My Adventures to Liwa Oasis
Chapter 1: Introduction (Emotions with a Jacket)
It was about 1:15 PM on a lazy afternoon. We had had a very lucky five-day stretch of vacations and I had decided I was going to go all road-tripping on the bike. But then the safer, wiser me decided against a five-day marathon since I didn’t really have the cash to support myself in case my bike failed me and I had no other form of transportation.
So on the fourth of those five days, whilst sitting at home, I realized that it SUCKS! I mean, I had just killed four days without having me a little adventure.
I then remembered a place called Liwa Oasis somewhere near Abu Dhabi. I quickly Google-mapped it and charted out my route and how I was planning to head there.
Here was the plan: I would ride up to Liwa, reach in about four hours, or so I assumed, and then spend the entire day with just me and the oasis. Or at least how I envisioned the oasis to be. And the next morning I would ride back happy that I had had my little adventure.
So I began packing my bag: the usuals, nothing fancy. Two kuffiyes, a big knife, matchsticks, a torch and some other “survival” stuff. I can’t really remember the stuff.
You know, I didn’t want to have to cut my hand with a pen knife like in the movie 127 Hours, just in case I got stuck somewhere.
Oh, I forgot to mention: I had decided to write about it when I had come back but never got the chance. It was actually so intricate. There were so many emotions I had felt at that time, so many thoughts, feelings, victories, fears that arose during those 13 hours, that deciding to write about it was in itself a fear.
I didn’t want to do the trip an injustice.
So I never did write about it, thinking it’s better left as part of my subconscious memory.
The reason I did start to write about it was because I remember seeing a map of the journey I had charted out after I had reached home and, for a weird reason, I reminisced about it. Then I thought to myself, that was a f’ing brave journey and, well, decided to write about it.
And I had already given it enough time to sink and be a part of me in the way I want it to be that no amount of bad writing can mess with the core of it.
Now here’s the catch. I knew it was cold. I just didn’t realize that when you are out deep into the desert it will be DESERT COLD. So all I did was wear my Fila jacket.
Ok, and here’s another funny thing to take into consideration, and how this was going to be an emotional trip for me. I had two other very good jackets, both much warmer, much more practical and better for such uncharted adventure trips. But I decided to go with my eight-year-old, thin, tattered windcheater.
And here’s how I reasoned, or hardly reasoned, with myself:
If I die, I would want to be with my old buddy.
Yes, to me, my stuff holds more emotional importance than people.
Moreover I thought: he deserves to be on this trip. It was unfair to leave him behind, so to speak.
And off I began on my trip.
The trick of the trip wasn’t just to ride all the way to Liwa. The trick was to do so without engine failure. And without spending a lot of money. And without getting stuck somewhere without petrol. And without having a flat tire.
Now you may think: ah, those are just one in a thousand risks.
The scary bit was I knew VERY DAMN well it was one in ten!
My motorcycle had been a bit weary those days and I had had a few flat tires in a span of just two weeks. I had second-hand tires whose condition I only hoped was good. I do have a knack of always running out of fuel in the most absurd of places. And I wasn’t too sure about the electronics on the bike. Ok, to be frank, the engine block was the most stable of them. Honda knows how to make immortal engines.
And it’s not like you would find a tire-repair shop on your way if you did get a flat tire. Here in the UAE it’s ALL ABOUT CARS. The only people who ride bikes are pizza deliveries and rich 40-year-olds who always dreamt of owning a Harley, and so they own the newest Harleys. Almost like cars but on two wheels!
Well anyway, the risks were real. Very f’ing real. The way I decided to avert them was to ride at a constant speed of 110 kmph, not to do anything stupid, and well, constantly pray to Allah that I don’t get stuck!
It was really a spiritual connection. I have said that before: riding a motorcycle gets you so much closer to Allah. You know then, at the time of riding, that you have no options but to be, in atheistical terms, lucky and, in religious terms, hopeful.
But to even think it’s just luck that gets you alive and back home at the end of a ride is a bit naive.
Because if probability was science, you’d be dead by now.
So anyway, as I started riding on Emirates Road it began to rain and, well, humor is always a part of an adventure. I laughed and smirked and then thought to myself: I can literally ride away from the rain if I just ride fast enough.
And I did.
As I reached closer to the end of Emirates Road, which connects with the SZR to Abu Dhabi, the rain was left behind! I did, of course, almost skid on some gravel and realized that was a STUPID MOVE. I usually have a count of how many stupid mistakes I can make during a period of time before it’s time for me to DIE!!!
In this trip I had set the number to seven.
Ok, so I forgot to mention something very interesting. I was carrying spare fuel with me because I knew once I hit the desert’s inways it would be more than 150 km before I found fuel, and so I needed the extra fuel. I had tied it to my back seat with a kuffiye, and that was another thing I had to constantly take care of: it not falling down!
