The tent was decorated with many inscriptions about how well it is ventilated. Alas, before the first trip we did not pay attention to them.
Honestly, I do not like hiking. I can’t sleep in rubber boots. I can not stand mosquitoes, which can be saved only in the smoke of a fire. Sitting on a stump under a cold wind, choking on burned jacket potatoes and fake vodka from the neck ... No, this is not for me. However, my wife, having arrived in Dubai, persuaded me to buy a tent.
“It will be a very small campaign,” said Sofia Ivanovna, “only you and I, and no one else.” We will determine the program ourselves. Bored, and immediately return home. There are no mosquitoes here. And the wind is not at all cold. And food can be bought at every step ...
“So you don't need a bonfire?” I rejoiced.
“No,” the wife agreed. - After all, I already know that you know how to do everything, even barbecue to do. Rubber boots are not needed here. And nobody will force you to drink vodka.
In the end, I succumbed. Perhaps he just dreamed of washing his sandals in the Indian Ocean deep down. Moreover, it is only two hours drive from Dubai to it.
Attempt number 1. On the road
Our first trip to the East Bank (or rather, to the city of Khorfakkan) began on the second of January. The bus, where we got on Ittihad Square in Dubai, was supposed to take us to Fujairah, the capital of the emirate of the same name, for 20 dirhams. The driver seemed to be making this flight for the first time in his life - judging by the thoughtfulness into which he was immersed in all the forks and road signs. Only gas stations and roadside shops distracted him from thoughts, in each of which he considered it necessary to buy something.
As a result, we entered Fujairah only at six in the evening. In the square near the Plaza Cinema, the bus dropped off all the passengers, made a circle and drove back completely empty. We did not attach any importance to this fact: we were distracted by a diner where "whites" with banana filling were sold.
To the left of the cinema was a taxi rank. We met on 30 dirhams, got into a car that had been seen, and after a quarter of an hour we were on the embankment of Horfakkan. For several minutes we stood facing the sea, wondering where to go next. Main street and embankment formed the letter "T". To the right, the shore rested against some uninteresting cranes. A white building was piled at its left end, similar to a space center control room. Behind him stood a mountain; a mysterious bay shared them, where, as I decided, we had to put up a tent.
Bridgehead
First, we walked along the sidewalk, separated from the sea by a wide lawn with toilets, palm trees, urns, barbecue grills, bundles of brushwood, swings and benches. All this, as well as a strip of small shops on the opposite side of the street, looked as if all the inhabitants of the city had suddenly disappeared. Some life only glimmered in the market for carpets and pots.
When we got to the white building, it was already beginning to get dark. The “cove” turned out to be an almost dry channel with concrete shores. His channel was blocked off from the sea by a low dam made of stones. Crossing them to the other side, I was relieved to take off my belongings and tent on a small patch between the sea and the stone slope. Not succumbing to the entreaties of Sophia Ivanovna, who urged her to go right, going around the mountain: there, she claimed, a sandbank was hidden.
We opened a bag with a tent. I realized how reckless it was to take it with me, without trying to assemble it at least once at home. The idea of turning a set of Bologna and chopsticks into housing seemed complete madness. Especially in the dark. On wet stones. Under the gusts of wind. A huge instruction in English only exacerbated my despair, and I decided not to look into it.
Listening to my inner voice, I did not know how to figure out a lot of pockets, hooks, eyelets and "ears". After half an hour, the "skeleton" of the tent was connected to the "skin". It remains to attach the resulting dome to the ground and pull an awning from above.
Horrible night
The straw mats and thin bedspreads we rolled out first across the floor. Alas, he remained cold, and all the rags had to be gathered together, laying on top of each other. Then we wrapped ourselves like mummies in blankets lying on top. We put on several pants and sweaters - the native St. Petersburg climate has long taught us to carry a supply of warm clothes.
All measures taken did not help. The tent was distinguished by excellent ventilation, which was a special pride of its architects. Thanks to this ventilation system, it cost six times more than without it. The designers have provided here for a thoroughly blown ceiling, which is protected from flies and rain, a separate window for each guest, and also an influx of fresh air for the dog. In a word, the tent was cooler nowhere ...
The cold seemed to make his way to the bones. With every minute, I imagined myself getting sick with otitis media, meningitis, pneumonia, rheumatism and enuresis, mentally saying goodbye to the lungs, kidneys and other vital organs.
