大嶼山自由行

機場某某酒店在暑期推出特惠套票，住一個晚上送三餐。算一算，等于用餐送房，而且還可以參加一些興趣小組活動。所以我們在上周三、四去了一趟，順道去遊覽大澳。

上一次去大澳已經是差不多二十年前的事了，以前的‘橫水渡’已經被這道藍橋取代了。

我們坐酒店的穿梭大巴到機場後，轉乘公車到東湧，再坐11路車到大澳。下山的路比較慢，司機投訴說這路修了三年還沒有修好。我們在十一點多抵達大澳，有船家努力向我們推銷坐船遊棚屋、將軍石、看中華白海豚。兩夥人共十四人把小船都坐滿了。聽船家說，看中華白海豚最好在上午。他說得沒錯，我們拍了錄像，但來不及拍照。原來中華白海豚是粉紅色的，還沒成年的則爲灰色。每人十塊的票價是物有所值。

大澳的居民還是非常友善，仍然有那份淳樸的感覺。我們當然不忘看看那些特産，最後買了一些小玩具及蝦膏回來。

首天的行程挺豐富的，從大澳回酒店後，立即參加中式點心班、雞尾酒班等。

晚上更看了一部真人結合卡通的動畫片“Arthur and the Invisibles”，我們也很久沒有一家人坐著看完一部電影了。第二天因爲在遊泳池出了意外（前文已述），就沒有多拍照。我們退房後在機場二號樓逛了一會，感到很新鮮。那4D電影院及航空展覽館特別有趣，將來有好電影時我們必定回來看。下午我們到了東荟城，真是“大鄉里出城”，我們還是第一次在香港逛“Outlet”。

兩日一夜的自由行以交易廣場的晚飯爲結束，雖然有點不適（後來發現是非常不適），但還算盡興。

水土不服？

這次離開香港兩個多星期，回來居然病倒了。難道是水土不服？在阿聯酋其間，每天都喝瓶裝水，對香港的水可能要重新適應。先是肚子疼，然後有感冒症狀，最後是眼睛發炎。

很久沒有看醫生，一看就兩父女一起看。女兒在酒店遊泳池邊奔跑，摔了一交，皮破了。但救生員沒有料理好，傷口發炎。最後要去醫生處洗傷口，用抗生素。這次她對這抗生素的反應頗大，肚子疼兼嘔吐。也好，這次讓她好好記住永遠不要在遊泳池邊奔跑。

嫁要嫁給宣教士？

因著從神而來的感動，我們在金錢上支持了到回教群體工作的某某宣教士。太太收到她的來電，除了表示感謝外，還說會爲女兒祈禱，祝願她嫁個宣教士。

在工作上跟回教徒接觸多了，我發現他們大多是非常善良的人。在西方傳媒的報道中，可能太側重那些激進的信徒。事實上，他們都很友善。別看那些身材魁梧的阿拉伯人，他們看起來挺凶的，但言語行爲都非常溫柔。他們的祈禱生活也非常重視，沒有什麽比去他們的會堂祈禱更重要。可能是因爲他們的善良，我更覺得他們沒有機會認識主耶稣真是可惜。在中東工作時，在他們祈禱的時間，沙特阿拉伯的電視台會現場轉播麥加的情況。那個烏黑的Kaaba（見圖。不知中文叫什麽，所有信徒都向著它朝拜）就在正中，四周圍著無數人。我看到一個景象，他們都很善良，每天都虔誠的向他們的“阿拉”朝拜，但主再來的時候他們會怎麽樣？有些人很驚惶，有些人很傷心，也有些人會很氣憤，那黑色的東西變成了一個墳墓。

我們需要更多通路，更多的工人。

The wild wild group in Abu Dhabi (Parental Guidance)

Do not get shocked. Do not read this if you are under 18. You need guidance from parents.

We often play some sort of party game during Group Dinner. "Finding Who's Who" is to encourage people talking to each other to find out secret. I asked participants to write some secret, something not so serious and they didn't mind others to find out. Then they needed to identify who's who on the list. Usually we got hobbies, fears or interesting experience. At times we go something serious such as cheating in examinations and being in jail.

Wow, this time we got lots of wild secrets. Probably because of the absence of female participants.

The Kuwaiti guy on orange shirt once dated a "lady-boy". He only found it out when he went to bed with "her". The Iranian with the guitar could not last for more than 6 months with the same girl friend.

Here comes the funny trio. From left to right, Carlos from Angola, Millerand from Cameroon and Yousef from Libya. Carlos has 7 children from 4 wives. Millerand visited the night club everynight. (Infact he woke up at 1am and could not sleep again. He then went to the club again.) Yousef once dated 2 sisters...at the same time. He was caught when one of his girlfriend wanted to give her sister a surprise....