So far these were just silly details. The thing is, those things aren’t really important and aren’t really about the trip I had. It was like just setting the tone for the journey. I could’ve easily written all of that in a few lines:
- Constantly ensuring the bike isn’t getting hot.
- Constantly ensuring my tires have the right pressure.
- Constantly ensuring my petrol spare tank is taut and not slipping.
- Constantly ensuring my fuel isn’t running out on me.
- Not riding reckless.
- Sit comfortable.
- Hydrate myself.
- Think pretty thoughts.
But hell, I will keep everything I wrote.
Once I had crossed Abu Dhabi and was clearly getting away from civilization, I had to make a choice. I had lost my way a few times and so rode an extra hour just to get back on route.
Either I call it a day and go back home. Life would be simple. It would have been a nice ride to the “outskirts” of Abu Dhabi, yada yada yada. Or continue to Liwa.
I had no idea how far it would be, what the terrain would be like, whether I would find any fuel, food supplies, or whether I would get stuck with my bike.
It doesn’t really take MUCH to make such decisions when your adventurous spirits are riding high! With the speed of decision of a guy dodging a bullet, I continued on.
I will be doing injustice to say that once I entered that one particular road, Highway E45, I felt a sense of “excitement” and “elation” and a “high.”
No, it’s more than those three words.
I did laugh out real hard, cliched the f out of myself with things like, “Liwa here I come,” and “To adventure,” and shit like “Shadow and Omar riding on a road, L.. I .. W .. A… shit shit shit…”
You usually say the stupidest of things. It doesn’t really matter.
But it’s that moment when you have gambled EVERYTHING IN for the big win.
That’s really the feeling.
But you’re gambling your life, so to speak. Not money. The stakes were: I might lose my bike, to an accident or failure, I might lose myself, I might get stuck real bad for many days, and so on and so forth!
But you don’t really think about all the things you’re about to lose. They’re there as part of your sub-sub-subconscience. You know those are the risks. You know the risks are what is making you so elated. But it’s the prize that is even more exciting.
To have gone to Liwa via a road very, very less traveled and on a risk-prone motorcycle. Combine all of those, make a curry out of them, you get the idea.
Chapter 2: E45 Is an Arcade Video Game Setting
As soon as I entered E45, everything changed. The road suddenly narrowed down from a six-lane highway to a two-lane one. On both sides was the expanse of the desert. Shrubs, camels, desert, desert, desert. There were no more markings on the road. Where this road was headed toward was only my wild guess. I only assumed it’s the right one!
After about 20 km of travel on the road, I began to realize something very odd and creepy. Not only that there were no cars or people anywhere to be seen, no petrol stations or small shops or civilization in general. But the road markings, the speed indicators, the divisions for the lanes, the regular, consistent exits to dead ends, and every 10 km there were two garbage cans.
Who uses them! I have no idea!
But the creepy bit is this: take five kilometers of a road, copy it and paste it for the next 150 km or so!
Now you know what I mean by an arcade video game setting. The road kept repeating itself. The more you traveled, the more you felt you’re getting nowhere!
Was I stuck in one of those video games where your time just keeps running out and you’ve entered the wrong door and suddenly you’re stuck all the way till your time ends?
The graver concerns were as follows:
But if this is going to repeat endlessly, I will run out of fuel!
The sun has disappeared now and there are NO STREET LIGHTS!!!
Once it got dark, I realized a fear within me. The only thing I could hear was my motorcycle and a screaming wind. It was flowing through my helmet and the sound was nothing less than a very scary setting. The desert’s sand dunes suddenly shape-shifted to look like big monsters!
The moonlight and the starlit sky were my only respite! I would look up every now and then to assume the direction in which I was headed and to look for some hope! And so I rode on!
There are always such moments during travels to unknown destinations, where you find yourself on a never-ending road that leads you nowhere. The surroundings are beautiful but you can’t quite enjoy them. A fear looms. A tired body gets to you but you keep going, not with a state of aspiration or thrill, but a mix of hopelessness, hopefulness, dazed and foggy judgment and just fatigue.
And it started to get a bit cold, but enough that I could handle.
FOR NOW! :)
Just when I thought this was a dream and I needed to wake up to get out of this arcade setting of garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit, and then REPEAT for more than 25 times, the road suddenly changed!
If you really want to get a feel of it, imagine sitting on a bike. Your butt is tired from more than six hours of travel already. Straight out six hours! And this is now what you see/read:
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Garbage cans, a camera, a sign that says “Caution: Sand ahead”, desert, a dead-end exit…
Just looking at it makes you dizzy. Imagine having to go through it! :)
The surreal setting ends and I take an exit now to what looks like a mining town. I can’t remember the name of this little town but at least I found a petrol station. I was so close to running out.
