Heard the one about the Bahraini stand-ups? It’s no joke. Kate Douglas attends a pioneering performance of home-grown comedy in Manama
“The Axis of Evil guys are hilarious.” Fahad Albutairi, a 23-year-old Saudi national with fashionably thick-framed glasses, is loudly enthusing about the US comedians soon to take to the stage. “I remember when I first saw them on Comedy Central and I was like, ‘I could do that!’ I really think I could do something like that.”
I arrived a sceptic. There isn’t exactly a long tradition of Gulf stand-up comedy. In fact, there’s no tradition whatsoever. But when the bespectacled Saudi geophysicist directed his knock-out punchlines towards 2,000 people with all the verve and swagger of Chris Rock, some members of the audience almost fell over laughing. The girl behind me squealed so loudly I considered calling an ambulance.
“You people have it easy. You get to the airport one or two hours before the start of your flight. It takes me a month and a half” Ahmed Ahmed
At this two-night jesting extravaganza, renowned Muslim-American funnymen Maz Jobrani and Ahmed Ahmed are performing alongside six amateurs from Gulf countries. Two hours before the doors opened, fans of all ages and nationalities patiently lined up outside the sports centre that played host to the night’s merrymaking. Bahrain has never seen anything quite like it.
“It was my first time ever on stage,” reveals a visibly shell-shocked Baraa Abdulla Mohamed, a 25-year-old Bahraini corporate specialist. “I told myself I’d raise a few smiles, but people were actually laughing! At some points I had to stop to let them laugh. It was just so unexpected.” The amateurs are genuinely funny, but how many of the guffaws can be attributed to the fact these freshmen are playing in front of friends and family?
“I was certainly impressed,” Maz Jobrani, the night’s headline act, confirms in his Los Angeles lilt. “There are so many different facets to stand-up comedy and one of them is feeling comfortable on stage, which a few of these guys have already nailed. They just need to work a little on their timing and I think they could really make it.”
“When people turn 18 in some countries they go and get a car. Here in Bahrain they go and get a personal loan” Baraa Abdulla Mohamed
Maz certainly knows about making it. The Iranian-born, California-raised comic has been in stand-up for decades, appearing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and every American TV network going, as well as Hollywood hits such as The Interpreter and 24. But he’s most excited about this current project, The Axis of Evil, which brings “comedy about the Middle East to the Middle East”.
In the shabby green room, I grab some words with his tour buddy, Ahmed Ahmed, the Egyptian-born, California-raised comedian and actor who starred alongside Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man. “I’ve been taking the bullet for a lot of comedians,” he tells me. “I was the first to come out and say it’s OK to be Muslim, Arab and funny. What I’ve learnt is that you have to be sensible and respect other people’s way of thinking.”
Both Maz and Ahmed have altered their acts to cater for an Arab, rather than American audience. “I make sure I’m not doing anything too racy or religious here,” Ahmed confides. “I stay away from royalty and try to keep material family orientated. We do swear a bit, but we don’t go for shock value.” Fahad and Baraa, who both steer clear of offensive material, believe “the best comics are clean”, including Jerry Seinfeld, Brian Regan and Richard Pryer.
I ask the comedians about the Middle Eastern sense of humour and if it’s different from a European, Asian or American one? “I think the sense of humour is the same, which is the beauty of what we’re doing,” muses Maz. “We perform in English and a lot of our references are the same. Obviously if I do jokes about Bahrain, Dubai and Egypt in this region, they’ll get a lot more response than if I told them in Los Angeles – unless my audience was full of Middle Easterners in Los Angeles.”
Fahad highlights another contemporary strain of local humour. “There is a huge, huge difference between the past two generations of Arabs, due to globalisation and all that,” he explains. “I get jokes that my Dad won’t and vice versa. This creates a lot of material for me that makes both age groups crack up.” Fahad claims to be the “first Saudi comedian”. “I’m allowed to make fun of my own people,” he states confidently. “Tonight I’ll compliment the crowd on Bahrain’s fantastic nightlife scene. But then I’ll remind them that I come from a country where nightlife requires an X-Box headset. That will definitely get a laugh.”
Baraa, meanwhile, makes jokes about things he recognises as Bahraini traits. The audience chortles as he talks about how every Bahraini’s 18th birthday is commemorated by a trip to the bank to get a personal loan.
“Nightlife here in Bahrain is something else. You guys should take it as a compliment.Then again, you shouldn’t – this is coming from a guy who comes from a country where nightlife requires an X-Box headset”Fahad Albutairi
An astounding 4,000 people have shown up to these two nights, advertised only on Facebook. It’s been a long time coming, but home-grown stand-up comedy is finally up and running. And bigger things are planned for Maz and Ahmed’s tour. “We only brought the tour to the region last December – it hasn’t been a full year yet and all these comedy shows are popping up in Egypt, Beirut, Jordan, Bahrain…” Ahmed says. “I’m interested in seeing what happens in the next five years,” he continues. “I think you’ll see clubs opening. I get lots of fan mail from here – 16 year olds saying they want to do what I do.”
“The only thing that will stop comedy here is censorship,” he adds. “It’s the last frontier for us. We call it the Wild East.” As I leave, I spot Fahad hovering around Maz, pen in hand, waiting for an autograph; his eager ambition soon to be realised.
With a charismatic curator who’s improved the lives of millions, the world’s first toilet museum inevitably inspires juvenile jokes and below-the-belt puns
Words_Kate McAuley Photography_Abhinandita Mathur
“Smile! You’re in Sulabh,” demands the plasterboard sign leading to the world’s only toilet museum. It hardly seems necessary. Most visitors have trouble suppressing eruptions of giggles when visiting the Sulabh International Museum.
It’s easy to understand. In most conversations any mention of the loo results in red cheeks and embarrassed chuckles.
It’s basic humour, and the museum employees are in on the gag as they talk visitors through the historical evolution of the toilet and sanitation, from the drainage systems developed in the ancient Pakistani city of Mehenjo-daro in 2500BC to how astronauts do their business in zero gravity in contraptions costing millions. The staff delight in using every colourful euphemism you can imagine while showing off Sulabh’s quirky collection, which includes French toilets disguised to look like a stack of English literary works and a Japanese throne that wouldn’t look out of place on the Starship Enterprise.