Really wild group. Back row first. From left to right. Millerand has been introduced. Gerardo the Argentinian completed a solo race across the Andes. He was in depressed mood when Argentina was beaten by Brazil in the Copa America Final. Sunny, hoho, Sunny the Indian once dated a fat, old lady....because he wanted to date her daughter!

Front row from left to right. William from Venezuela almost sold his car to a drug dealer. Carlos, the Mexican playing guitar was without car insurance for 4 months when he drove in Scotland. Buji the Indian had cheated his wife. Steve the English guy who worked in Abu Dhabi (blocked by Buji) was the quiet and normal person. He had served in the army for 12 years.

I was shocked when they told their secret....without a bit of shame.

The Libyan who dreamed about Jesus and Mohammed

Abdulwart is from Libya and he told me that he had dreamed about Jesus and Mohammed in the same night. It was the time when he visited UK. His colleagues gave him the DVD movie "Passion of Christ" (the one directed by Mel Gibson). Before that he never knew Jesus was killed by his people.

Unlike Christians, Muslims think that Jesus is a prophet. They don't know about the life of Jesus. When Abdulwart saw the scenes of people torturing and killing Jesus, he was shocked. He cried like a baby. And he saw the movie many times. That's why he dreamed about Jesus. And perhaps under the influence of his religious belief, he dreamed of Mohammed as well. He said that he'd never seen neither Jesus nor Mohammed, but you just knew it when it appeared in the dream.

Sometime movies could be controversial (I remember that there were some warning for Christians when the movie was introduced). However, they open doors to such non-Christ-believer as muslims. We could have been more open-minded.

Abu Dhabi

Although Abu Dhabi is the Capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is less sophiscated than Dubai. Not every taxi drivers speak nor understand English. Hotel staff are more "relaxed" and don't have an urgency on your request. Some people are saying that Abu Dhabi is competing with Dubai. They need to catch up a lot and there is a distance behind Dubai.

I come back to the hotel near beach, where I stayed in February. I was warmly welcome by a bird in my balcony:

Friday and Saturdy in the Middle East are "weekend". (Sunday is the first working day of the week.) I went for a short self-help city tour on Saturday. It was just too hot to stay on the streets for more than an hour. There were some interesting spots, including this one:

Does it look like a giant lamp from Alladin?

One Night in the Desert

As a break between 2 courses in Dubai and AbuDhabi, I went for a desert safari trip yesterday. The excursion started at 4:30pm. Well, you can't do it sooner as the temperature reached 40+ around noon. A team of 4WD Toyota Landcruiser's was on the way. If I paid more, I could try the Hummer. US$100 was just too much so I sticked to a cheaper Toyota option.

The exciting part started early when we were climbing up and down the sand dunes. It's the normal G version of the roller-coaster. But it's good enough to make you throw. The advice would be: don't eat too much before you go for a desert safari. Regreted not to bring my video camera. I managed to take a couple of photos but missed the most spectacular part.

Just before sunset we reached the camp site in the desert. I met two cabin crew of the Singapore airline. They had a two-day-break in Dubai, before flying to Moscow. The Singaporean guy was also using Nikon so he took some photos for me.

There was a camel range at the campsite. Obviously this was for tourist. 20 dirhams for a brief ride and photo-taking. 50 dirhams you can drive the quad (a small 4WD bike) for 15 minutes. I passed. A Bangladeshi worker invited me to feed and take photos with the camels. At the end he hinted for some money. I gave him 5 dirhams. Definitely not bad for a worker in Dubai.

After sunset, dinner was served. It was a simple Arabian BBQ buffet. After the "cruising" through the desert, you won't have much appetite for good food. Inside the campsite, the food, soft drinks, water, traditional costumes for photo-taking were included in the fee you paid.

There was a fine hawk for you to take photo with. She was not aggressive and not afraid of human. Seemed that she was quite used to meeting strangers.

After the dinner it was a belly dance performance. Frankly speaking, it was not as good as the one I had seen in Cairo. She dressed like a belly dancer but was not doing the dancing. But people seemed to be enjoying. The night ended with a all-light-out for 5 minutes. A quite time for everybody to watch the stars. The Singaporean broke silence by playing "Vincent" with his mobile phone. "Starry Starry Night...." There was a very bright star. It was the satellite as it was not blinking.

Fortunately, we didn't need to go through the sand dunes very much on the way back. What a night.

The Price of Prosperity

According to a local report, huge hike in prices made living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) unbearable for both expatriates and nationals. It has been affecting lower income groups and forcing many residents to return their families to their country of origin.

Some people believed that this domestic inflation is partly blamed on the UAE dirham's peg to the US dollar. Prices of commodities, food stuff, rents and garments have hit the roof with 300% increase in the last two years.

