Words By: Jalal Bin Thaneya
I can remember the day I said that I would cycle across the GCC, an alliance of the six Gulf states. It was right before the start of Ramadan and I remember very clearly that I did not own a bicycle.
A few days later, I managed to salvage a friend’s aluminium framed bicycle and it was the real start of a journey that would change the way I looked at things for good. No one had cycled around the GCC before and being the first to attempt such a feat was going to carry a lot of weight on my shoulders. I was used to this since I had conducted other challenges in the past.
After a few months, I found myself with two volunteers on the Nad Al Sheba cycling track, we were preparing to tackle the roads that connected Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Lots of questions ran through my mind especially since I had never cycled such a long distance before in my life.
My training sessions consisted of 60km per day and the feat I was attempting required 150km per day to be on the bike is I were to complete the journey in under 30 days. Finding a cause was challenging as I always have to find someone new to the field or is in need of more awareness. I found the Al Jalila Foundation and became aware of a cause perfect for the journey and they accepted my offer when I paid them a visit to their office in Dubai Health Care City. The journey of cycling 5,000km around the GCC was to raise awareness for children with special needs and the Al Jalila Foundation supports the efforts of advancing this cause.
The main challenge started on the first day while I was attempting to cycle on Oman’s highway which led up to the UAE. The police stopped us and said that we didn’t have permission to continue. This came as the first in a series of challenges we would face on our way through the GCC. A few hours later the Omani authorities realised we had applied for permission months in advance and escorted us through the mountainous region that led up to the boarder. It was a tough two days wherein the first had us dealing with slow bureaucracies and the second dealing with the difficulty of elevated roads that also twisted and descended as I tackled hostile terrain.
Entering the UAE, I cycled to Abu Dhabi I made a stop at the Zayed Grand Mosque. I had to cycle on the pavements in Al Ain to avoid the numerous roundabouts. The UAE authorities didn’t provide us with a police escort like Oman had done previously. After two days I reached the Ghuwaifat border; the desert highway was harsh, mixed with industrial bitterness and weather conditions which were certainly very moody and tough on the mind and body. Truck drivers were relentless sometimes falling asleep on the wheel; this was an issue as they would sometimes swing very close to me as I cycled on the highway towards the border.
A day before we reached the KSA-UAE border a member of our team had given up and decided to return home. The dilemma that we had to face after this was due to the fact that the car that we had rented was under his name.
Crossing through the border into Saudi Arabia, I felt the road break under me. Since my bike was made out of composite, you could feel a stone the size of a pebble. It was a neglected road which led to the Qatari boarder. The border at Qatar was congested when I arrived there after a day and a half. The road which is taken from Ghuwaifat (UAE) to Qatar is a tough and barren slab of cement in the middle of the difficult desert. I remember my father saying, “Not everyone would be comfortable doing this.”
In Qatar, I cycled through interchanges and roundabouts that ran across roads to reach the corniche before finally meeting with UAE embassy officials. Then I pedaled to my friends, who operate a blind and deaf centre.
A day later, I made my way out of Qatar but not before dealing with two flat tyres. The next destination would be Bahrain. It took me two days to reach Bahrain and I had to battle through an industrial area, with limited food as well as dealing with strange security officials who would visit us in the middle of the desert to ask us strange questions.
Crossing the bridge that leads into Bahrain – which I would say was one of the more dramatic aspects of the journey – we crossed the King Fahad causeway with a police escort into Bahrain and out the next day back into Saudi Arabia. There I would make my way to Kuwait 400km upwards.
I had to handle another flat tyre in Kuwait as a police car that was escorting me and protecting my rear hit me by accident. Luckily, the frame was untouched but the tyre had to be replaced completely.
These incidents during the journey worried me as I had limited replacement supplies for the bike and there were not a lot of specialised stores that deal with spares relating to my bike.
After Kuwait, I made my way to the city of Riyadh – a difficult place to navigate through as it is roughly the size of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah emirates put together. I remember the police stopping me on the outskirts of Riyadh and when I also tried to leave Riyadh toward Medina region, the police stopped us again, this time telling me that I had no permission to move. The UAE diplomatic mission in Riyadh quickly intervened and liaised with the Saudi ministry of interior to allow us to continue the journey.
Sleeping on the road and camping along the desert highway allowed me to reflect on the harshness of what my people in the olden times have gone through before the discovery of oil in this place. There was always little or no luxury while I was cycling almost 8-12 hours a day, most of the time without access to running water.
Mentally, the journey would sometimes be stressful as most of the time was spent in the dark, people would often ridicule me on the road but there were many times when people praised the feat, they were happy to see someone from the region doing something for a special cause. As my final days on the road approached I would make my way through the Medina region, climbing up through steep mountains, navigating through dark roads and avoiding cars that drove on this vast and open space.
On the last day, I cycled 210km after eating a cereal bar and a handful of dates. I ended my journey of 5,000km at the heart of Jeddah city.
I would like to thank the Al Jalila Foundation for allowing me to spread awareness for their Ta’alouf (which means harmony in Arabic) program which seems to empower parents with children who have special needs. DP World for providing me with logistics, Gulf News for my blog, Emirates Islamic Bank for funding my equipment, Watani for their social media effort to back the journey and all the great people who went on Instagram and Twitter to support me while I updated my journey in real time.