It’s not, however, all fun and games. The museum, which was founded by Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, is just a small part of a much larger NGO that has been building hygienic and sanitary private and public toilets across the country since 1970. “I started Sulabh to assist in changing the caste system and to put an end to the scavenger castes – the untouchables – being forced to clean up human waste,” says Dr Pathak. “I went about this mission to fulfil the dreams of Mohandas Gandhi, who also wanted to abolish this system.”
Like most stories of this ilk, particularly those that deal with changing entrenched social attitudes, Dr Pathak has faced his fair share of detractors. “I come from an orthodox Brahmin family. When I was a child I was forced to carry out a purifying ritual after my family saw me with an untouchable. I didn’t understand why they were considered different from us.”
It was a question that continued to bug Dr Pathak. So much so, that as a young, newly married man, he left his family to go and live with untouchables for three months. It was there that he realised that with the aid of hygienic toilets, which were cheap and easy to build, he could help put an end to public defecation and the awful sanitation that was causing so much illness among the poorest Indians.
And so, with a toilet system he designed himself, he began Sulabh International, which since its inception has built 1.2 million in-house toilets and 7,500 public toilets nationwide. “Around 10 million people use these toilets every day,” Dr Pathak recounts with pride. To many he’s a hero.
And the museum? “Oh we built that just for fun,” he says. “I got the idea while I was at Madame Tussauds waxworks museum in London. I had such a good time I thought I should build something like it in Delhi, but all I knew about was toilets so this is what we made.”
When asked about his favourite exhibit, he laughs loudly and reveals a replica of King Louis XIV’s elaborate water closet. “He had a commode built under his throne so he could relieve himself in public.” Giggle. Smile. Blush. Dr Pathak is in on the joke too.
In a nondescript suburb of Kuwait, Matthew Lee meets the man who turned his house into one of the region’s best museums…
Photography_Lucie Debelkova
Not many people have heard of the Tareq Rajab Museum.
Taxi drivers and hotel concierges stare blankly when you say its name. There are no signposts on the nearby streets and only a handful of people visit on a typical day. But in a house in a residential district of Kuwait, an unrivalled collection of Islamic art is open to the public, free of charge, seven days a week.
Tareq Rajab was only 14 when he travelled to Baghdad to visit the souqs he’d excitedly read about in history books. He returned to Kuwait clutching a batch of old manuscripts found at roadside stalls, and a lifelong obsession with Islamic art and calligraphy was born. He studied in England, where he discovered London’s museums and met his future wife, Jehan, who shared his passion for history and the arts. He later became Kuwait’s first Director of Antiquities and Museums, but due to the lack of interest or funding for an Islamic museum in Kuwait, he resigned from his post and focussed instead on his private collection.
“The objective was never to accumulate and store things,” Rajab says of his decision to put his collection on display. “The objective was to get the public to see these things, to get them interested.” At the time of its 1980 opening, it was the biggest Islamic museum in the Gulf. “It took up a lot of our time and resources,” says Rajab. “Everything here is home made.” Nearly three decades later, the collection continues to grow. The Rajabs opened a separate calligraphy museum two years ago.
The museum charts the development of culture from the very first century of the Islamic era to modern times. With everything from Uzbek jewellery to Afghan hats, Nepalese necklaces and Azeri instruments on display, it spans the breadth of the Islamic world. Rajab describes his unique collection as being “United Nations art in miniature”.
It’ll lose its status as the Gulf’s foremost Islamic art collection when the Museum of Islamic Art opens in Doha this winter. Rajab is envious of their space and resources. “They’ll have one gallery with one painting – the ultimate luxury,” he says. “But this is against my idea of a museum. Here, you’re close to the objects; everything is talking to you.”
Rajab hopes visitors to his museum will leave with a better understanding of how Islam “encouraged research, the seeking of knowledge and the development of art in all its forms”. Even a cursory visit reveals Islam’s enormous contribution to the advancement of human civilisation.
Rajab admits that few local people visit the museum. Kuwaitis shouldn’t take it for granted. In August 1990, with the rest of the family away, Jehan defended the museum against Iraq’s National Guard. She pulled down outside signage, hastily built walls to hide galleries and packed everything away in boxes. The Iraqis raided a school owned by the Rajabs and looted 500 rare carpets stored there. But the museum itself, the life’s work of these dedicated custodians of Islamic history, survived unscarred.
Obscurity can be a blessing. The Iraqis hadn’t heard of the Tareq Rajab Museum either.
Home to screaming, sofa-throwing ghosts, this is th e Al-Qassimi Palace, the Gulf’s scariest building. Our fearless reporter Anna Putman spent the night there
I’d volunteered to spend a night in a palace haunted by violent ghosts. Everybody makes mistakes.
In 1984, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Qassimi fled his home with his family, having been tormented by groups of jinn – supernatural creatures who can adopt the human form. The house hasn’t been occupied since. Not by living people anyway.
Tarik Soliman, a gravel-voiced Egyptian scholar and exorcist who oversees the notorious Al-Qassimi Palace in Ras Al-Khaimah, tells me about another visitor’s experiences: “The lights started turning on and off, on and off, on and off. The furniture was flying about and a woman was screaming in every room in the house.” I begin shaking.
“People have left the palace crying,” he continues. “They’ve heard their name screamed from the roof tops and the lights flicker constantly.” I keep a diary of the night’s events.
18.15
I speak to Mahed Tanaz, a petrol station assistant in the nearby town of Al-Diat. “The spirits threaten to skin people alive,” he tells me. Will anybody notice if I scoot off to the nearby Hilton?
18.56
“Casper, Casper, Casper,” shout a pack of grubby kids, pointing to the US$65m hilltop pad. Armed with a sleeping bag, a vat of coffee and my trusty Swiss Army knife, I’m ready for anything – even a crazed ghost with a penchant for meat cleavers.
19.45
The sun sets. I’m terrified. Tarik only fuels further whimpering. Numerous exorcists have tried – and failed – to kill the spirits,” he tells me.