I got petrol filled and then found me a small mosque where I would pray. And the good part was when I ate at a local Pakistani dhaba. Literally, a dhaba.
For the non-Indians: a dhaba is an on-road small makeshift restaurant usually made for truck drivers and travelers.
I was so cold and so tired and so scared and so… many things that I was pleased to see people. Food. Yummy food! Well actually, anything can taste yummy when you’re that hungry and that cold.
I relaxed in that place for about one hour. It was about 8 PM by now. Afterwards, I asked around to see if I was headed in the right direction, and indeed I was. I was told by some that it’s about 80 km out, and so I realized I had another one hour of travel to do.
And I set out!
If you think the arcade game is over, think again.
But this time, it was more hopeful. The road suddenly changed to a wavy road, and there was so much greenery on both ends! I mean this is a desert. But you know what they say about oasis… :P
The 80 km were dotted with farms on both ends with the same creepy night, no street lights. But at least I knew I would get some sort of help/support/assistance lest something should happen from the farms around me. They did look populated.
The road was really wavy. I can’t really describe it. Imagine a sine wave. Exactly like that. Constant sine wave. But it was like a 500-meter uphill, then 500-meter down, then 500 meters up again, and so on. And the cool part of it was that it was real steep, so whilst going up, you can’t really see what’s on the other side. And you’re always wondering: am I suddenly going to see water? Am I going to see something new? What’s going on!!!
You know. Nice fun feeling.
It started to get really cold now but I was very energetic, excited, just had had awesome dinner, so things were good!
And after the 80 km I did finally reach my destination.
Liwa fuckin’ Oasis.
It was another 3 km of upward climb. At almost 60 to 70 degrees. It was exciting in its own right. I thought this was awesome as one final fear to climb. And I could tell Shadow was thrilled to be doing the climb. It reminded me of my trip that I want to make to Al Ain’s mountain, Jabal Hafeet.
Now… here here here here here… here’s where Liwa Oasis and my decision to wanna stay overnight ends!
So… what I thought was going to be a romantic evening between me, the palm trees, water, fallen dates and Shadow, with NO ONE around us but the oasis, ends!
The oasis was taken over by Liwa Oasis Hotel.
Imagine this.
One of the most beautiful pieces of nature in the middle of the desert, sunk between very high sand dunes, a beautiful land of water, with palm trees all around, which sprung up naturally, a respite for the desert travelers of olden times, the source of fresh drinking water and fertile land for Bani Yas, the reason why the UAE is the UAE. You take that beautiful setting and build around it…
A HOTEL.
A five-star shitty piece of fuckin’ hotel.
Excuse my language. But that’s exactly how I felt.
And the disgusting number of high-profile vehicles that were there. Stupid shiny vehicles of all kinds.
Yukk. I had to get the hell from there instantly.
I did decide to go into the hotel just to see how much worse it could get.
It got worse.
I rested for a while and came out from there to head back home.
Just imagine. I traveled more than seven hours to a destination and I couldn’t spend more than 10 minutes there!
Chapter 3: The Ride Back (or, How I Screamed My Way to Life)
As I started heading back, again on the wavy road, I was a bit sad but then I enjoyed the journey. My reserve petrol tank fell down a number of times and I had to stop, run on the open highway with my helmet, pick it up and tie it back on.
It was funny moments.
I also realized why there were two petrol tanks, a 5 dirham one and a 35 dirham one. And I was grateful to have chosen the 35 dirham one. It was real STURDY!
Anyway, I reached back to that mosque where I had made a pit stop to decide to eat something more on the way. It was 10 PM and everything was closed down. Thankfully I found a small grocery store and I gorged on biscuits and soda.
Chapter 3.1: A Silent Conversation
While I was sitting at the edge of the mosque, an old tattered mosque whose base was almost torn up and you could feel your legs sinking in the perfaboard, an interesting thing happened.
I had just finished praying the night prayer and there were a few men who were sleeping out in the porch of the mosque. I suppose they didn’t have no other place to be. So I was being cautious to not munch too loud on the chips and biscuits lest I wake them up.
I am sure you can envision this with me.
Imagine a very low-key, old, quiet town, a mining town as in this case, that sleeps at 10 PM with sparse population and nothing that connects it except maybe the every-once-in-a-month truck or bus that comes with goods. And now imagine that someone wants to go to the main city for his trip back home. They don’t have cars or bikes or any sort of transportation. It’s not like there are taxis, or metros, or trains, so the only way is via a bus.
Now imagine a bus just arrives at about that time. It comes in with a small sound of screeching brakes and stops with a thud. Then you hear the hissing of the air that gets released from applying brakes. Sudden silence for a few seconds. Then you see the door open. Not those automatic doors. A simple door. You hear the hinge, rusted from years of operation, open. And a few more moments of silence. The bus is almost empty except for a few passengers. Each one is worn out, tired.
