Hejies around the world : Flo in Abu-Dhabi

This is a guest post from our friend Flo who has moved for Abu-Dabhi recently and shares with us some fun and interesting stories about the life over there. Find more on his blog : http://floinabudhabi.blogspot.com/.

Abu-Dhabi is a very recent city, that has been mushrooming since the discovery of oil in the late 50s. The first paved road dates back from 1961.
The outlay is pretty simple and follows the American style.
The main roads are numbered (odd numbers for the roads going from North to South, starting with the 10th t the 2nd and jumping straight to the 26th, don’t ask me why… and even numbers for the ones going from west to east, starting with the 1st). Each neighbourhood has its own road numbers which are following more or less the same rule.
Until then, it sounds easy.
It becomes far more complicated when you understand that nobody actually uses the road numbers and that some roads have 4 different names. For example, 8th Street is commonly known as Al Salaam street, but also eastern ring road, depending on which map you are looking at. The 4th is also known as Al-Muroor, or New Airport road or East Road (don’t mix it with Old Airport road, known as Airport road or Sheikh Rasheed Bin ASeed Al MAktoum Street which is the 2nd…). The example are countless…
Do not mix Sheikh Bin zayed the 1st street (also called Khalidya Street in its southern part and Electra st in its northern part, or 7th street) with Hazaa Bin zayed the 1st street (Defence road or the 11th…), you may get a local angry.
Still following me?
Ok, add to that the fact that there are no building numbers whatsoever. People refer to famous buildings in the area. i.e. behind Etisalat building or in front of Spinney’s supermarket. As if there was only 1 building in front of this supermarket…
To conclude, there are places and maps where everything is written in Arabic and a lot of people I have come across with are not able to locate the place their shop is… You can’t always trust the taxi drivers’ knowledge of the city… The result is massive headache, lots of U-turns and hours stuck in the traffic jams! This has driven me mad lots of time. That’s part of the culture I guess

Happy new year 2009

The Hejorama team wishes you a happy new 2009 !!

We are currently working on several new project for the website : a new chronicle editor, bookmarking, simplified profile page and a lot of other improvements.
Stay tuned for more news !!

And again, best wishes for 2009 !

Merry Xmas

The Hejorama team would like to wish you a merry Christmas full of happiness and travels !

Travel as your are

500 place reviews !

Hi all,

good news today, we have reached 500 place reviews !

And more than a thousand pics and almost 200 chronicles. Not bad for a small project like Hejorama, we think. Thanks to all the hejies !!