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Sue Schudmak
in a 3/4½
at the UAE/Oman border |
Three members of the Bentley Drivers
Club of Australia, Tony and Christine Johns (1924 3
litre), Trevor and Judy Eastwood (1925 3-4½)
and Phillip and Sue Schudmak (1924 3-4½) took
their Bentleys on this most interesting and generally
very enjoyable "rally" in February and March,
2009. Trevor Eastwood was making a return visit, having
first visited as a young salesman for the Australian
Meat Corporation in the 1970’s. At that time no
building was higher than two stories. We were joined
by four other Aussie teams: Lindsay Moore and Kathy
Forrester (1989 Bentley Turbo R), Tom and Francis Bevington
(2006 Bentley GTC), Terry and Janice Ward (2007 Bentley
GTC) and John Matheson and Jeanne Eve (1934 Rolls Royce
Phantom II). The total enrolment was some 75 Bentleys
and Rolls Royces.
Ten of the entrants were "vintage", two Rolls
Royces (including the oldest car on the rally, Howard
Phillips’ (1912 Silver Ghost) and, apart from the
three Aussie Bentleys, there were three 4½’s,
an 8-litre and another 3-4½. Only one hailed
from the UK: our old friends Chris and Jill Wray, while
the others were European. We particularly enjoyed meeting
Uwe Kai and Alfred Smidt from Germany, who had a very
unusual 4½ with special Vanden Plas coachwork
which incorporated an inboard handbrake and wind-up
windows. As will be obvious already, there was a very
mixed bag of makes and models, from the oldest to the
newest, and from many countries. The fact that there
were some 150 individual entrants made for a very full
house and was responsible for many of the long delays
at border crossings, but more of that later.
The 'adventure' was over some 2,500 km of very well-made
roads and took a fairly leisurely 19 days. It was really
more of a 'Red Carpet / Grand Hotel Tour' than a rally,
but good fun and something of an adventure too. We certainly
saw the insides of more palatial hotels than is customary
on BDCA or VSCC rallies! One limitation in the region
is the lack of choice when it comes to routes and roads.
There is really only one main road and it goes more
or less west to east from Bahrain to Muscat and there
is little opportunity to escape from it until you reach
Oman at the eastern end.
Although the Arabian Peninsula has
an exotic ring to it, if you have spent a bit of time
in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or have friends who have, the
exotic is pretty hard to find, other than the amazing
"7-Star" hotels, of which there are many.
In fact the city-states are amongst the newest and richest
in the world and have developed economically at an astounding
rate. Nevertheless, there is still a cultural and religious
divide that is not too far below the surface.
The organizing committee was led by Peter Cameron, a
retired "colonial" banker who spent most of
his working life in Asia, the Middle East and Australia.
He had previously organized very successful Bentley/Rolls
Royce tours of Malaysia in 2001 and northern Borneo
in 2005. He has some very useful high-level connections
in the region, as was shown in the first few days. The
principal sponsor for our tour was Qatar Airways and
its chairman told us that Peter and the Chartered Bank
were his first financial backers, and he has not forgotten.
Qatar and its capital Doha were pleasant surprises,
lower key than their better known neighbours, but rapidly
catching up. One of the highlights was lunch at the
private residence of Hassein Alfardan, a prominent local
businessman, who was a very charming and generous host.
We were also most impressed with the Museum of Islamic
Art, a stunning new building located just offshore and
designed by the famous American architect I.M. Pei.
After five days of culture and general indolence, some
serious motoring was in prospect as we headed towards
the United Arab Emirates, via a 135 km transit through
Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the Saudis do not seem
to like tourists and particularly those driving open
Right Hand Drive cars, the reason being that women are
prohibited from driving in the Kingdom and would appear
to be doing so as a passenger in a RHD car. This problem
was resolved by holding us up at the border for 14 hours
without any explanation, other than our visas were "not
in order" or someone had made some trivial breach
of regulations. Around midnight, we were suddenly given
the green light to proceed, in convoy, behind police
security vehicles. These travelled too slowly and many
of the older cars overheated. To add to the misery,
there was a sand storm, which the drivers of cars without
air cleaners had been dreading.
By the time we got to the UAE border
it was 2 am and several of the older cars had flat batteries
from using cooling fans and lights, which resulted in
no headlights for the rest of the night — another
two hours to the island resort of Jebel Dhanna. Quite
a challenging experience. The resort and hotel were
very pleasant indeed – pity we only had a couple
of hours to enjoy them!
The next day there was a 270 km drive to the Abu Dhabi
Emirates Palace Hotel, probably the best of the 7-star
establishments in the region. (To be able to award yourself
7-stars, you have to justify calling yourself a “palace”
in the true sense of the word.) This was such a hotel.
