What to do?: Attend the annual International Water
Summit. So what it only lasts 4 days a year. That makes it all the more special.
Think of it as the Middle East equivalent of La Tomatina (the Spanish festival
held in Valencia every August where thousands gather to throw tomatoes at each
other) but rather than throwing tomatoes the delegates throw water-related
challenges.
What to drink?: Anything but the tap water. Apparently
it is full of heavy metals. At least that is what I was told by a man who is
shipping Antarctic glacier melt water (in bulk) so it can be bottled locally. He
may have been motivated to exaggerate. He gave me a bottle which unfortunately I
lost during my next meeting. I felt appropriately guilty. Not only have the
earths’ resources been plundered to ship the water halfway across the globe, but
I hadn’t even got the decency to keep it. Bad Piers.
Where to drink?: Rays Bar at the top of Etihad Towers.
The perfect place to view Abu Dhabi at night. Try to not be put off by the truly
awful puns (‘Rays Grill – the place to meat people’).
Where to eat?: The Fish Market - a restaurant where
you choose your meal not by consulting a menu but rather by
selecting raw fish directly from a market stall, under the guidance of a very
attentive waiter. The chef then cooks it to order. Its ridiculously expensive
but quite a lot of fun. That was last nights’ meal and it certainly beat
tonights’ restaurant (the Theatre at Rotana Park Hotel) where, after we had been
waiting for an hour to be served, the head waitress told us the chef had left
the building. Heaven alone knows who cooked what eventually turned up.
What to avoid: The stray cats outside the above
mentioned Fish Market. I had to step outside to take a conference call and found
myself hounded by a very loud, very insistent cat. Its wailing was so bad the
New Yorkers at the end of the phone asked if I had a baby with me. When I tried
to encourage it to leave me alone, by pushing it away with my foot it simply
rubbed itself lovingly against my shoe. I think it could smell the fish.
For the avoidance of doubt, I was not trying to kick
the cat.
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