20.14
The paintings of frolicking beasts and the beheaded bird statues have more than a hint of Count Dracula to them. The place smells like a disused biology lab, complete with the hum of decayed rodents and the stench of mentholated spirits. All in all, it’s unnerving, particularly as Tarik – who is about to flee to the safety of a nearby hut – ushers me to the darkest corner of the hall, grunting “sleep here”.
22:56
Aside from the odd smattering of pebbles (the kids love terrorising me), I’m holding my own. People congregate outside, hoping – I discover later – I’ll “scream like Sheikh Al-Qassimi”. Mahmed Alriqui, a local mechanic, appears at the front door to offer water but won’t step foot inside. “It is a bad place,” he says. “Even Benazir Bhutto [the late Pakistani politician] was scared away.”
01.06
Unable to get any shut-eye, I amble about the dust-ridden rooms and stumble across a painting with a cartoon deer coughing up blood on it, a pile of mouse bones and a scrawl of writing in the downstairs bathroom which says “live life and love death”. I bolt back to the relative comfort of my sleeping bag.
04.46
I wake up covered in a film of sweat, unable to differentiate dream (the bleeding animals coming alive) from reality (a chandelier flickering). The barrage of pebbles starts up again, but the sound of giggling kids is absent. I call Tarik, but no answer. I call a friend, but the last reception bar on my phone disappears. Curling up in the foetal position is my only option.
07.56
I’m desperate to leave. My ghostly pallor worries Tarik as he utters, “You okay?” “Yeah,” I mumble, blaming the local kids for my puffy eyes. “There were no children here. Those are the children of the jinn,” he says. I respond by pegging it out of the Al-Qassimi Palace quicker than you can say “boo”.
Jazeera Airways’ latest destination is booming, with a world-class hotel, a golf tournament and a stunning art museum all arriving soon. Here’s what not to miss
01Aspiring to Excellence
No expense was spared when Qatar constructed the world’s biggest sports complex in 2005 – Diego Maradona and Pelé attended the opening bash. As well as this landmark tower, the complex has facilities for athletics, football, swimming, gymnastics and numerous other sports. But it won’t be Doha’s best sports venue for long. The world’s first underground stadium, known as “The Wall”, is under construction.
02Art of the Matter
The Museum of Islamic Art, due to open by the start of December, is already a much-loved Doha landmark thanks to Chinese-American architect IM Pei’s eye-catching design. On its own island and only accessible by dhow, it boasts the world’s largest collection of Islamic art and artefacts.
03Market Force
Souq Waqif, Doha’s centuries-old retail hub, offers visitors a flavour of Qatar’s past. A few chain coffee shops have slightly undermined the traditional vibe, and you’re unlikely to see Bedouins selling goats these days, but you will come across all manner of textiles, spices, trinkets and antiques.
04Locking Horns
A member of the antelope family, the oryx is native to the Arabian Peninsula. The species became extinct in the wild in the early 1970s, but has been successfully reintroduced in recent years. Arrange a trip to the AlShahaniya oryx farm through a local tour operator to view them up close.
05Ocean Road
Take a waterside stroll along Doha’s Al-Corniche Road and you’ll pass many of the city’s attractions – the National Museum, Dhow Harbour and the Pearl Monument. Grab lunch at Balhambar, a city landmark and one of the few places offering traditional Qatari food.
06Lap of Luxury
If being waited on hand and foot is your raison d’être, check into one of Qatar’s unequivocally plush hotels and resorts. Sharq Village (+974 425 6666) is situated on a 350m-long beach and boasts one of the Gulf’s finest spas. But the resort will face stiff competition from W Doha (+974 499 6530). The first W hotel in the region (pictured) opens on 15 January.
07On your Plate
Gourmands need not go hungry in Doha. Al-Dana at Sharq Village (+974 425 6666) is a seriously classy seafood eatery, while the Four Seasons’ Il Teatro offers fine Italian food. Most excitingly, W Doha (pictured, +974 499 6530) has signed up the celebrated French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten for its new eateries.
08Spending Power
Swarms of fashionistas and teenage trolley-pushers swamp Doha’s major malls in the evenings and at weekends. City Centre is home to the likes of Debenhams, Carrefour and Next, while you can hop on a gondola to H&M, Berskha and Virgin at the Venice-inspired Le Villaggio Mall.
09Par for the Course
The Qatar Masters takes place at the famous Doha Golf Club on 21-25 January. The tournament, which first took place in 1998, is part of the European and Asian PGA tour and previous winners include Ernie Els, Henrik Stenson and Adam Scott. www.qatar-masters.com
10Fort for the Day
Most of Qatar’s forts were constructed at the start of the 20th century. The oldest is AlWajbah, where the Qataris fended off the Ottoman Empire’s forces in 1893. If you get the chance, don’t miss AlZubara Fort. An hour’s drive from Doha, the 1938 building casts an imposing figure in this isolated corner of the country.
A century-and-a-half ago, America’s West Coast welcomed a flood of migrants searching for prosperity. The parallels with Dubai are striking, although the emirate’s current gold rush is taking place on an even grander scale.
From sun-soaked beaches and palm trees to mega-highways and SUVs, the Arab metropolis and the State of California already have plenty in common. But Dubai’s transformation is just getting started. There will soon be enough life coaches, plastic surgeons and car customisers on the streets of Jumeirah to make Beverly Hills blush.
Is this sudden appetite for money, fame, beauty and everlasting life just an acute case of California dreaming? Or is this ambitious boomtown heading towards the perfect Hollywood ending? Here’s J Magazine’s guide to the new Golden State…
DULLYWOOD
Lights, camera, action! The casting call is out for Dubai’s first feature film. Anna Putnam talks to those dreaming of stardom…
She’s holding an iPhone in one hand, a Starbucks mochachoca latte in the other, boasts hair extensions longer than Lindsay Lohan’s and her fuschia pink talons clasp a Zagliani botox-infused bag (US$2,700 a pop). This is Mai Rabaza, a 19-year-old Emirati who reckons she’s got what it takes to star in Dubai-based Craig Johnson’s film Expats.
“I have the UAE look,” she says, desperately trying to balance her phone/latte/ bag combo while flicking a perfectly coiffed tendril of hair out of her face. “This film needs some national influence,” adds the French Fashion University student, eyeing the hordes of hopefuls passing through Media City’s Radisson SAS revolving doors.