The next day some of us took a half day tour of the
place, others spent a couple of hours learning to work
the in-room entertainment and electronic systems (without
success.) There are only 300 rooms (all full), but there
are 2000 on the staff. It takes 20 minutes to walk to
breakfast and the decor is out of this world. A "majestic
experience", as the guide book said. The usual
room rate is also out of this world. We would not normally
stay there, but one of the advantages of such rallies
is the bargaining power of a large group.
Abu Dhabi is the wealthiest of the Emirates and did
not seem to be suffering in the current economic downturn
nearly as badly as its neighbour, Dubai. Nevertheless
hospitality promised by the local Rolls Royce and Bentley
dealers failed to materialize, as they did later in
Dubai.
After a few more days of R&R and sightseeing, a
long day’s drive was in store to the town of Nizwa
in Oman. About 530 km was only six hour’s driving
time, but another border crossing, a welcome reception
and a lunch meant a very late arrival at the next, much
more modest, hotel. Oman was really the highlight of
our tour. The people are ethnically different from their
neighbours and are more relaxed and welcoming, and the
country is scenically more attractive with rugged mountain
ranges and spectacular scenery. One of our hosts was
Omanoil and included in the “goodie bag” was
an electronic “smart card” that gave us a
couple of hundred dollar’s worth of petrol. Seeing
this cost about 30 cents a litre, it was more than sufficient
even for the 8-litre.
Nizwa, the ancient capital, was one of the few interesting
towns (as distinct from large cities) in which we were
able to spend some time. It has a reputation as a centre
for poets, intellectuals and artists, not that we saw
any, other than some fellow WO drivers, but it had a
very pleasant atmosphere and an interesting souk.
From there it was an easy drive down the mountains to
the almost mythical city of Muscat, once the centre
of the east African slave trade, the home of pirates
and the main source of frankincense and myrrh since
biblical times. We had expected to see a large village
of white-washed cottages and palm trees. Instead it
was a sprawling prosperous city of 2 million. High rise
buildings are discouraged, so it still had a charming
atmosphere. Twenty years ago Oman had 15 km of paved
roads, one hospital and two schools. Today it is an
impressive modern country and tourism as an important
feature, although like most of the region it is very
expensive, unless you are an oil sheik or on a well
organized Bentley Rally.
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Our base here was the Shangri-la Hotel,
which was all that you would imagine, and also the location
of a gala dinner generously put on by Zubair Corporation,
a prominent local group and the local Bentley agent.
We were also treated to a wonderful lunch at the home
of Sheik Ahmed Al Khalili, a local businessman whose
father was once the patient of one of rally participants.
His family was charming and it is very nice to be able
to put on a sit down lunch for 150 people!
We were then on the home run to our last stop —
Dubai. This was another long day — 470 km, but
with a very slow border crossing back into the United
Emirates. I don’t know that the bureaucracy in
these places is any worse than any airport or other
border crossing — the problem is really just one
of processing 150 passports. One minute each equals
two and a half hours!
It was a warm day and many of the more modern cars had
overheating problems here — though not the WO’s!
The only mechanical problems the WO’s had were
a failed overdrive unit on the last day in Chris Wray’s
4½ (lesson: always take a spare tailshaft if
you have an overdrive — in any case, WO would never
have approved!) and a failed magneto (recently rebuilt)
in Tony John’s 3-litre. We were carrying a spare
and the change-over was made in a couple of hours, thanks
to some excellent work by Tony’s newest best friend,
mechanikermeister Alfred Smidt, who runs Klassikerschmiede,
a vintage workshop near Munich. He really knows his
stuff!
And so on to The Atlantis, the newest, biggest and brashest
resort hotel on The Palm, Dubai. More like Disneyland
in the sand, or more accurately, the middle of the Arabian
Gulf. Quite over the top with a massive indoor aquarium
complete with a whale and several large sharks. You
don’t have to stay here to have a look — $20
or so buys you a day ticket. The critics say that it
represents all the excesses of the property boom in
Dubai. Still, the bus loads of tourists thought it was
worth spending a day there.
All in all, we had a great time on the rally and saw
many very interesting sights that we would not have
otherwise experienced. We also had some great motoring
and enjoyed the company of our fellow travellers. On
top of all that, PP3275 had a faultless run with its
brand new 4½ motor. Many thanks for this to Simon
Elliott, David Hanna and the team at The Derby Works
in Melbourne, and to Peter Cameron and the organizing
committee for the Arabian Gulf Adventure.
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