And a man comes down.
There’s no one he should say bye to. No one to receive him. It was different when he must have left his hometown back somewhere in Pakistan or Bangladesh or India. His entire clan must have ridden with him to the airport to see him off.
Now he comes alone.
Back to this sullen dead town.
And he crosses the road, bored, tired and indifferent to anything. And for a strange reason, he takes a seat at the same edge of the mosque where I was sitting.
I look at him, give a smile and offer him biscuits. He looks bewildered. Looks at the motorcycle and looks back at me. I knew he asked me: is that yours. I nodded. He smiled.
We haven’t yet said a word.
I stop eating. And I look at him to tell him he can have the biscuits if he likes. He ignores my question.
For more than 20 minutes we both sit beside each other, neither of us saying a word. I am usually a very talkative person. I love to ask questions, find out where the person is from, what they do, etc. But for a very strange reason I had decided against it.
The silence was way too nice to mess up.
You could hear crickets, a slow wind and the nothingness just fill everything up! I was in fact very reluctant to start the motorcycle just so I don’t mess with the silence.
The man decided to leave 20 minutes later, looked at me and said, “Merko sone jaana hain” (I need to go sleep). I said, “Theek hain, Salam Alaikum.” He replied with a smile, then asked me whether I’m going to go somewhere on the bike. But he asked me in a way I understood, but no word was spoken.
I said yes, by nodding. He indicated to me I should be safe. I said I would. He went.
I finished the remainder of the biscuits and I thought the following:
I have absolutely no idea how any amount of creative writing can capture this moment.
And it couldn’t. All I did now was describe what happened. But the way both of us let information flow in the silence is something that can only be felt. Not written about!
Chapter 3.2: From the Sweet Silence to Loud Screams!
I mounted the motorcycle and pushed it a bit away from the sleeping men in the mosque lest I wake them up. Last thing I want is someone cursing me because I broke his sweet dream with Lilith… :P
I immediately entered into the E45 highway. The arcade game road!
But this time it was different. It wasn’t an interesting, oh, it’s like a game feeling. It had gotten really cold. My nipples were almost falling off. My fingers were frozen. My Fila jacket was now just an emotional covering on me. It couldn’t really shield the cold, strong wind blowing across the desert.
What I was able to see of sand dunes and shrubs and bushes and camels on my onward journey now just went invisible in the pitch of dark. It was a black night. The moon was lost in the heavy clouds. It could rain if it had to. Thankfully it didn’t rain.
And I was worn out.
I was riding the bike since 2 PM and it was now 10 PM. I knew I had five more hours to go!
I knew this road never ends!
There were random vehicles that were either sometimes overtaking me or coming from the other side. Every time a vehicle started to approach, the black nothingness surrounding me would suddenly get life. I would catch a glimpse of a dune I had spotted earlier or a tree or some vague road marking. And then it would go away.
I was so cold, so tired and so sleepy. Weariness and drowsiness were taking over me. I knew there was ONLY one way to keep myself from getting tired.
And so… the cycle began.
To warm myself, I would scream my lungs out.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
I would swear and curse and then get tired of it. It would give me a bit of warmth. Some more energy.
Imagine those shake-to-light torches.
I was exactly like that.
I had to scream to get some light. Then the light would dim out. Then I would shake some more, scream out loud. Then there’d be light. Then it’d dim. And the cycle went on.
For 150 km, this is what I was doing.
I didn’t know whether I would make it. My earlier concerns of petrol, tire pressure or heating motorcycle became very secondary. It was survival time. I would sometimes stop the screaming and recite some Quran.
On more than one occasion I decided I will ensure that at least I dig a grave before I die.
I had to piss so hard but I knew I didn’t want to stop and go through with it. The stickiness might just trouble me later on and fuck the journey.
I was enjoying the pain.
Although it was just about one and a half hours of agonizing chilling pain, it felt forever. Once I got out of this arcade-game E45 road, I entered the mainstream city, stopped for some coffee, soup, sandwiches and chocolates. Refueled. Warmed up. And headed back home.
It was about 2 AM by now. I had one more hour to go before I reached home.
But I did it.
I reached home at 3 AM. The way from Abu Dhabi to Dubai was eventless really. Just me trying to remain warm by screaming, shouting, moving my body. That was it.
Thirteen hours on the road.
On the motorcycle, barring a cumulative one hour of rest.
Home sweet home.
The entire journey was about 750 km.
Life feels so simple after you’ve come out of such a setting alive. Just three hours ago I was thinking of burying myself in the desert. And here I was, looking up maps.google.com to mark my trip and post to Facebook. To mark my victory really.
Of course, this isn’t the end of my trips. When there’s a bit less at stake in terms of my vehicle, I am definitely planning a trip around the Arab world.
I suppose then I will have to dodge bullets too.