Hello again!
I've not been up to too much that's worth talking about hence the lack of new posts. But here is a small titbit of what im up to away from work;
Weekend camel race: So out here in the desert they race camels rather than horses like back home. Camels are well adapted to long SLOW walks through the desert but shit at frantic high speed pursuits. Personally I was more concerned about staying in bed on my day off but some of the others seemed uber keen for the "cultural" experience and so we headed off to the middle of nowhere to watch the races.
Once we got to the race course it too a little time to work out what was supposed to happen. After standing around in some drizzle pretty similar to that from Scotland we started to hear a lot of car horn beeping in the distance. As the entourage drew nearer we realised they were coaxing a ragged group of camels all exhausted and frothing at the mouth down the final stretch of the race course. As it turned out the Arabs had decided it was easier to build one track 10km long and have the camels run round once than build a 1km track and do 10 laps. This meant that there was some frantic action at the start a long period of nothing then a final burst of excitement again at the end.
The start of the race was defiantly the spectators sport. The way it was organised meant we could take bets on which handler was trampled to death at the start as well as which camel would win overall. What happened was the camels were all pulled begrudgingly, like only camels can truly achieve, to a net that served as the start line. Their handlers then stood in front of the net. On the race track. Idiots.
On the clapper the net shot up and the camels get whipped into action by a "robot jocky". This invention was brought in after the UAE passed a law preventing children from racing the camels. It is simply a box with a motor in it that is attached to a whip or bit of rope. When the net goes up someone must remotely operate the "jocky" and it whirls the rope around whipping the arse of the camels. The best bit is watching the handlers stuck in the middle of the track run for their lives as 30 maddened, grumpy camels spring into action and flail their legs about in a action totally ineffective at propelling them forwards but great at taking out any tardy handlers. As the camels head off into the distance the locals spectate in true UAE style; they all jump into their 4x4's and blast after the camels horns blaring leaving us to wait in the rain till they make it round the ridiculously long track (seriously we couldn't even see the other side!). Great fun.
I've not been up to too much that's worth talking about hence the lack of new posts. But here is a small titbit of what im up to away from work;
Weekend camel race: So out here in the desert they race camels rather than horses like back home. Camels are well adapted to long SLOW walks through the desert but shit at frantic high speed pursuits. Personally I was more concerned about staying in bed on my day off but some of the others seemed uber keen for the "cultural" experience and so we headed off to the middle of nowhere to watch the races.
Once we got to the race course it too a little time to work out what was supposed to happen. After standing around in some drizzle pretty similar to that from Scotland we started to hear a lot of car horn beeping in the distance. As the entourage drew nearer we realised they were coaxing a ragged group of camels all exhausted and frothing at the mouth down the final stretch of the race course. As it turned out the Arabs had decided it was easier to build one track 10km long and have the camels run round once than build a 1km track and do 10 laps. This meant that there was some frantic action at the start a long period of nothing then a final burst of excitement again at the end.
The start of the race was defiantly the spectators sport. The way it was organised meant we could take bets on which handler was trampled to death at the start as well as which camel would win overall. What happened was the camels were all pulled begrudgingly, like only camels can truly achieve, to a net that served as the start line. Their handlers then stood in front of the net. On the race track. Idiots.
On the clapper the net shot up and the camels get whipped into action by a "robot jocky". This invention was brought in after the UAE passed a law preventing children from racing the camels. It is simply a box with a motor in it that is attached to a whip or bit of rope. When the net goes up someone must remotely operate the "jocky" and it whirls the rope around whipping the arse of the camels. The best bit is watching the handlers stuck in the middle of the track run for their lives as 30 maddened, grumpy camels spring into action and flail their legs about in a action totally ineffective at propelling them forwards but great at taking out any tardy handlers. As the camels head off into the distance the locals spectate in true UAE style; they all jump into their 4x4's and blast after the camels horns blaring leaving us to wait in the rain till they make it round the ridiculously long track (seriously we couldn't even see the other side!). Great fun.
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