Explorer Mikael Strandberg

Downtown Abu Dhabi - the richest city in the world

Just a short note from Abu Dhabi International Airport, located just outside the richest city in the world!

After landing late at Abu Dhabi International Airport after an exhausting trip from first Williamstown in Massachusetts in a car – it took seven hours to reach Philadelphia, and from there two hours flying to Chicago and than an additional 16 hours to Abu Dhabi- I figured the city would be similar, if not as expansive, as Dubai. A city free of an Arab soul and a kind of fantasy city of spectacular man made structures. And Abu Dhabi is considered to be the richest city in the world. But I realized already on the way into Cristal Hotel, who are hosting us, that Abu Dhabi was more like a mixture of Oman and Dubai, somewhere in between. It is much more modest. We are invited to the city since their biggest newspaper published an article about the Expedition. (Read more here!)

No matter what you think, one does get impressed by all these man made structures on soemthing which used to be a hamlet in a desert!

It feels good being back in the Gulf-Arab World. Climate is as good as it could be, not to hot, not too cold, just perfect and life isn´t as fast, demanding and predictable. And this my 9th visit to this part of the world might turn out the most decisive ever when it comes to the Arabian Expedition. I am heading for Oman for two very important lectures and meeting some sponsors who really fit into what the Expedition needs to build these important bridges between the east and west. But, I am not there yet and I have just returned from a bit of a stroll through the heart of Abu Dhabi and my first reflexion is that is much more lively than both Oman and Dubai. And most people you meet are Asian immigrants, mainly resting in the parks, talking and socializing, this Friday, which is the day of rest in the Muslim world. They´re mainly Pakistanis, Indians and Filipinos. Which isn´t odd, considering that almost 75% of the total population of  around 2 million inhabitants are immigrants. And many of them are worried right now, due to the economic problems in Dubai. The taxi driver from the airport told us that the traffic congestions have doubled since December, when Dubai hit the economic wall, and that immigrants from Dubai where trying their luck in Abu Dhabi now. They are desperate to survive. Once I get to Oman, I will write a report on an immigrant family who worries a lot what will happen to them.  They have asked me to come and stay with them. In the meantime, do read this very sad article about immigrants in Dubai! The situation could be similar in Abu Dhabi. Suddenly, whilst writing here in Abu Dhabi, I just feel I do prefer Oman to these two emirates, since the Omanis are in majority in their country and you deal with them every day and in every way.

75% of the Emirate is composed of immigrants from primely Pakistan, India, Phillipines.

But, if the expedition doesn´t get the backing we want from Oman, I would easily consider Abu Dhabi to be an alternative. It has a sound Arab base, you see emiratees everywhere and they have kind of a very good mixture between the Arab and the Western world. And after having a couple of meetings here, there´s definitely a lot of interest from this little Emirate!

Keep in touch to see how it all goes…..plane to Oman just arrived!

By the way, the article about the Expedition in the National came with an editorial, read here!

At the moment we are living here, trying to figure out how we are going to get America on board the Expedition. Because without the USA, the Expedition will not reach its goal....

“Why do people join Al-Queda?”, my Arabic teacher in Yemen repeated my question to himself, “Well, because in most cases they don´t have a choice. Take this friend of a friend I knew from my home town. He couldn´t get a job in the village, came here to Sanaa, didn´t get a job here either…so he ended up in crime, got caught, sent to prison, treated badly there and when he came out, the only one´s which helped him, fed him and gave him some direction was the fundamentalists and the next time I heard about him, he was the suicide bomber who blew himself and some tourists up in Hadramawt. It wouldn´t have happened if we would live in a fair society.”

A day after I landed on the prairie outside Minneapolis in freezing cold, hauling snowstorms and a geographical flatness that made me numb, a Nigerian bloke once again caused serious harm to the way the west sees the Muslim world. And he put Yemen, once again, in the center of the worlds attention. I have spent pretty much all my time reading the global newspapers, both from the East and West, and what worries me the most, is that it seems like the Western media, at times, seriously thinks that most Muslims worldwide condone what is happening. And, as serious, is that pretty much all reporting from Yemen, comes from journalists who are browsing the Internet for information. They are not actually there themselves. And this is the picture reported to the West. As you readers know, I have devoted my life to do this upcoming Expedition, for the main reason to try to present a more balanced and real picture of this exiting part of the world. Therefore I have traveled extensively in the Arab World to prepare for this Expedition. And I have met a lot of people all over the Arab world. And, only a few have voiced support for Al Oueda and its violent cause and they have all, without exceptions, been people with no decent education. However, I have met many educated Muslims, who doesn´t like the one sided view presented in the West that we are the saviors of the modern civilization. But that is a much bigger philosophical question. I just want to add my own voice and experience here and my quest to do this Expedition is stronger than ever. But, the question is, what kind of a Yemen will it be within a year?

