered the information I knew. It asked how many cylinders the engine had and how many horsepower. As if I had ever checked! Sheepishly I ticked the ‘unknown’ boxes, determining to go and check on how many cylinders it had after breakfast.

I hit the ‘publish’ button and then entered the URL for souq.com. But before I had time even to enter the type of car on this second site, my phone started to ring. Have you sold the car yet? I want to buy it. Please take the advert offline and I will meet you in half an hour at the RTA.

Well, that wasn’t bad I thought! In fact how lucky was that timing? The caller sounded anxious to get it all done as soon as possible, and rather than lose a potential customer for the car I agreed to meet him, without even having any breakfast to send me on my way.

At 8.49 I took the advert offline as requested. That meant that it was online for four minutes. And my phone just rang solidly for the next three hours with everyone in Dubai seemingly wanting to buy my little beauty.

I hadn’t even removed all my junk from the inside of the car; hadn’t got round to washing it (there were sand streaks all over and it had a filthy windscreen); I hadn’t dug out my car registration documents or the maintenance record; or anything.

But I managed to get to the RTA at 9.15 and drove the car straight into the test bay area where I was met by Abdul. It was only at that point that I realised I had picked up the wrong file – my insurance file rather than the maintenance file. It doesn’t matter, he said. I’ll still take it.

Would he try to beat me down on the price? No. It appeared his word was his bond. He told me that he was a dealer and that he intended to export the car; as long as it passed its test, he would buy it.

At 9.27 the car was given a clean bill of health. Abdul had a word with one of the Emiratis behind the desk – I could see they knew each other well – and he told me that apart from my 50Dhs fine for late re-registration, I had no fines outstanding.

At 9.29 I was following him down Sheikh Zayed Road in the direction of Karama where we would ‘do the deal’. He drove a beat-up Nissan Tiida while I struggled to follow him as he skipped from lane to lane. We arrived in Karama at 9.45, parked the car in a lock-up garage and then I got into his car.

With no further questions asked, he started counting out a pile of 500Dhs notes, which I gratefully stuffed into my trouser pocket. (I thought of that well-worn joke… Female-to-male: Are you pleased to see me, or is that just a pile of 500Dhs notes in your pocket?)

We took off again in his car to another area in Karama and pulled in to a lay-by which was clearly marked Drop Off Zone Only. We parked and walked into a building where an Emirati was surrounded by piles of cash, piles of car registration documents and piles of Salik top-up cards.

It was here that I finally understood why the phone calls had almost all come from Pakistani-sounding voices. The Emirati obviously had a network of these people to scour the web sites for people about to sell their cars, jump in fast with an offer and then ship the cars out to Europe to make a quick killing. Abdul had already admitted that it didn’t really matter what type of car it was; they were always interested.

At 10.15 the paperwork was all completed, Abdul ‘generously’ said he would deal with the late registration fine and with a shake of the hand, I was out of the door and heading to the metro station. Just 90 minutes after first placing the advert!

An hour and a quarter later I was able to dig in to my cornflakes and coffee and outside in the street was an empty space where my poor beloved baby had been sunning herself for the past few weeks.

My poor baby. We had been through thick and thin together over the last three years. And now I would have to rely on the public transport system – at least until such time as I either got a new residence visa or left the country for pastures new.

Oh, and as a final postscript, I didn’t get asked by a single female on the way home whether I was pleased to see her. I guess that sums up my life right now!

Addendum:

I am grateful to my friend Irene for sending me the following pictures - it reminds me that one can cope perfectly well getting the shopping home without the need for a car...

oh, OK - maybe I don't normally go to Carrefour to bring home the bacon...

... but vegetables - well that's a different matter...

And of course, if I were to get lucky, the journey home could be quite fun as well...

Moving house is no Fun in the UAE

It was a really frustrating week. As my lease was running out on my apartment in Discovery Gardens, and as water periodically poured through the ceilings every time it rained, I thought it was time to move on. I managed to find for myself a brand new apartment in JLT, virtually the same size for AED10,000 cheaper, and so signed on the dotted line.

