A personal travel guide to Abu Dhabi

A personal travel guide to Abu Dhabi

Ready for a new start, a new adventure with your new husband, you run to the airport and jump on a plane—except your destination isn’t just some random place on the map for you. You’re taking your new life to your old life: you’re moving to Abu Dhabi.

It may be a sprawling city of soaring skyscrapers and pearlescent mosques, tiptoeing further into the dunes like some ironic human equivalent of desertification, but it’s more than a buzzing metropolis in a sandpit: it’s home.

Stepping off the plane is a step back in time; forget the hundreds of times you’ve done this before, this step, this moment of de-planing, is special. In 1996, your parents took exactly the same step, enjoyed the same split second of ‘wow, we’ve arrived’. They brought you and your sister to a bustling little city in the land of sand and built a home.

22 years later, you’re back. You’re holding your husband’s hand as you step into the unknown known. You’ve known this place as your childhood home, your holiday destination, and now your future: this is where you’ll begin to build your new life and your new family. It’s the same city, with the same vibe, but something feels different—something feels shiny and new, and precious. The streets you know, the places you’ve been and the sights you’ve seen feel rejuvenated—they ooze potential and beckon you with promises of new experiences, of rediscovering your city. Is it having someone to share them with? Is it having a more worldly approach or a more optimistic point of view? Is it that this place is the tributary where your old and new lives intersect, the physical embodiment of embracing everything that’s made you what you are today and letting your past guide your future? Maybe it’s all of these things.

You take your husband to the Grand Mosque, a striking temple to Islamic architecture, culture, history and style. The onion-domes and minarets dominate the skyline, enchanting from the moment you spot it rising majestically from glittering pools and shining marble to stepping inside and feeling the serenity wash over you. You pull your abaya around you, ensure your headscarf is well-placed. You enjoy the symmetry of the pillars and pools, the harmonised colours of the walls and carpet. You admire the calligraphy, the intricacy of the script and the patterns, gaze at the chandeliers, and then marvel at the height of the ceilings. You cross the courtyard and enter the main prayer hall, sinking your toes into the world’s largest loomed carpet. You watch the people wandering around and remember your first visit here: ten years ago you came with a family friend, donned your abaya and joined a small group seated on the carpet underneath a crystal chandelier to learn more about Islam from a charming local man answering questions in a gentle tone. Now, you point out the stylistic highlights to your husband and pose for a selfie with the carpet. As much as you enjoy sharing this experience, you can’t help but feel half in and half out of a culture that is both kind of yours but also really not yours.

You figure the solution to rediscovering your roots is learning more about Abu Dhabi’s history and culture. You spend a day at the Falcon Hospital, uncovering the history of falcon training and hunting, the lifestyles of the Bedouins and forcing life from the sands—the nomadic style of the desert appeals to your peripatetic nature. You stroll through the Heritage Village, examining dhows, peeking into Abu Dhabi’s past and posing with coffee pots. You greet the camel penned up for visitors to ooh and ahh over and lament the fact there are no wild camels left in the UAE; according to a local Emirati you know, all camels belong to somebody. It feels strange that not even the camels have maintained their Bedouinism.

The desert calls your name. You’ve spent many a night, many a day in the desert over the years, rallying and dune-bashing and camping. It’s a smorgasbord of sights and sounds, different coloured sands blending over miles of dunes, impossibly tall piles of the stuff interspersed with the flattest of plains bereft of any sand entirely. You love it out there: the oppressive heat, the glare of the sun on the sand, the wind skimming the tops of the dunes, the utter stillness found once all the car engines have been silenced. You can’t understand why people aren’t too bothered about coming out here, why they prefer the glamping version of a mock-Bedouin campsite too close to the roads to see any real stars. You’re dismayed to discover your new car can’t be taken into the desert—or rather, it couldn’t be recovered from the desert, should your driving confidence be proved hubris. You tell yourself your next car will have tow points.

You realise you’re thinking about your next car. You realise you’re planning to be here a while. You’re building a life; you’re building a home. Your husband comes home from work, he’s a teacher at the same school you attended as a child—you find it extremely weird going for a drink with your old French teacher—and asks if you fancy walking to get a coffee. You pick up your purse, your house key and your lip balm: no different to coffee runs in the UK. Until you step outside, are immediately blinded by the sunshine, and realise you left your sunglasses in your flat on the 62nd floor.