One of few signs of Christmas that I have encountered in this small village where we we stay right now....

There´s no doubt there is more obstacles to the Expedition now, compared to when I start planning it about a year ago. And on paper, it seems more difficult than ever to accomplish. And the major threat to it, is this continuous hatred between the West and East.  And pretty much all due to the lack of conversation and understanding. And misinformation. But, I am the first to say, that when you hear something many times, after awhile it sticks like truth in the back of your head. Therefore, when I arrived in Chicago and got briefly detained, I feared the worst, since I have come across so many travelers saying that the US immigration are the un-friendliest on earth.  I spent a long nervous time waiting to see what would happen and saw a lot of people being detained and not one of them was treated badly. Most of them time with kindness and respect. And I, as always, was lucky to come across a real human being, not judging, just trying to understand and help. And this scary visit taught me a very important lesson, never, ever stop believing in the good sides of humankind. They are everywhere.

Once again, this spectacular country is in the news again. In a very negative way. It is such a sad reality, when the truth is also that some of the best people I have ever met, live here, in one of the most spectacular countries in the world.

We have been almost ten days in Minneapolis now, we have once again set up a kind of a normal life with a temporary home, a temporary car, but most of the time we have been sitting inside watching TV, hiding from the cold and trying to figure out, once the bell of the new year have called, how to get America on board. There´s no doubt, if we can´t persuade America to believe in this vision, the Expedition, not a lot will change at all. There´s many obstacles along the way. The quest continuous.

We will return to Oman soon again. In the meantime, I will enjoy a traffic which is easy and uncomplicated, good bread and a state which has a Scandinavian presence which is very interesting. It means one can get lutfisk, Kalles kaviar, hard bread and ginger biscuits here! And the locals are really down to earth and in fact, where we live right now, it could be Särna, where I used to live and a place I loved. People are laid-back, big, comfortably dressed, hunt and fish, drive snow mobiles and don´t care that much for what life looks like outside their houses. So, in one way, it is like being home over Christmas!

Less than 40 years ago Muscat was a tiny little fishing hamlet......today it has moved into the Century of the fast, succesfull, wealthy and modern. However, the fishermen are still there, not far away from our flat in Al Ghubra.

When I turned the computer on this morning I had a dispatch email from Christian Bodegren, who has made it to the Nile! Great start of his Sahara crossing, makes me very happy!

I think it was the Danish philosopher Sören Kirkegaard who said:

“To live, is to dare.”

I don´t disagree with that quote. I am really trying hard to do just that. Right now I am taking a risk bigger than any other I have mastered to do earlier in my life. I have left a relatively secure, safe and pampered life in Stockholm and Sweden to try my luck in a totally different part of the world, were most things are totally opposite to what I have been brought up to believe is the truth, and nothing but the truth. The Arab world and initially Oman. And Oman is actually not the easiest place just now in the Gulf to turn up with a big vision in your head and on paper and hope anybody will buy it. Since doing business in this part of the world is a question of personal relationships, which I like a lot, and it takes time to bond, another thing I like a lot, the world around you could change quickly. It has for Expedition Arabia. When I first came here in January the global economic recession had started to take hold of this part of the world, but people were still positive and vibrant and it felt like I had arrived in a Klondike of possibilities. I felt a sense of pioneering spirit.

Kamil Al-Raisi, one of many good friends in Muscat. Photo taken at The Wahiba Sands. He is worrying as well for his future.

9 months later the recession has hit harder than expected, it seems, since funds for corporate businesses are less, the swine flu is terrifying the authorities, that much that the famous Muscat festival will be suspended this year, the great neighbor in the west, Saudi-Arabia, has hit back at al-houthi rebels who has crossed the common border with Yemen, and some people of authority seems to believe it could spread and that borders will close. There´s a dark cloud over the Omanis that I didn´t see during my former 5 visits. A lot of people just don´t seem to dare at all. Frustrating, yes. But time to train what I am really rotten at, patience.