But Johnson – whose first screenplay Repping is set to hit the big screen in 2009 – is not bothered about nationality. “I have no cash for the likes of Brad Pitt and I’m open to casting everyone from a Moroccan granddad to a Scottish teenager,” says the New Zealander. While the film needs six leads and 22 smaller parts (more than 400 wannabe A-listers applied), the successful candidates, according to the director, will have the “charisma of George Clooney and the acting chops of Dame Judi Dench.
“I want local actors to get across the good, the bad and the ugly side of life here,” says the 36-year-old about his ambitious US$680,600 project. “Dubai’s not all beaches and tax-free salaries… There’s loneliness – despite all the partying – and an uneven playing field that favours certain nationalities. It’s about cutting through the glitz.”
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Tarek Numo didn’t make the cut. Dressed head to toe in Gucci garb and showing off a much-coveted Girard Perregaux Ferrari watch, the 21-year-old auditionee believes he’s Tony Soprano with a hint of 50 Cent. “Whatever people say, Dubai is about making it big, living big and dressing big,” says the Lebanese-born estate agent, who cites P Diddy as his biggest inspiration. “If they don’t cast me, it’s because they’re scared of the truth.”
Johnson has hired local production company Boom Film “to ensure the movie stays true to its roots” and filming is predominantly in Dubai, with only a few shots taking place in Mumbai. “It’s not easy putting on a film here,” he says. “It’s like Hollywood in terms of all the Armani-clad people, but without the established film scene.” That said, he believes the emirate has the potential to become a movie-making hub: “It used to be the American dream, now it’s the Arabian dream and with the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), the UAE will soon have everything the United States does.”
With production already underway in the Dubai Studio City free zone, a one-stop shop for movie professionals, and investors slowly trickling in, Expats is pegged to show at DIFF in December. “How great would it be to have a film about Dubai premiering in Dubai?” says Johnson.
Until then, Mai Rabaza – who sadly didn’t secure a part in Expats – is hoping to star in Dubai Drama Group’s rendition of Macbeth, while Tarek Numo is focusing on his band, TNT. “Something will come up,” he says. “It always does in Dubai.”
To get involved, email Craig at expats.dubai@gmail.com
BLING THE CHANGES
Mark Smith checks out the notorious West Coast company pimping Middle Eastern rides
We once inhabited simpler times, when travelling in a stretch limousine was the preserve of the fully paid up, card-carrying movie star as opposed to teenage girls en route to a Bratz-themed party. With limos now democratised, people with cash to splash are seeking new ways to super-size their carbon footprint while demonstrating their vehicular superiority.
Enter West Coast Customs, a Californian car remodelling company that shot to fame as the force behind MTV’s Pimp My Ride. The show sees WCC’s team of tyre specialists, fabric gurus and electronics experts breathe new life into clappedout bangers. But off-screen, WCC’s bread and butter has always been folk with very deep pockets. This, after all, is a company that fits diamond studs into upholstery as a matter of course; for whom ‘optional extra’ means not the cup-holder but the gold-plated fridge-freezer.
These ride pimpers par excellence have now reached Dubai, a city so unfettered by such concepts as economy, modesty and sustainability it recently came up with a hotel boasting temperature-controlled sand (Palazzo Versace, opening 2009). As owner and ‘Chief Fabricator’ Ryan Friedlinghaus says: “Dubai is where customers spend money and let us build what we most want to build.”
Judging by the showroom, that’s the ‘Range Stormer’, a white Range Rover with lengthened doors and custom LED driving lights. With its reinforced polycarbonate roof, surely it’s the perfect vehicle in which to withstand the credit crunch? www.wcc-me.com
STAY POSITIVE
Kate Douglas keeps an open mind while investigating Dubai’s New Age explosion
In a building in Jumeirah, people sit in the dark with their arms outstretched, straining to feel the warmth of the world’s love. “I feel it around my head!” shouts one middle-aged man. A female student sobs at her healer’s verdict: he can tell from her energy centres that she doesn’t delegate enough at work and takes too much stress home with her.
“I suffered from arthritis for years before I discovered Pranic Healing,” explains Susan Wonder, a radio presenter and the emirate’s number one Pranic advocate. “But then I discovered how to clean my energy centres by harnessing the world’s love in the right way through Pranic Healing.”
If all this cleaning and harnessing sounds like hard work, perhaps you should hire a guru to guide you on your path towards self-fulfilment. “Every city needs executive life coaches,” says Dubai-based Adrian Hayes during one of his motivational speeches. “Life coaching is the second-fastest-growing business in the world for one solid reason – it works.” If anybody’s qualified to be a life guru, it’s Hayes, an explorer who made his name reaching the Three Poles – the North Pole, South Pole and Mount Everest – in record time.
In his sessions, Hayes guides clients through psychological exercises, which, he claims, help them “find clarity, focus and control in their lives”. Saira Mehar, a fellow life guru, says there’s “huge demand for life coaching in Dubai”. She runs group sessions so she can “help 10 people clarify their lives at once rather than just one”.
Even moon-led meditation classes are now fully booked. “We meet every two weeks, when the moon is either half-full or full,” explains Terri Allen, the instructor. “But the classes are getting so big, we’re having to find new venues, which makes it more difficult to steady one’s mind. Everyone wants their minds led by the moon.” www.adrianhayes.com, www.synergyctrdubai.com
NIP AND TUCK
Anna Putnam speaks to the people behind Dubai’s cosmetic surgery boom
“I’ve had so much surgery in the past 23 years that I’ll probably come back as a rubber glove in my second life,” says Gail Clough, founder of Dubai Surgery, a company that arranges cosmetic procedures in the UAE. “Bum, face, cheeks, nose, Botox, thighs, eyebrows and eyelids… you name it, I’ve had it,” continues the 42 year old (she doesn’t look a day over 35), explaining that medical procedures at Dubai Surgery have risen by 50 percent in the past year.
Aside from her quest for eternal youth and a wrinkle-free façade, the UK-born expatriate goes under the knife to save her clients from botched jobs. “I try before my clients buy,” she adds. “And believe me, it’s not a scam to get free procedures – my nose is a mess after a novice surgeon lied about his qualifications.” Needless to say, he didn’t make it onto Dubai Surgery’s Rolodex of surgeons, which includes Dr Imran Tahir (“The Bod-father,” quips Gail).
