Journals of a Hotel Manager

Well, I am actually near the Oman border in a small desert oasis called Al Ain.  There are so many vacation days outstanding in my calendar that I need to take and with hotel occupancy hovering at around 50%, I think I deserve a few days away from the rock.

I worked in Dubai some years ago when Dubai was just starting to wake up to the new money.  Today Dubai is an exact copy of Las Vegas in my opinion, only bigger and louder without the topless shows.  Throughout the years I have visited Dubai regularly on business trips and seen the tremendous changes.  Let’s just say you could not even pay me to come to Dubai to spend my R&R.

Al Ain is about 90 minutes drive from Dubai and has a totally different feel to it.  It has palm fringed boulevards with a low mountain range on the horizon.  There are no horrific traffic jams or shiny skyscrapers that tickled the sky.  The air is cleaner and the sky bluer.  Hence the destination is popular with expats who live in the hustle and bustle of Dubai as well as for travelers who are looking for a more authentic desert oasis experience than on fake ski slopes or on beaches under the shadow of incessant construction sites.

The hotel I am staying at happens to be the hotel chain I worked for in Dubai all those years ago.  The newly appointed GM used to work at the same hotel so he cut me a pretty good deal.  It’s just my first day here and the temperature in the desert in January is surprisingly cool, especially at night.

The smell of shisha, the taste of a succulent lamb kebab, and the distant evening prayer calls brings back many memories.  Let’s see if I will recuperate enough in the coming few days to recall some of the crazy stories of living in Dubai.