In all this negative light I arrive with P, who is doing the same journey, she has left a life, to try a new. We have a very small amount of money to live on, after a divorce which has totally cleared me. And life in Muscat is more expensive than London and Sweden! It is almost impossible to stay here for less than 2500 dollars a month as a temporary visitor, because you need a car to get around, I don´t think I have seen a public bus yet, one needs a flat were you can set up and run the Expedition professionally, a living which is proper enough to invite people for business meetings and socialize in expensive venues, Internet connection is a must and on top of that, you have to eat. We have been eating a lot of chicken, potatoes and rice lately…haha, we ain´t suffering, on the contrary. And we work from very early in the morning till late night, most days 12 hours.But we are still very positive and very hopeful to find a solution how to get the Expedition on its feet, but it is still far off…

Where we live.....

However, let me state this, we wouldn´t survive without our very good friends here. Like Robby George, this amazing wizard and joker from Kerala, with his sharp brain, business know-how and common sense and will to always help, no matter what. Kamil Al-Raisi Al-Baluchi, the soccer fan who is also a tour guide and so full of Arab spirit and willpower.  Wael Lawati, who probably one of the smartest guys I have met and extremely helpful in every way and always ready to find a solution or offer a razor sharp analysis of the situation. But the spider in the wheel of help, understanding and love is my great friend Talib Omar. Even though he is extremely busy, since he is a very successful business man, father and husband, he always finds time to encourage me, find solutions, book meetings, find the right people and explain for me the often very difficult etiquettes of Arab business and social behavior. I have met an angel.

By giving you this story of today, I just want to say that to become successful in life, you need good friends. And, almost as important, you need to be at the right place, during the right circumstances at the right time in history to become successful as such. Whatever successful means. So even if you have everything needed as a person to become successful and great visions, if it is during the wrong historical circumstances, nobody will ever hear about it. I hope we are here at the right time in history. People here just need to dare a bit more. And worry less.

One of many meetings. Robby to the right.

What do we do during the days? Well, we write an enormous amount of emails all over the world to gather information, ask for help finding needed contacts, we phone people and converse and sell, we meet people, we train 1-2 hours a day, basically a brisk walk on the beach on the top photo here and we read a lot of local newspapers of the Gulf to get an idea of the region. It is really interesting work in many ways, one impressive story was this editorial about the great leader of Oman, Sultan Qaboos and his yearly royal tour!

And we will continue to do this until we have enough funds and support to go through with this expedition. Somehow, everything taken into account, taking away Kirkegaards thoughts of reason, it seems fated to be. In this part of the world, some locals think it is written in the stars…

The Sultans mosque by night...not far away from our flat.

The true image of an explorer. Icecicles, extreme cold, male, white, eyes looking into horizon....the image which has to be changed.

I got this email a few days ago. One of many readers asking the same question:

Hello, to wherever you might be at this moment

I stumbled recently on your online blog.. and.. well I know you must have heard this question a thousand times already, but I simply have to ask. How does one becomes a professional traveler? I would consider myself honored if you could drop me a few words about this
Blue skies and many more miles,
Gustáv Kyselica Jr. (a would-be-explorer (at least in heart for sure)

How to become an explorer? What does it take?

It is quite easy to answer. It takes passion, more passion than others, hard work, harder than all the others, a vision, bigger visions than all the others and an enormous amount of curiosity!

Every day I read about people, mainly young men, who do more or less spectacular adventures, get a lot of attention for a few years, they live on lectures and book sales, then they are gone from the scene of exploration. they just didn´t have what it took to stay in the business for a long time. Some of them have great jobs within the adventure industry, others, on paper some of them do “Expeditions” for a few months every five years and get the media with them due to earlier recognition, but they definitely doesn´t make any difference in the main reason to explore as I see it. Open horizons to other worlds, building bridges between cultures, creating a bigger understanding of this magnificent world we live in and explore the meaning of life. To survive as an explorer you need to have a personality which differs, have a clear vision reaching until the end of ones life and never stop exploring and always continue to be curious. On top of that, I think, there´s an issue to it which never can be taught or trained, either you have what it takes or not. And that has nothing to do with background, possibilities or environment. It is just there.

Just as an illustration to what I mean. If you walk up to the top of a building, walk out on to the edge when you reach the top looking down, do you want to jump? I have asked all my friends who are in the same line of work as me and we all say….yes.

How to become an explorer? Enough curiosity makes a difference!

These are earlier entries that I have written on this very important subject:

• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/04/18/inspiring-explorers-inspiring-times/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/04/06/a-note-on-two-explorers-thesiger-and-gienieczko-and-a-word-about-the-theatre-of-dreams/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/03/21/a-major-reason-to-choose-a-life-as-an-explorer/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2008/10/14/what-is-the-reason-to-explore/