Dr Tahir made his name helping victims of war in Iraq and Iran. “I’ve treated everyone from bomb blast patients to Paris Hilton wannabes,” he says. In Dubai there’s now a circle of “Imran’s Angels” – 40-something women who look 10 years younger thanks to him – spreading the word.
Cosmetic surgery is not just the preserve of women. One in five of Dubai Surgery’s customers are male, with ‘moob’ jobs (the removal of fat from the chest) the most popular procedure. “I get men coming up to me in Barasti [a Dubai restaurant] pulling their eyelids up, asking me if they need a lift,” she says. “I’ve had thin people thinking they’re fat, pretty people thinking they’re ugly and 15 year olds wanting to look 30,” she continues. But as medical tourism in the UAE continues to flourish, surely there’ll be nothing left of Gail to tweak? “I’ll keep going until they invent ankle implants,” she laughs. www.dubaisurgery.com
THE STAR SPOTTER’S GUIDE TO DUBAI
Paparazzi, autograph hunters and movie star stalkers, listen up – here’s how to spy on your celebrity breed of choice
Words_Matthew Lee & Anna Putnam
Spot irksome celebrity couples The World According to local gossips, LA’s golden couple, David and Victoria Beckham, flew to The World by priva te jet, picked an island and jetted straight back out again. Other couples rumoured to have bought islands on The World include Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, and Brangelina. +971 4 985 3375
Spot aggressive models Burj Al Arab The Burj remains the hotel of choice for A-listers looking to make a seven-star splash. Naomi Campbell hosted her 36th birthday here with a bevy of Armani-clad chums. She rented out all 18 floors, for three days, at a cost of US$1.8m. In a surprise twist, the birthday girl didn’t physically attack any of her guests. +971 4 301 7777
Spot scary ex-pop stars Wild Wadi
When Michael Jackson hired the water park for the day and turned up in a full-b ody Lycra swimsuit, his fellow swimmers looked the other way. “His body is very skinny and Lycra does him no favours,” a lifeguard said. +971 4 348 4444
Spot stars of the silver screen Madinat Jumeirah
With Sharon Stone, Morgan Freeman, Orlando Bloom and Richard Gere all having negotiated its labyrinthine network of waterways in recent years, the Madinat Jumeirah always glistens with Hollywood glamour. +971 4 366 8888
Spot balding action heroes Planet Hollywood
Millionaire megastars don’t usually eat at bog-standard burger joints, but Bruce Willis was the star turn at Planet Hollywood Dubai’s opening. His favourite dish, should you buy him dinner, is Demi’s Mushroom Cannelloni. +971 4 324 4555
Spot sports stars shivering Ski Dubai
Snow isn’t tennis star Maria Sharapova’s preferred surface, but last time she visited the Mall of the Emirates’ indoor ski park, she served a few aces while hurling snowballs at complete strangers. At least she wasn’t grunting… +971 4 409 4000
Spot ponytailed fashion icons One&Only Royal Mirage
Karl Lagerfeld likes to strut round this palatial hotel when he isn’t working on the plans for Isla Moda – an island dedicated to shoes, handbags and the odd Chihuahua. Expect the size-zero stars of the catwalk to deluge Dubai when rival Versace and Armani hotels open next year. +971 4 399 9999
Spot super-skinny models Deira Gold Souk
When Kate Moss wasn’t fawning over her Topshop range in Deira City Centre two years ago, the couture queen was trawling the nearby Gold Souk. Thankfully, for everyone’s sake, Pete Doherty stayed at home. +971 4 352 6867
If you go hang-gliding in Beirut, you’ll need more than just a favourable breeze to get off the ground… Words and photography_Hugh Macleod
The motto of Interavia, the motley crew of Lebanese aviators trying to get their flying machines – and public interest in them – off the ground, is simple: “Work Hard, Play Harder”. In truth, the verbs should be reversed.
“We’ve been at it since the 1990s and we’ve had to fight all the way,” says Ousama Rawdah, an unlikely trailblazer for the Middle East’s first hang-gliding club open to tourists, his spectacles and sensible shoes more the uniform of a geography teacher than daredevil entrepreneur and adrenaline junkie. But Rawdah, it turns out, is a man of significant endeavour.
As a professor of engineering, Rawdah inspired his students to build Lebanon’s first winged hovercraft from parts he imported, and paid for out of his own pocket, from the US. The contraption burned to a crisp before its maiden voyage, victim of a warehouse fire started by a cigarette. Unperturbed, the aviator inventor began a series of experiments with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). They too were costly. “I’m probably the only guy who worked as a teacher and lost money,” he concludes, chuckling.
Rawdah’s passion for flying can be traced to his father, a pilot who was tragically killed in the 1976 bombing of Flight 438 over Saudi Arabia. To honour his father’s memory, Rawdah embarked on bringing private aviation to his homeland, everything from hang-gliders to parachutes to ultra-lights. “We faced two main problems: mafia and novelty. For the Lebanese, aviation is a huge jumbo jet,” he says.
Simply registering an ultra-light plane in Lebanon was a challenge of Kafka-esque proportions. Under the country’s civil aviation law, largely copied from the French, such small planes did not exist so could not be registered. Fifty years on, however, the planes existed but the law for them did not.
Unable to obtain permission to fly, Rawdah and a friend strapped one of the ultra-lights to the top of an old VW Golf and headed overland through Syria to Jordan, where they could train. The 260km journey to Amman took 38 hours, including a night spent sleeping rough in the no man’s land between Lebanon and Syria, and they were greeted in the Jordanian capital by maddening bureaucracy and expenses. In the end, they donated the small plane to Jordan’s Royal Parachute and Air Sports Club so as to avoid a rolling fine that would have left them bankrupt. “Back in Lebanon I saw King Abdullah on television one day flying over Petra,” says Rawdah. “And I shouted, ‘That’s my plane!’”