Now when one moves house one obviously has to have electricity and water working cos otherwise it's a tad inconvenient. So I set off for Dewa (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority). They have offices in various parts of Dubai and I decided to try my luck with the one at Wasel Road, it seeming to be the nearest. Well, it might be the nearest, but it certainly ain't easy to find and I drove round and round in circles having no luck.

Brainwave! Use my GPS! (Oh why didn't I think of that before!) It doesn't list one in Wasel, but I find there is a DEWA near the Trade Centre, and as I am near there by now I drive round and round trying to find somewhere to park. I find somewhere 10 mins walk away and trot back in the midday sun, only to discover that all that is left is a DEWA substation and that the office has migrated to the new premises in Wasel I couldn't originally find.

OK. There's another one near the Creek. I head off there. I find a DEWA power station. And a sign saying Customer Service. Yippee! Sign is old. Customer Service isn't here. Eeppiy! Don't worry sir. Drive around the block and you will find one there. I drive around the block and find a (newer) sign saying customer service. No parking. I drive further round the block and park once more in the power station entrance from where I had just come and walk back.

I take a number, I fill out a form, I hand over a sheaf of documents showing the landlord, the owner, my passport, my ID, the landlord's passport, the trade licence, the rental contract and the company registration form.

Emirati woman shakes her head. Goes to speak to another man and comes back to say I don't have all the documents. You need a Certificate of Good Character for the renter. A what????? Oh he will know. Just go to your landlord and ask for the certificate. I fume. The rental office is the other side of Dubai.

I drive there but can find nowhere nearby to park and have to walk 15 minutes to the office. An Indian woman greets me. She knows what they are talking about, amazingly. You don't need this, she tells me. It is for landlord registrations, not for the person who is renting the apartment. But no worries. If they want it we can give you one.

I head back to DEWA. I present the bigger sheaf to an Emirati guy. Tsk tsk tsk. I am so sorry, he says to me looking anything but sorry. You need a site plan of the apartment. Why? You need one. What on earth for? You need one. I look at the small print. Landlords should supply a site plan, it reads. I am not a landlord. No sir, but how do we know you have rented this apartment from a bona fide real estate office? Err... because it says so on the contract? Oh no sir. The company stamp doesn't specifically say real estate. So you need a site plan.

It is by now 4.30 in the afternoon. I have been playing this stupid game since 10.30. I go back to the real estate office, and the owner comes out to sympathise with me. They are incompetent, he tells me. I can see that, but I still need electricity. We have let 17 apartments in your tower block and no one else has had this problem. That's not much comfort to me.

Owner has a brain wave. Don't go back to this DEWA office but go to Wasel Road office. We always use that one and there are never any problems. I tell him I can't find Wasel DEWA. It's a new building. Everyone has difficulty finding it. Here's a map.

I thank him and with tears in my eyes set off into the sunset. I find Wasel DEWA. I take a number. I wait 11 minutes and then present the bundle of documents I started with 7 hours earlier. Stamp, plonk, plonk, stamp, shukran, 1100 dirhams please. I pay the deposit (I'll inshallah get my deposit for the present apartment back in about two weeks) and am told connection will be within two hours. Bliss. But I am so shattered I cry off my appointments for the evening and decide instead on an early night.

Dawn breaks. Filled with happy thoughts from the previous night I head off to the new apartment. No electricity. No water. It's been 16 hours since I paid the deposit. I try phoning customer service. It rings... and rings.... and rings.... and in the end I find another number listed on the bill marked emergencies. Is this an emergency? I decide it is. I ring the number. It is answered straight away.

Oh tsk tsk tsk sir, so very sorry you do not have a connection. Yes, we always pride ourselves that a connection can be made within two hours. Yes sir, tsk tsk, you should certainly be connected by now. I will lodge a complaint for you. But I don't want a complaint lodged, I just want my electricity switched on. Don't worry sir. It will be switched on before 6pm. I guarantee it. But it's now only 10am. What's with the eight hours delay? I thought you said it would take no more than two hours? Yes sir. Two hours, but I guarantee you will have it before 6pm. His logic works. The electricity comes on at 5.50.