This has indeed resulted in creating family conflicts as many children were abandoned just because they were separated from one of their parents. Salary increase was thought to be a key factor that has enticed the traders to raise prices taking advantage of the absence of monitoring and oversight mechanisms. From time to time there were news about an increase in the prices of major items. For instance, the price of rice increased by 20%. Indian mouton price has increased by 50%. Local people condemned that the daily hike in prices has become a burden on the their shoulders but the government is still turning a deaf ear to all these problems.

Jumeirah Mosque

Normally non-muslims are not allowed to enter the mosque. The Jumeirah Mosque in Dubai is an exception. The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding organized guided tours for those who are interesed to understand more about Islam.

Visits are every Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, at 10:15am and last for over an hour. Registration is required (from 10:00am to 10:15am) and the entrance fee is 10 Dirhams. Appropriate dress must be worn, i.e. visitors must have arms and legs covered. Trousers and scarfs are available to those who need. Photo or video taking are allowed inside the mosque.

The guides (a man and a lady) were volunteers. They explained that Islam is founded on five principles (Five Pillars): declaring that there is no God but Allah, praying five times a day, charity, making a pilgrimage to Mecca (the Ka'bah) and fasting during Ramadan. For me it's too much emphasis on behaviours.

Then the guy demonstrated a prayer. He also explained a prayer in Arabic. There are horizontal lines on the carpet. The lines are used to guide people where to kneel, so as to optimize the use of space.

Prayer at ten thousand metres

I sat next to a serious muslim on the flight to Dubai. Even before take-off, he was reading the Koran. After flying for 4 hours, he anxiously asked me to open the window shield. He needed to find out when the sun set. And that’s time for his prayer.

Prayer is “Salat” in Arabic. Actually “Salat” means connection or communication literally. This is a very good description of prayer. When you pray, it’s a two-way communication between you and God. For muslims, the prayer times are in accordance with the position of the sun starting with:
(1) pre-dawn (Al Fajr);
(2) between noon and mid afternoon (Al Thuhur);
(3) between mid-afternoon and sunset (Al Asr);
(4) between sunset and darkness (Al Maghrib) and
(5) evening (Al Isha)

Right after sunset, the guy sitting next to me retreated to solitude. The Singaporean flight attendant seemed to understand his needs. She guided him to the back where he could pray.

Muslims believed that regular prayer could restrain a person from doing shameful and wrong actions. Although it sounds like rituals, this is something Christians need to learn. Never stop praying. We simply do not pray enough.

上海

差不多有一年沒有來上海了，這次是為了MCE的任務。客戶沒有安排接機，他們覺得在蒲東機場找出租絕不是問題。今天的上海確實像個大城市了，只是出租車的質量好像停滯不前。沒有安全帶、充滿泥塵的車廂、空調不能惠及後座；還停留在十年前？

這次夥拍的是一個比利時人，年紀跟我差不多。這個課程首次在中國舉行，以前都在巴黎舉行的。客戶指明第二名導師不能從歐洲飛過來，所以找了我來做。比利時人表現一般，大概還沒有適應時差。他是第一次來中國，下周還和他的女兒到香港旅遊。可惜我要去阿聯酋，否則可以帶他四處逛逛，為香港宣傳一下。

反面“溫柔的夜”——重播再重播

前幾天出發去上海，在香港機場的禁區內遇上一個自稱從東北來的女士。她說自己丟了錢包，問我可否給她一點錢。天啊，老千的手法真是十年如一日。說不定警訊已經介紹過。

記得十多年前我在上海虹橋機場（那個舊機場）也碰過類似的情況，一個拿回鄉證的女人用同樣的理由問我拿錢。我第一次是給了她，我當時是受三毛作品“溫柔的夜”所影響的。“溫柔的夜”是三毛在西班牙的親身經歴，當時也是有一個小子用類似的理由問三毛拿錢，三毛覺得他是騙人，但最終也給了他。後來她發現那小子原來沒有騙她，所以她非常後悔自己用了一種歧視的眼光來看他。幾個月後，我在虹橋機場又再見到那女子在問其他人……。

大概八、九年前，我在北京的建國門附近又遇上同樣的情況。那次是幾個自稱來自哈爾濱的年輕人，我還是給了他們。我想，百分之九十九他們是騙我的。但萬一他們是那百分之一，他們就很可憐了，大概沒什麽人會相信他們的。可笑的是（笑我自己），第二天我在同一地點再遇上他們，他們竟然忘了我，再用同一個劇本來問我。我怒斥了他們一頓，便走開了。之後我也在香港及內地再遇上這種情況，我再沒有給錢那些人。

我已經忘掉“溫柔的夜”了。