For Boutros Habchi, who learned to fly Cessnas and gliders in the US and who teamed up with Rawdah to create Interavia, simply finding a spot to land his hang-glider was risky. “I used to launch from high up near the Cedars and fly east over the Bekaa Valley,” says the well-tanned electrician. “But this was when the Syrian army was still in Lebanon and so when they saw me flying over them in the Bekaa they got hysterical and were running to shoot me down. Luckily my brother saw and stopped them.”
To take to the air myself, I head to Jounieh Bay, a dramatic sweep of turquoise sea enclosed by giddying green cliffs dotted with white apartment buildings and, today, Lebanon’s first dedicated civil aviation training area. The hang-glider has floating pontoons, which means it can land on the sea. The boat has a wire winch and launch platform to catapult the glider into the air, once Captain Bob hits a certain speed. Habchi has complete confidence in it all and, soon to be strapped to his back, I’m in no position to argue. But, before getting airborne, the other side of Beirut’s civil aviation experience awaits.
It’s noon and Rawdah has just finished another rambling, hilarious tale of triumph over adversity, but I am concerned. We’re into the third hour of our lunch and still no word from the errant mechanic who called to say he’d forgotten to inflate something on the flying machine. We head for the marina anyway, only to find Captain Bob waist-deep in the bowels of the boat, gutting engine parts like a fishmonger. There will be no flying today.
A week later, it’s Saturday morning and I’m running an hour late. “No problem, my friend. Take your time.” Anwar, an Interavia stalwart, sounded sure enough, so I plunge headlong into the highway traffic, going north. A long time later, the assembled men reach their conclusion: the seas are too rough for Captain Bob to achieve the required take-off speed.
We were third time lucky. The army’s helicopters had cleared off and we had permission to fly. A new safety pin had been found for the wire winch. Captain Bob was yelling instructions and I was dangling from the garish wing. The wind howled past us, the boat pounded the waves into a fine white spray and then, so quickly, we rose into the air as if drawn into a vacuum, suddenly suspended hundreds of metres above the rippling sea, Captain Bob and his crew reduced to a speck of splashing. We drop the cable and all is peaceful, all is bright and very beautiful indeed.
“You waited a long time expecting to fly,” says Habchi craning his neck around to see my face grinning compulsively. “And it was worth it, wasn’t it?” www.interaviasal.com
Sore-footed and sleep-deprived, Henry Wismayer somehow stumbles to the peak of Mount Damavand, Asia’s largest volcano Photography_Henry Wismayer
Altitude has stolen my ability to sleep. In the rarefied air, my heart compensates by beating faster and harder – a panic attack that never ends. For the second night running, I lie awake in a state of frustrated semi-consciousness fighting back intermittent waves of nausea.
The anxiety isn’t helping matters any. I’m 4,400m up the highest mountain in the Middle East and soon our expedition party of seven – five adventuresome Brits and two local guides – will begin our attempt to reach its summit, still another 1,300m above.
Two days earlier, as we passed beneath the rusty iron gateway of Nandel village and bade a temporary farewell to civilisation, there was little clue of the tribulations to come. Huddled into the back of a flatbed truck, we bounced along dirt roads over an idyllic landscape: a wide and wind-ravaged steppe teeming with insects and wild flowers and studded with ramshackle farming settlements. From down here, the huge pyramid of Mount Damavand looked to belong to another world; the point around which life in the Alborz Mountains ebbed and flowed.
At road’s end, 3,000m above sea level, we transferred our gear from truck to mule and set off on foot, following the trail up the mountain’s northern face and round a pair of huge swellings in the earth, produced millennia ago by an upsurge of geothermic pressure. “You see those two big humps? We call those ‘Khayeh Damavand’ – Damavand’s balls,” said our diminutive head guide Mohammed, pointing at his crotch unnecessarily. The mountain is a product of the earth-moving energy that exists at the junction of the Arabian and Eurasian plates. For Damavand is a volcano, the highest in Asia at 5,671m above sea level. Mercifully, it hasn’t been active for 10,000 years.
Later that evening, we ate a dinner of rice and barberries and watched Damavand disappear beneath an ocean of cloud, which enshrouded the lesser peaks of the Alborz and lapped the edges of the natural plateau on which we’d established camp. It was all a far cry from Tehran, just 66km to the southwest. But it’s this proximity to the capital that brought us here, following in the wake of the many thousands of Tehranis who regularly seek refuge in these hills to escape the heat and smog of the city.
The following morning, after a fitful night’s rest, we continued uphill enveloped in the clouds. By mid-afternoon we had stumbled into the musty sanctuary of the mountain refuge – effectively base camp – in which I now find myself insomniac. Damavand is what’s known as a ‘non-technical trekking peak’, so straightforward a climb that the English gentleman adventurer W Taylor Thompson achieved the first recorded ascent way back in 1837, in the days when mountaineers still wore tweed. However, this is no place for the complacent. The distance from Nandel to this point is only 30km – but the need for gradual acclimatisation has been crucial; people die here every year, most of them victims of acute mountain sickness brought on by altitude, the mountaineer’s bête noire.
When we finally rise at 4.30am, the conditions are good. I force down a glucose-heavy breakfast and stumble outside, where Mohammed and his colleague Nasir explain the route we are to take, vaguely delineated by a faint path snaking up a pumice-strewn ridge known as the Takht-e Fereydun – Fereydun’s throne. In the Shahnameh, the poet Ferdowsi’s epic distillation of Persian folklore, Damavand was where the hero Fereydun overthrew the evil king Zahhak, who is said to have fed his serpents with the brains of two men every day. Fereydun imprisoned the tyrant within the mountain and usurped his crown, going on to rule for 500 years.
For us there is somewhat less at stake – just vainglorious egogratification – but it feels like a big deal; no one wants to fail now we’ve come this far. We start up the ridge with the sun rising at our backs. Barely visible against a carapace of wispy cloud, a gate can be seen ahead, a gap between two rocky outcrops through which lies the summit. The overland distance to the top is a little under 10km, but it will take an age. For the next six hours we are utterly at the mercy of the fickle mountain conditions.
The weather on Damavand can be deadly. In 1971, the great climber Reinhold Messner was forced to turn his back on the summit after a storm threatened to sweep him from the same slope I’m walking, very slowly, on. Henceforth, Messner would describe Damavand as “that little hill that defeated me”.