Du (telecom) meanwhile are having staff problems. I go to their main office in Media City and get given a number. And wait,,, and wait,,, and wait.... and finally give up after 45 minutes and head off up to my office for a pow wow and a drink.

I return to Du 30 mins later and find my original number is called five mins after that. This is obviously the way to do business with Du. (I hand my newly given waiting ticket to an attractive lass who was beside herself that she would have to wait over an hour.)

The Du guy is polite - makes a change. (Oh no, Silly me. He's not an Emirati.) He asks when I would like the line moved across. Office hours only I'm afraid. What happens with people who have to work for their living? You must take a day off. I cannot. I am working 12 hour days all this week. Finally he agrees to schedule in an appointment for next Saturday. This means I will have about 2-3 days without telecoms, but as I can use the connection at work until Thursday it means that hopefully I will only have one day without internet. We shake hands and I walk out exhausted.

Moving day arrives. Or rather moving evening arrives. Because I am working in an exhibition every day this week and don’t get back until 8pm, my evenings this week are guaranteed to be full of excitement.

First exciting thing to happen is that Pakistani movers whom I have booked to do the moving fail to turn up. I decide to move the easy stuff like tables and chairs and bookcase, together with box loads of accumulated junk, myself in my trusty Kia Sportage. It may be one of the most boring cars ever built, but at least it gets me and my stuff from A to B. By midnight I am exhausted. It’s up at 6am the next morning too, for this exhibition.

The next evening I decide to move the sofas. The floors in the old apartment block are polished stone, so I am able to slide the three-piece to the lift, where I spend five minutes trying to get it semi-vertically into the lift while the buzzer complaining that the lift doors are jammed open threatens to wake the entire neighbourhood. A similar situation ensues on the ground floor as I attempt to extricate sofa and myself from the jaws of the metal tomb.

I drag the sofa to the rear entrance where there is a ramp. An attractive Filipina in high heels and mini skirt offers to help and I wonder if finally my luck has changed. She holds the door open and watches while a red faced Brit heaves and struggles on his own with a large sofa through the narrow orifice. Maybe my luck hasn’t changed after all…

I squeeze two thirds of the sofa into the back of the Kia and with the tail gate wide open and with warning lights flashing, make my way gingerly to the new apartment block, hoping not to get stopped by the Dubai traffic cops. For once lady luck is on my side. No cops. Not even the sight of the sofa sliding out onto the road behind me.

Half an hour later, after a well deserved can of beer, I repeat the process with the 2-seater sofa. After the previous one it is a piece of cake, even given the fact that no well-healed Filipina is there to watch.

Evening number three is even easier. The fridge can be pushed gently at an angle, given that it has small wheels on its rear side. It leaves a puddle in the back of the Kia, like a dog out of control, but apart from that it moves effortlessly into its new home.

The bed is even easier still. I have an inflatable which plugs into the mains whereby a pump inflates or deflates it to the required hardness. For the first time I try deflating it – button number 2 on the handset – and enjoy lying on it as the mattress collapses all around me. Oh, the little pleasures in life! (What do they say about small boys with small toys?) How many others can lay claim to carrying one’s (double) bed in a small case with one hand?

So finally I am moved in to my new apartment, a stupendous view of a huge building site immediately outside my windows. The hot water in bathroom #2 doesn’t work; the sink in bathroom #1 leaks; and there are only two electric sockets in the entire kitchen. (Hmmm… let me see now… fridge, microwave, toaster, kettle, grill, rice cooker…..)

But life carries on, and finally everything is right with the world ... at least for another year until the lease once again runs out…..

For the love of a Kia

I have to admit to having a love affair with my car. Well, not the actual car itself, you understand as it is, dare I say it, one of those ubiquitous grey boxes churned out by the Kia Motor Company and which sells to cheapos like me who drive their wives crazy by trying to save a few dirhams on the cost of a new car.

