Abu Dhabi: Flying like falcons

A bird is treated at the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital. Photo / Creative Commons image by Flickr user Maarten Danial

Abu Dhabi is one of the seven principalities that comprise the United Arab Emirates. Michael Lamb is easy prey for its complicated charms.

I'm a Middle East newbie and this is my first visit to the Arabian Peninsula. Early morning, post-long haul, first impressions are the sentry skyscrapers of Dubai, shuffling out of the desert.

Since Emirates flies only into Dubai and then shuttles you to Abu Dhabi, the next leg is a 150km stretch of the Sheikh Zayed Rd. It's 10 lanes with a 140km/h serving suggestion speed limit.

In the outside lanes, expensive metal. Get in their way, they hound you like desert-kill. In the slow lanes, rows of old buses chug along at 90. They're filled with dozing sub-continentals being ferried back to their dormitory cities from night shift, heads slumped forward with exhaustion. We see camels. We see oil terminals. And a lot of desert.

By the time we make Abu Dhabi, it's heading towards 9am and the heat is locked in. Technically we're here in spring, which means a "balmy" 39C. In summer, it will be up into the 40s. The skies are always cloudless, unless a sandstorm blows through.

I begin to understand this Emirate only later, in the unlikely location of a place called the Women's Handicraft Centre.

Though typical tourist picks are more places like Ferrari World, Yas Waterworld or dune bashing in 4WDs, this counter-intuitive choice gives us something of the soul of this place, which in among the architectural wet dreams of ultra-modernist towers, Disney-esque luxury malls and gold-plated hotels (yes, I'm looking at you Emirates Palace), can be elusive at best.

The Abu Dhabi Heritage Village. Photo / Supplied

We are the only visitors at the centre because it is virtually impossible to find. A large, smiling Arab gentleman welcomes us (such a role is, ironically, deemed inappropriate for a woman). He tours us through a potted history of Abu Dhabian culture, complete with a dress-up session for my teenage daughter. She is draped in the finest robes and jewellery, looking bemused.

But it's the large glass display case in the middle of the room that catches my eye, a model of Abu Dhabi in 1959. Before oil, the plaque says.

Before the gushing wealth that brought us to today. Camels, simple huts, scattered low buildings, the odd palm tree. Men haul in fish on a plaster and glitter coast. A network of placid, sandy islands becalmed under a tireless sun. It's a cliche to note the vast transformation, but let it be noted.

Right now they're building a branch of the Louvre here, and one of the Guggenheim too. There's Formula One and a raft of other international events. One way or another, these petroleum dreams will be realised, authenticity will be purchased.

Yet when we are released into the inner sanctum of the crafts centre bungalows we strike real wealth. Here women, mainly older and many wearing the slightly alarming batula face masks, conjure up the heritage crafts: teli (elaborate embroidery using gold, silver and coloured thread); makabbah (cone shaped food covers made from palm leaves), and al sadu (traditional fabric weaving). We go from room to room, large, clumsy and shoeless among these tiny, industrious and welcoming Arab women.

See traditionally-made wares being created at the Women's Handicraft Centre. Photo / Supplied

By contrast, the ginormous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is a triumph of blatant intent to impress. Rihanna caused a stir by posing provocatively outside this holy shrine. My partner and daughter are saved from themselves by being issued black abayas to wear.

We gasp at the magnificence of the place. We dutifully note the New Zealand contribution (wool for the endless acres of fantastically decorative carpet, which took 1200 artisans a year to make).

We gape at the giant chandeliers studded with thousands upon thousands of Swarovski crystals. It could rival the Taj Mahal - and that is always a subtext here in Abu Dhabi. That longing to make a sleeve-tugging statement to the world - we're here and we want to be bigger, glitzier, grander, richer.

The richer part comes easily. At the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital, birds of prey belonging to wealthy owners come in for respite and repair.

A smiling vet yanks open a drawer and proudly shows us his selection of "falcon spare parts".

The birds are utterly engaging - this is the best thing in town. I remember reading some Emirates fine print once that declared animals were not permitted on flights, "with the exception of falcons on selected routes". I'm betting most of them travel Business, too.

By night I hit the hotel's rooftop bar. Bars, like many things in Abu Dhabi, operate in a parallel universe. They exist exclusively in the hotels, which effectively function as outposts of all things from the West.

Tired crew from the Star Wars movie roll in, ordering Long Island Ice Tea by the jug. As they sit around the pool getting trolleyed and swapping war stories from shoots long past, somewhere out in the desert, past the camels and oil processing plants, I imagine the half-built houses of Tatooine standing dark in the humid night.

Another parallel universe and one that seems entirely appropriate in this place of heat, falcons, smoke and mirrors.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Etihad flies from Auckland and Christchurch direct to Abu Dhabi.