Three conversation-less hours of plodding later and the digital display on Nasir’s GPS has flickered past 5,000m. Halfway. Next to the altimeter, the barometric pressure is plummeting as the weather, so promising at daybreak, rapidly deteriorates. With the gate now obscured behind a brooding mass of slate-coloured cumulus, we plough on through groin-deep snow, with heads down in deference to the eye-watering headwind.
Towards the summit the incline grows dangerously steep. With metres to go Nasir takes a forward step that fails to break the surface of the snow, and slips and slides several metres downhill before plunging his elbows into the drift to halt his perilous progress. “That always happens when I think about my family,” he chirrups, retrieving his ice axe to chop steps into the frozen ground, seemingly unperturbed. I immediately stop thinking about how furious my mother would be if she could see what I was up to, and return my gaze to the unflappable guide’s trailing leg. Minutes later the terrain beneath his boot-heel changes from a carpet of snow to one of stones, made gnarled and yellow by the same sulphurous gases that have begun to pollute the thin air. At midday, I lumber over the crater rim.
Now, we are standing on top of an icon. The country spreads out in every direction. I can’t see any of it, of course – the cloud has seen to that. But I know that, far below us, people are drinking from bottles of ‘Damavand’ brand mineral water, purchased with 10,000 rial banknotes decorated with a monochrome image of the snow-streaked mountain. Turning our backs on the roof of the Middle East, we begin the long journey back to rejoin them.
For hundreds of years, the people of Madar thought giant camels were responsible for the enormous footprints found throughout their village. But a local journalist, suspecting something untoward about the peculiarly large prints, contacted scientists in Sana’a in 2003. Five years later, the tiny Yemeni village has become the setting of a major scientific discovery – the oversized prints were made by a herd of sauropods, the largest animal ever to walk on land. Scientists also discovered a separate track of prints made by an ornithopod, a huge two-legged dinosaur.
The footprints – the first sets found in the Arabian Peninsula – have put Madar on Yemen’s tourist map, with visitors making the scenic 30-mile journey from Sana’a to go walking with dinosaurs. Dr Mohammed Al-Wosabi of Sana’a University, a member of the international team of experts who studied the marks, believes the well-preserved tracks are at least 150 million years old. The tracks are now being looked after by the Yemen Geological Survey and are on display to tourists.
Heard the one about the Bahraini stand-ups? It’s no joke. Kate Douglas attends a pioneering performance of home-grown comedy in Manama
“You people have it easy. You get to the airport one or two hours before the start of your flight. It takes me a month and a half” Ahmed Ahmed
“When people turn 18 in some countries they go and get a car. Here in Bahrain they go and get a personal loan” Baraa Abdulla Mohamed
I ask the comedians about the Middle Eastern sense of humour and if it’s different from a European, Asian or American one? “I think the sense of humour is the same, which is the beauty of what we’re doing,” muses Maz. “We perform in English and a lot of our references are the same. Obviously if I do jokes about Bahrain, Dubai and Egypt in this region, they’ll get a lot more response than if I told them in Los Angeles – unless my audience was full of Middle Easterners in Los Angeles.”
“Nightlife here in Bahrain is something else. You guys should take it as a compliment. Then again, you shouldn’t – this is coming from a guy who comes from a country where nightlife requires an X-Box headset” Fahad Albutairi
With a charismatic curator who’s improved the lives of millions, the world’s first toilet museum inevitably inspires juvenile jokes and below-the-belt puns
It’s easy to understand. In most conversations any mention of the loo results in red cheeks and embarrassed chuckles.
It’s not, however, all fun and games. The museum, which was founded by Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, is just a small part of a much larger NGO that has been building hygienic and sanitary private and public toilets across the country since 1970. “I started Sulabh to assist in changing the caste system and to put an end to the scavenger castes – the untouchables – being forced to clean up human waste,” says Dr Pathak. “I went about this mission to fulfil the dreams of Mohandas Gandhi, who also wanted to abolish this system.”
Like most stories of this ilk, particularly those that deal with changing entrenched social attitudes, Dr Pathak has faced his fair share of detractors. “I come from an orthodox Brahmin family. When I was a child I was forced to carry out a purifying ritual after my family saw me with an untouchable. I didn’t understand why they were considered different from us.”
And so, with a toilet system he designed himself, he began Sulabh International, which since its inception has built 1.2 million in-house toilets and 7,500 public toilets nationwide. “Around 10 million people use these toilets every day,” Dr Pathak recounts with pride. To many he’s a hero.
And the museum? “Oh we built that just for fun,” he says. “I got the idea while I was at Madame Tussauds waxworks museum in London. I had such a good time I thought I should build something like it in Delhi, but all I knew about was toilets so this is what we made.”
In a nondescript suburb of Kuwait, Matthew Lee meets the man who turned his house into one of the region’s best museums… 
Taxi drivers and hotel concierges stare blankly when you say its name. There are no signposts on the nearby streets and only a handful of people visit on a typical day. But in a house in a residential district of Kuwait, an unrivalled collection of Islamic art is open to the public, free of charge, seven days a week.
Tareq Rajab was only 14 when he travelled to Baghdad to visit the souqs he’d excitedly read about in history books. He returned to Kuwait clutching a batch of old manuscripts found at roadside stalls, and a lifelong obsession with Islamic art and calligraphy was born. He studied in England, where he discovered London’s museums and met his future wife, Jehan, who shared his passion for history and the arts. He later became Kuwait’s first Director of Antiquities and Museums, but due to the lack of interest or funding for an Islamic museum in Kuwait, he resigned from his post and focussed instead on his private collection.
“The objective was never to accumulate and store things,” Rajab says of his decision to put his collection on display. “The objective was to get the public to see these things, to get them interested.” At the time of its 1980 opening, it was the biggest Islamic museum in the Gulf. “It took up a lot of our time and resources,” says Rajab. “Everything here is home made.” Nearly three decades later, the collection continues to grow. The Rajabs opened a separate calligraphy museum two years ago.
It’ll lose its status as the Gulf’s foremost Islamic art collection when the Museum of Islamic Art opens in Doha this winter. Rajab is envious of their space and resources. “They’ll have one gallery with one painting – the ultimate luxury,” he says. “But this is against my idea of a museum. Here, you’re close to the objects; everything is talking to you.”
