We didn’t plan to visit the UAE, it wasn’t in our route and to be honest we knew very little about the place save stories about cars of failed bankers abandoned at airports, the world’s tallest building, and sand, but due to floods, a fire and helpful friends we ended up in Dubai, and it turned out to be a highlight of our trip.
Our plan was to drive from our little semi detached rented house in North London to Australia, an idea, like all good ideas, that was conjured up on a napkin whilst out getting a Thai takeaway. Most of you by now will have realized that the UAE is not really on the way to Australia from Europe so let me try and explain: about two years ago my girlfriend, Megan expressed an interest to ‘go down under’ as she put it, and after realising that this was not indeed code for ‘undercover to fight crime’, we started to get very excited about the prospect of driving to Australia. I think it is fair to say I got more excited because this meant that I finally had an excuse to buy a Land Rover and kit it out for an expedition, something I have wanted to do since the age of ten!
After trawling Ebay for months, and even getting side tracked into buying a 1989 MK 2 Golf GTI, something I think we’ve all done, I found my ideal car. It was a 1996 Land Rover Defender with only
230,000 miles on the clock! In Land Rover terms that’s not even broken in. We spent the next year fitting it out and going on trial trips to France and Spain. During this time we replaced a lot of the moving oily bits as they broke; my first gearbox was spread on the autoroute just outside of Calais and there were dark days just before we left when turbos and fuel pumps were replaced. Getting the car ready is only 50% of the battle, the rest is all the paper work that goes along with it. The main bit of paper is the Carnet Du Passage, which is basically a passport for the car and allows the owner to drive the car into different countries. It’s not cheap, in the UK it was about $5000 and that along with all the improvements and repairs to the car the brought the bill final to around $40,000 before we had even traveled one mile. It’s not a cheap way to travel.
We left our jobs in July last year and set off in August, traveling through France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Iran. The first bit through Europe was fairly straight forward, the Land Rover is fitted with a roof tent, a must for any respectable overlander, so we simply camped our way to Asia. Once in Turkey the campsites became a little more spread out and we spent a few nights setting up camp in car parks. By this time the weather had also started to turn cold and although the little tag on our sleeping bags read ‘–5 to +5’ we both started to get very cold, so the warmth of hotels during the last week in Turkey was very welcome.
Iran is where our plans started to change. Iran is a very interesting country and we could write a book on our experiences there but needless to say, we left Iran sometime ago and not a day goes by without a sentence starting with ‘you know when we were in Iran?’, or another favorite ‘ Do you remember in Iran…..?’ Unfortunately half way through Iran we started to have car trouble. It started in Turkey to be fair, with small electrical problems but by the time we had reach Shiraz half the electrics were not working, which meant the radio was not working, which in turn meant that we had to talk to each other! This had to be fixed. There was oil 
leaking out of the turbo, the car’s immobilizer was playing up, there were exhaust pipe problems and we had no temperature gauge. The electrics were the worst, as we had a small fire under the car and there was now just a mass of molten wire. We had tried to get things fixed in Iran, but as Land Rovers are not sold in the country and a duel battery system was not really understood our excursions to garages were fruitless. Coupled with the fact that we could not even get a visa to pass into Pakistan due to the flooding at the time this meant that we had no choice but to turn south to Bandar Abbas and catch the ferry to Sharjah. The ferry alone was a bit of a shock, not exactly 5 star cruising, and instead of the 8 hours it was meant to take I think it took around 14 in all, but we made it and after a couple of hours dealing with the customs formalities we out and driving down the Sheikh Zayed highway. We were both overjoyed at the sight of Subway and McDonalds, something we had missed in the last six weeks or so. I don’t even eat McDonalds but I think my first meal in Dubai was a McChicken sandwich. Megan had some family friends that had very kindly offered to put us up for our time in the UAE and as we drove from Sharjah to Dubai Marina where their flat was our jaws started to drop lower and lower as increasingly tall buildings came into view and the number of Bentleys spotted reached double figures. To call it a culture shock from Iran was an understatement!
It was great having a base in Dubai and we set about trying to get the car fixed, but not before we had a go in the desert of course! Our hosts suggested a jaunt in the desert just outside Dubai and not really having done any ‘proper’ off roading since the UK we jumped at the chance. We met up with some other work colleges of our friends and proceeded into the sand, where we managed to cover about 30 meters before getting stuck! We could still see the road!?! It was all a little embarrassing to say the very least. The Land Rover you see is very heavy, and as I had not had any sand driving experience before I slowed down too much and lost all my momentum, which meant we sank axle deep in soft sand. It took us two hours of digging, swearing, towing and help from a local Emirate to free the car! Once free though I kept my foot down all the way to the BBQ site, and despite the screams from the passenger seat I kept the speed up all the way back to the road in the dark on the way back too!
We stopped on the way back to inflate the tyres and it was here that we had a stroke of luck: whilst in the queue to pay for petrol we met a really nice guy called Gareth, and it turned out that Gareth had a garage which dealt with Land Rovers. He gave us his card and offered to help us fix our many, many issues! The next day we arrived on his doorstep, handed him the car keys and crossed our fingers. We cannot thank Gareth and Jason and all the guys at the a2b garage (www.a2b-garage.com) enough for all their help and advice, it’s not an exaggeration to say that without them our trip would have finished in Dubai.
During the rest of our short time with a working car in the UAE we made sure to visit some of the sites outside of Dubai; we particularly enjoyed Al Ain, we snorkelled off Snoopy Island, and we hopped across the border to Oman for more snorkeling. We also naturally spent a lot of time in shopping malls and at the beach! It was good to relax and have time to plan the Asia part of our trip.
So with the car fixed we made arrangements for getting it shipped to Malaysia, which turned out to be incredible cheap. I think a 40 foot container only cost us around $200, which as shipping goes was damn cheap. In 
comparison the ferry from Iran will set you back around $1000 after all the port fees and paperwork (I think you pay extra for the cockroaches).
We so enjoyed the UAE and all the different landscapes and places to visit, so much so that we intend to return very soon. The weather, culture and sheer open space is such a contrast from the UK, and although we have spent nearly a year traveling, passed through many different countries, and met many different people will still view our time in the UAE as a highlight. Currently we are in Australia and have around two months to go until we have to go back to the UK and earn more money to continue our travels. We are already looking at a stop over in Dubai on the way home…
Published in July 2011
