Abu Dhabi postcard

Here are some more or less random images of my new home town, Abu Dhabi.

It takes me longer than some to gain my bearings in unfamiliar territory. While I am no stranger to the Gulf, my previous experience of the United Arab Emirates was restricted to a couple of hours in transit, twice, at Dubai.

Abu Dhabi is not Dubai. Those who know both cities are better placed to judge, but most tell me Dubai is a lot livelier, Abu Dhabi more conservative and restrained. Both appear to possess ambition and initiative in abundance. Abu Dhabi wants an international film festival; it launches one. That bit of the coastline needs to be reclaimed; it happens.

The English language newspaper I am here to help create will identify the contrasts and similarities. But more of that at some future stage.

For now, I will allow myself a few preliminary thoughts. My hotel, the Intercontinental, is smart and functional with splendid pool and beach, but the Emirates Palace, where that film festival has just had its debut, is something else.
I overheard a Welshman telling someone back home of the shimmering grandeur of the first seven-star hotel he had ever visited. It drips state-of-the-art opulence, giving it a clear edge over the great palaces dotted along the Croisette in Cannes.

It is the sort of place in which you'd love to stay provided you could have the bill sent to a kindly employer or host.

After a quick tour of the Emirates Palace, it came as something of a prosaic anti-climax to learn from one of the army of Pakistani taxi drivers here that my office is in a part of town known as Water Tank. It is a common feature of Abu Dhabi's geography to refer not to street addresses but some landmark or function. So this is where lorries used to load up with H2O for distribution around the capital. And there's also a self-explanatory "Passport Road".

Incidentally, as we drove past the vast palaces of the Sheikhs on our way into town, the same driver explained in impeccable English why he opposed the return to his homeland of Benazir Bhutto. He had admired her father but considers her corrupt. This was the day before the grotesque terrorist attack on her procession, though it perhaps took no great foresight on his part to predict that Bhutto's defiant gesture would lead to bloodshed.

From the same driver came a useful mall-by-mall guide to local shopping. The Abu Dhabi Mall, pictured above, looks and feels vast but is evidently outstripped by the Marina Mall.

It was an interesting conversation, and I have subsequently been surprised to find how few of his countrymen driving taxis here have more than a few hesitant words of English.

I am kicking myself sharply for not having noted the man's phone number. Several non-Anglophone Pakistani cabbies later, I realise what a huge asset he would be to have on call in this city.