She (her indoors, the boss, my better half – call her what you will) thought she had cured me of this terrible affliction when we went from the sublime to the ridiculous many years ago.

I had been the proud owner of a Fiat 124 Sports car, paid for after a windfall payout for some work I had thrown together back in the heady ’70s. It was classy; it was fun; it was even (on occasion) a babe magnet. It was my pride and joy until the day the garage forgot to tighten up the oil sump screw and I became the proud owner of a pile of twisted metal.

Distraught – nay, devastated – I determined never to fall in love again (with my car that is) and plumped for an economical motor which wouldn’t blanche at the ever increasing price of petrol, following Sheikh Yamani’s OPEC price hike. And I found one. A car that most of my contemporaries have never heard of, even to this day.

It was a Honda 360. Sure, it was small, but it actually boasted a rear seat which, we later found out, was more in the spirit of hope over expediency. It sounded like a sewing machine running in overdrive which, it turned out, was not far off the mark. My wife took one look as I drove it up the garage path and almost exploded; which was nothing compared to the time I tried to manoeuvre up a steep hill which the 360cc engine had great difficulty in coping with until she-who-must-be-obeyed had to get out and walk, with the promise that I would meet her at the top of the hill… if the car ever made it. (It did!)

Fast forward 30-odd years and I find myself in Saudi Arabia looking for a cheap set of wheels. My criteria were simple. It had to be four wheel drive to cope with desert conditions; it had to have A/C; and it had to be “affordable” (or, in wife-speak: cheap). A Jeep Grand Cherokee with sumptuous black leather seats and dominating everything else in the car park around it called out Buy me! Buy me! siren-like as I kicked its tyres (why do people do that???), admired myself in the rear view mirror and finally parted with some well-earned cash to a Saudi gentleman who appeared well resigned to the fact that I had used my well-honed bargaining skills to beat him down by a large percentage of his original asking price.

Within a month I was cursing the Jeep in language that I had previously used for my Honda. Certainly it was a monster on petrol, but given the fact that I could fill its entire cavernous tank for around SR25 (except when I drove it across the border into the UAE where the price suddenly shot up three-fold) this wasn’t too much of a problem. The continuous drifting to the right caused by badly adjusted wheel bearings was easily corrected by sitting hunched up against the door. And the steady drip drip drip of oil, which marked out the territory canine-like around my apartment was something I learned to live with. More problematic was the ever-present scrunching noise that occurred whenever I had the temerity to change up to fifth gear, and the suspension which felt as if I was driving a sofa down the King Fahd Highway.

One day, I decided to drive the 1,000 kms from Riyadh to Dubai across a corner of the Empty Quarter via the southern route through Al Kharj, rather than the well worn Dammam Road. It’s a beautiful drive on the Saudi side, through rolling dunes kept at bay by an army of workers from the sub continent spraying black oil onto the ever shifting sands. I would catch myself laughing out loud whenever I caught sight of one of the many signs that admonished the driver that there were sand dunes on either side of him…. Just in case he hadn’t noticed!

Another of my favourite signs awaited me as I drove through the farther reaches of Abu Dhabi. “Beware of Road Surprises” it read. I have always assumed this to mean “Be prepared for the unexpected”; but I always wonder who it was that thought it up; and further, why no one had the temerity to question it before it went into mass production wherever it is they make these signs.

On this particular run, I blew a tyre some 100kms from the Saudi/Emirates border; my battery went dead when I parked over night in Dubai and a sudden sand storm on the return journey frosted out my headlights to the point where it was almost impossible to drive at night time. I also had to top up the oil in four different garages on the way home. Beware of road surprises? I’ll say!

I got rid of the American monster soon after that and began my love affair with Korean boxes on wheels.

They may look boring, have zero sex appeal and struggle to reach 120 in under half a minute… but, by golly, they are certainly cheap.