The high tragedy of my death was ruined by rude voices. Around the tent there were steps; its entire inside pierced through the x-ray beam. I decided that this was the beginning of a new adventure: apparently, the guards of the “spaceport” decided to arrest us for invading a secret facility. So, they will throw me and my wife into a dungeon, where they are subjected to monstrous tortures. But, alas, everything turned out to be much more prosaic: Russian tourists passed by, not yet sobering up from the New Year.
- What time is it? I asked my wife, hoping for a quick dawn.
“Four hours,” she grumbled, not waking up.
“Let's go somewhere,” I suggested, “let's have some hot tea.” Or buy a warm blanket. Everything is better than lying here and freezing.
Looking out at the world from the tent, I saw that the sea came very close: waves licked stones in a few meters. We crawled out, reminiscent of the French with our equipment, who had once besieged Moscow. The water in the channel roared menacingly, recalling the unreliability of the elements and the world as a whole. On its concrete shore, we went on the Khorfakkan-Dibba highway and headed for the nearest gas station. There was only one ATM. We walked further along the beach for a long time, hoping to find something hot and around the clock. But everything, alas, was locked at night - and small shops, and the Golden Fork restaurant. Having picked up a large piece of polyethylene in the market, we moved back, deciding to close all the proprietary ventilation with this find.
Gloomy morning
Polyethylene met our expectations. On a cloudy morning on the third of January, the tent was even a little warmer than outside. The sea drifted away, and the canal rolled its shallow waters lazily and mundane. After a night on sharp stones my back hooted and ached. Even gnawed bones and traces of someone’s paws - either wolfish or doglike - on the bank of the canal where we walked at night did not raise my mood. After half an hour on the sand, we were in the Golden Fork. Although the restaurant was located in the very center of the embankment, the area around looked even deserted by day. The wife bravely climbed into the gray lead waves. I looked at her from the restaurant window, waited for dinner, and dreamed of finding myself in the soft armchair of the bus, where I could recover from a crazy night.
However, there it was. In Fujairah, we went around the cinema and the entire area, but did not find any signs of the transport that turned around on it yesterday and drove back to Dubai. All local residents, including the seller of fried bananas, assured us that the bus goes only "here", but not "back". We did not believe them and for a long time tried to find a stop, hobbling with a pile of things on the sidewalks, disfigured by repairs. Having found nothing, we found out that a taxi costs the same as a bus - 25 drx per person. If there are four passengers in it.
“I understand,” my wife said, sitting inside, “when the Dubai bus goes to Fujairah, the emirate of Dubai receives the money.” And if he went back with people, then the money for the journey from Fujairah would also go to Dubai ...
Reflecting on this, I gradually fell asleep. Taxi dropped us off half an hour from the house. Exhausted and dirty, we crawled into the apartment crushed by a cat. We had a night cleaning and a hard awakening to work.
Between trips
Soon after these events, the celebration of Kurban Bayram began in the Emirates. Fortunately, in two working weeks I had a good rest and accumulated strength to dive headlong again on the weekend. And my wife and I decided to go to the same places again, as if having rewritten the New Year’s campaign, I’ve got a rough draft.
Moreover, Khorfakkan quite deserved it. Especially its quiet streets, running parallel to the main - the vertical crossbar of the letter "T". Their life seemed to have stopped at the mark of 40 years ago. Everything here was reminiscent of the pre-oil years: flaky houses, old-fashioned cars, and women in black cloaks, carrying shopping bags from the market. Children played selflessly in the dust next to hens, goats and lambs lying around right there. Crossroads of streets were occupied by huge puddles, in whose unshakable surface the peaks of the mountains were reflected.
“There was nothing, there will be nothing,” the quiet patriarchal landscape whispered. “Live here and now. Only in this way will you find real peace.” Yes, perhaps, for the sake of this feeling it was worth a trip to a quiet city again. Of course, this time we had some serious preparations. After examining the guidebook, we learned that the white building at the Cosmodrome was the Oceanic Hotel, famous for its diving center.
Khorfakkan, according to the book, was considered a popular resort, and the center of its nightlife was the familiar promenade. Moreover, that side of it, where we saw the cranes, also deserved attention. “Here you can see,” the book reported, “interesting samples of deep-sea shells. Fishermen simply throw them away when they clean their nets of fish.”