Rajab admits that few local people visit the museum. Kuwaitis shouldn’t take it for granted. In August 1990, with the rest of the family away, Jehan defended the museum against Iraq’s National Guard. She pulled down outside signage, hastily built walls to hide galleries and packed everything away in boxes. The Iraqis raided a school owned by the Rajabs and looted 500 rare carpets stored there. But the museum itself, the life’s work of these dedicated custodians of Islamic history, survived unscarred.
Home to screaming, sofa-throwing ghosts, this is th e Al-Qassimi Palace, the Gulf’s scariest building. Our fearless reporter Anna Putman spent the night there
01 Aspiring to Excellence
02 Art of the Matter
03 Market Force
04 Locking Horns
06 Lap of Luxury
07 On your Plate
08 Spending Power
09 Par for the Course
10 Fort for the Day 
According to local gossips, LA’s golden couple, David and Victoria Beckham, flew to The World by priva te jet, picked an island and jetted straight back out again. Other couples rumoured to have bought islands on The World include Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, and Brangelina. +971 4 985 3375
The Burj remains the hotel of choice for A-listers looking to make a seven-star splash. Naomi Campbell hosted her 36th birthday here with a bevy of Armani-clad chums. She rented out all 18 floors, for three days, at a cost of US$1.8m. In a surprise twist, the birthday girl didn’t physically attack any of her guests. +971 4 301 7777
Spot stars of the silver screen
If you go hang-gliding in Beirut, you’ll need more than just a favourable breeze to get off the ground…
As a professor of engineering, Rawdah inspired his students to build Lebanon’s first winged hovercraft from parts he imported, and paid for out of his own pocket, from the US. The contraption burned to a crisp before its maiden voyage, victim of a warehouse fire started by a cigarette. Unperturbed, the aviator inventor began a series of experiments with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). They too were costly. “I’m probably the only guy who worked as a teacher and lost money,” he concludes, chuckling.
Rawdah’s passion for flying can be traced to his father, a pilot who was tragically killed in the 1976 bombing of Flight 438 over Saudi Arabia. To honour his father’s memory, Rawdah embarked on bringing private aviation to his homeland, everything from hang-gliders to parachutes to ultra-lights. “We faced two main problems: mafia and novelty. For the Lebanese, aviation is a huge jumbo jet,” he says.
Unable to obtain permission to fly, Rawdah and a friend strapped one of the ultra-lights to the top of an old VW Golf and headed overland through Syria to Jordan, where they could train. The 260km journey to Amman took 38 hours, including a night spent sleeping rough in the no man’s land between Lebanon and Syria, and they were greeted in the Jordanian capital by maddening bureaucracy and expenses. In the end, they donated the small plane to Jordan’s Royal Parachute and Air Sports Club so as to avoid a rolling fine that would have left them bankrupt. “Back in Lebanon I saw King Abdullah on television one day flying over Petra,” says Rawdah. “And I shouted, ‘That’s my plane!’”
For Boutros Habchi, who learned to fly Cessnas and gliders in the US and who teamed up with Rawdah to create Interavia, simply finding a spot to land his hang-glider was risky. “I used to launch from high up near the Cedars and fly east over the Bekaa Valley,” says the well-tanned electrician. “But this was when the Syrian army was still in Lebanon and so when they saw me flying over them in the Bekaa they got hysterical and were running to shoot me down. Luckily my brother saw and stopped them.”
It’s noon and Rawdah has just finished another rambling, hilarious tale of triumph over adversity, but I am concerned. We’re into the third hour of our lunch and still no word from the errant mechanic who called to say he’d forgotten to inflate something on the flying machine. We head for the marina anyway, only to find Captain Bob waist-deep in the bowels of the boat, gutting engine parts like a fishmonger. There will be no flying today.
We were third time lucky. The army’s helicopters had cleared off and we had permission to fly. A new safety pin had been found for the wire winch. Captain Bob was yelling instructions and I was dangling from the garish wing. The wind howled past us, the boat pounded the waves into a fine white spray and then, so quickly, we rose into the air as if drawn into a vacuum, suddenly suspended hundreds of metres above the rippling sea, Captain Bob and his crew reduced to a speck of splashing. We drop the cable and all is peaceful, all is bright and very beautiful indeed.
Sore-footed and sleep-deprived, Henry Wismayer somehow stumbles to the peak of Mount Damavand, Asia’s largest volcano 
Two days earlier, as we passed beneath the rusty iron gateway of Nandel village and bade a temporary farewell to civilisation, there was little clue of the tribulations to come. Huddled into the back of a flatbed truck, we bounced along dirt roads over an idyllic landscape: a wide and wind-ravaged steppe teeming with insects and wild flowers and studded with ramshackle farming settlements. From down here, the huge pyramid of Mount Damavand looked to belong to another world; the point around which life in the Alborz Mountains ebbed and flowed.
The following morning, after a fitful night’s rest, we continued uphill enveloped in the clouds. By mid-afternoon we had stumbled into the musty sanctuary of the mountain refuge – effectively base camp – in which I now find myself insomniac. Damavand is what’s known as a ‘non-technical trekking peak’, so straightforward a climb that the English gentleman adventurer W Taylor Thompson achieved the first recorded ascent way back in 1837, in the days when mountaineers still wore tweed. However, this is no place for the complacent. The distance from Nandel to this point is only 30km – but the need for gradual acclimatisation has been crucial; people die here every year, most of them victims of acute mountain sickness brought on by altitude, the mountaineer’s bête noire.
Towards the summit the incline grows dangerously steep. With metres to go Nasir takes a forward step that fails to break the surface of the snow, and slips and slides several metres downhill before plunging his elbows into the drift to halt his perilous progress. “That always happens when I think about my family,” he chirrups, retrieving his ice axe to chop steps into the frozen ground, seemingly unperturbed. I immediately stop thinking about how furious my mother would be if she could see what I was up to, and return my gaze to the unflappable guide’s trailing leg. Minutes later the terrain beneath his boot-heel changes from a carpet of snow to one of stones, made gnarled and yellow by the same sulphurous gases that have begun to pollute the thin air. At midday, I lumber over the crater rim.