Hi NewfieScreech & dxbjeep,

Wow, you guys really blow my mind! I just had to reply to your posts.

When I think of life in the UAE I think of the Doctor Samuel Johnson quote about London: “When you are tired of London you are tired of life for London has all that Life can afford!”

Man I guess it just goes to show you that there are horses for courses because for this Canuk life in the UAE is anything but boring.

What ever you are into or what ever you want to get into you can find a club or some mates in the UAE that are into it.

Paragliding, sky diving, spear and sport fishing, martial arts, fencing, shooting, get your pilot license and anything else you can think of is all at your finger tips.

You can go shoot 9mm any day of the week at the Abu Dhabi Officers Club. In Dubai go to the Jebel Ali Shooting Club and if you time it right you can shoot a couple rounds with the current Olympic trap champ Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed bin Hasher Al Maktoum. I haven't been there for a couple years but at the Ajman Shooting Club you could shoot full auto AKs and M-16s.

One of my local friends is a big time falcon guy and you can get into falcon hunting if that tickles your fancy. Another local friend has a stable of a dozen racing camels and you can go out and bomb around on the dunes with them if the Jeep dune bashing gets boring.

I am a huge scuba diving fan and I might have started diving back in Canada in the freaking cold great lakes but today I dive in the warm beautiful Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf.

If you want great diving and off road rock action why don’t you go explore Fujairah and the Musandum Peninsula?

I try to dive in the Straits of Hormuz every chance I get and there are literally dozens of rock wadi trails to explore in the mountains of Fujairah. Hey Hormuz is the one place where you have a chance of seeing a nuclear sub trying to sneak into the Gulf.

As for off roading if Dubai is boring why not check out the Empty Quarter?

It is easy to do Liwa Oasis on a weekend trip out of Dubai. Once you have seen the biggest dunes in the world in Liwa you won’t ever call off roading in the UAE boring again.

A good trip for the Dubai crowd is to go to Al-Ain and then go off road through the Empty Quarter to Liwa Oasis. It is one day over night camping in the desert and the best dune bashing on the planet.

Also check out going to Liwa Oasis and then driving through the desert to Ruwais on the coast. Check into the hotel in Ruwais and then go on Safari to Bani Yas Island. Sheikh Zayed spent literally billions of dollars stocking Bani Yas Island with thousands of endangered animals. There are herds of hundreds of Arabian Oryx on Bani Yas Island.

Do you guys check out the golf or tennis tournaments in Dubai? I was able to follow Tiger Woods around for his whole round and 90% of the time was within 20 feet of him. Try doing that at a US tournament with 30,000 other Tiger Woods fans.

Are you guys coming to the Abu Dhabi Formula One race in November? There isn’t a bad seat on the entire race course. Try going to a F1 race in Europe or the Far East and you will have fun but it is with 200,000 other race fans.

The other great thing about the UAE is it is so easy to get to incredibly cool places. If you want a change of diving scene just hop on the plane and in a few hours you can be in the Maldives or Sharm el Sheikh. If you want to climb the pyramids Cairo is three hours away by plane. Want to bungee jump off Victoria Falls Bridge or go on Safari and sub Sahara Africa is within easy reach. India, Thailand, Malaysia etc are easy to do.

If you want to ski just hop on the plane and in a couple hours you are in Tehran for a quick drive north to Dizin or the more hip Shemshak and hit the slopes. The religious police nutters don’t know how to ski and Iranian women are some of the most beautiful and approachable women you will ever meet anywhere on earth. They are dying to practice their English with a native English speaker and will flirt their little hearts out to do so. And the skiing isn’t the heli skiing in the Bugaboos but its still very good.

And last but not least closer to home in the UAE there are literally thousands of single women here far from their families, neglected and lonely, working as teachers, nurses, in retail stores etc just hanging around looking for someone to buy them dinner. Don’t you have three thousand airline stewardess in Dubai living or on over night lay overs crusing around any night of the week? All we have in Abu Dhabi is a thousand Etihad girls!

You know guys it sounds to me like you are just homesick for old friends and family and I have no cure for that but every thing else is here in spades.

And almost forgot; I haven’t filled out an income tax return in 14 years. If you are smart with your money with no income tax and no investment tax on your savings this is one place where a wage slave can make himself rich.

BTW check out the Abu Dhabi 4x4 club page:http://www.ad4x4.com/club/

All the best,

Warmest Regards, Liwa Oasis