Attempt number 2. Error handling
This time we took with us not only fruits, sandwiches, sweaters, woolen socks, drinking water and a map, but also an air mattress and the warmest blanket. We eliminated the patented ventilation system in advance by covering the tent above and below with handkerchiefs, scarves, scarves, pillowcases and a bedspread for chairs. Perhaps now it has become even more expensive - because our unique know-how did not let out a single breath of warm air from it.
At Ittihad Square in Deira, the same where our first trip started, I made an arrangement with an elderly bearded taxi driver. He drove the car, one and a half times exceeding all the numbers on the speed limit signs. The names of villages and towns - Al-Da'id, Masafi, Datta and Bitna - replaced each other, like trees outside the window of a courier train. The bearded man drove us all the way to Horfakkan, dropped us off at a gas station near the Oceanic Hotel and gave his phone number.
We camped on the bank of the canal, in the place where the last time we found traces of paws and bones. It seemed to me the safest - and most importantly even, without a single stone. Leaving things under the protection of wolves, we went to the supermarket, where we spent three hours trying on and buying a new swimsuit for my wife. Then they dined with exotic nut pizza and hot chocolate in the futuristic cafe Vergnano 1882, which could have become the decoration for the filming of The Fifth Element. Having thrust the mattress into the tent, we inflated it and, having covered ourselves with a mountain of blankets, went to bed.
This time, the sun apparently decided to repay the debts for the third of January, and by noon our lilac house turned into a real greenhouse. Tearing off sweaty sweaters, we ran to the dam connecting the mountain with the beach, and then we saw that local women bathe only in clothes. The city of Khorfakkan, as you know, is included in the emirate of Sharjah, known for the rigor of Islamic laws. This even applied to the remote corners of the embankment. Not to mention its central parts, such as the vicinity of the Golden Fork, where Sofia Ivanovna splashed last time.
- Means, - the spouse was upset, - we in vain for three hours chose a swimsuit?
“Nothing,” I consoled her, “maybe we will someday go to the Crimea.” Or to Karelia. Or to Peter ...
With these words, I had to climb my wife to the top of the mountain; from it it became visible that very sandbank where I did not dare to go the last time. We went down to its sandy beach, seeing a camp of a dozen tents. Just moving away from him for a good half a kilometer, we finally used a swimsuit for its intended purpose.
Returning to the city, we had breakfast at the Green Beach Restaurant with magnificent shish tavuk and delicious Turkish coffee. Then they rode on a camel. His driver drove over 100 dirhams, but then, seeing the expression of our faces, he reduced the price tenfold.
From the height of the humps, I saw how the embankment has unrecognizably changed in comparison with our last visit. It seems that the guide did not lie. In the evening, we noticed that the market for carpets and pots turned into a whole fair at night with inflatable slides and restaurants. And although now the bazaar was not working, there were still incredibly many people on the shore.
Numerous Arab families gathered here to celebrate Eid al-Adha. At first, a thick wicker mat of at least three by three meters was unloaded from the car. On this bedding, among the pillows, the head of the family was seated, taking on the honorable duty of smoking a hookah. Meanwhile, women unloaded tents, separate for each child, folding tables and chairs, as well as a weekly supply of food from the car. It included kebabs, which immediately began to hiss on the grill.
Mats vacationers almost covered the lawn. The most cheerful and disorderly families were Indian. Stupidly scurrying back and forth and bumping into each other, men and women in colorful clothes dragged pillows, food and dishes from place to place. Under their feet swarthy children spun with balloons and candies.
Leaving the "desert ship", we set off to seek peace and quiet. They survived only at the end of the embankment, where cranes loomed invitingly, and next to them stood a fish and vegetable market. Nearby lay nets abandoned by someone and several half-sunken boats. A lot of small seashells crunched underfoot here. On the way back we went to the Golden Fork for a meal with crab soup and teppanyaki chicken. From there we called the bearded driver; soon he was waiting for us at the gas station. After an hour and a half drive at insane speed, we were already in Dubai, and the dzhigit braked right near our front door.
The second attempt to visit Horfakkan was clearly a success. Perhaps the only thing we did not have time to do was wander through the quiet streets where goats sleep and chickens dig in the dust ... But do such trifles in the campaign matter? I think not. Indeed, a real tourist needs only one thing: make a route so that it runs close to the shower, beach, restaurant, ATM, supermarket, night cafeteria, barbecue with a table and a set of brushwood, as well as civilized toilets. And as far as possible from stony mountains and wet cold sea.
Ivan Sheiko-Little
