GEORGIAN DRIVERS

After what seems an age I’m posting again about my travels. What was meant to be a quiet retirement has turned, for the moment at least, to full-on work in familiar places. By the end of April I will have been to Brussels five times, Georgia and Abkhazia once and Cyprus once. Maybe Istanbul as well, but I’ll believe it when I experience it.

Here I am, on a flight home after a week in Georgia and one of its breakaway regions, Abkhazia. I’ve been travelling with Rieks, the intrepid Dutchman of posts many years back, doing an interesting River Basin study on the boundary between the two states. (or is it one?  Discuss)

I first came to Georgia in 2002 and many things have changed since then. Although very attractive it was a bit wild and wooly, pretty poor, full of passion and kindness and you had to watch your step. Now it is recognisable to those who have travelled recently in the eastern part of the EU, with a beautifully vibrant capital city and glorious countryside but increasingly ordered.

Undoubtedly the thing that has changed most is the driving. When I first visited, I felt Georgian roads were probably the most dangerous on earth; every driver a madman (I use the word advisedly; no women drivers then), queues five wide at traffic lights on three lane roads, and running red lights was so routine that it was safer to approach a green light with great caution.

And now? Perfectly normal European behaviour on the roads. I saw mad driving of the old sort four or five times in my week there. I saw far many more instances of drivers pootling down the road at 40kph, cap on head  (the flat –‘at is not dead here) without a care in the world.

So what has changed this behaviour, and so quickly? I would cite two changes:

1.       Women drivers. In the early 2000s there were virtually no women drivers. My thesis is that men knew exactly what other men were going to do and drove accordingly. We all know that women are inclined to drive more cautiously than men – insurance statistics show this – and perhaps the advent of women on the road meant that men had to think carefully about what a woman might do in a hazardous situation and decide not to put themselves into it. That’s just my theory.

2.       What is far more evident and without question is police enforcement. In the old days when somebody was stopped for a driving offence, there was a brief discussion with the police officer, a small amount of money passed hands ( 5€ was the going rate in my earlier time there) and nothing more was said. So there was a feeling of impunity on the part of drivers. Not any more! The one thing you notice on Georgian roads is traffic police, loads of them. If you speed or cross a white line in the centre of the road you’re likely to get caught – and nowadays the police cars are as fast as the miscreants’! There’s no chance of bribing the police officer any more; it’s virtually a hanging offence for them nowadays. So there’s a high degree of compliance.

But I have to say, it does make journeys a little more boring, not being able to watch these young bloods dicing with death.

....and Finally

As I fully expected, the weekend is fixed up for me, place to place, full of enjoyment meting people and seeing interesting things.

I soon realise why I loved Abu Dhabi so much and still do. It’s the way they are trying to build a great society here, not just flash buildings. Not that the buildings aren’t flash! Lots of people saw what had been built for the F1 Grand Prix last November. And we are seeing one more use of the money to bring people here to do interesting things.

Many years ago, I used to go around Saadiyat Island, just to the east of Abu Dhabi Island, to survey the marine waters there. It was basically a sandbar with a few mangroves on and nothing much else. There are now plans for a dozen hotels, a Guggenheim Gallery, a branch of the Louvre and a performing arts centre, all built by top class architects. We have come here to see the opening of a perfect links golf course in the seaward side of the island, every hump, hollow and pool constructed.

The course has been designed by Gary Player and he is here to give it a soft opening with a few other circuit pros and some celebs as well. Boy wonder Rory McIlroy is there and so is Darren Clarke. All the tickets have been given to the Abu Dhabi golf community and there can’t be many more than 200 here.

There are supposed to be degrees of security here to keep the relaxing golfers away from the spectators, but my hostess Anne starts to work her charm on the guards, all of whom she seems to know by name, doors open for us and we’re in, even to the extent that I share a toilet with the Great Man. I told the ladies, to great laughter, that I had asked Gary to sign my tag, which was hanging from my belt at the time.

The next day we take a trip with husband Dick to see the development on Reem Island, just to the south of Saadiyat and much the same as Saadiyat in character. Dick is the environmental consultant to the developers, so he knows every nook and cranny of the place. It’s a giant construction site at the moment but in 5 years time it will house 200,000, and have its own golf course. The only things on the island now are two giant tower blocks and a branch of the Sorbonne, fully functioning but at the moment with more staff than students.

So, no lack of ambition here. But unlike Dubai, they are trying to build a society, concentrating on the needs of all its people. I for one can’t wait to go and see the Louvre when it’s built.

My weekend ends with a dinner and wine tasting, and Dick and Anne have tried to get together all the people I had known well in Abu Dhabi during my years there-a nice gesture. Too much wine was drunk, with the result that breakfast, and the drive up to Dubai for the flight home was a more than usually quiet affair.

26th January

Tomorrow I finish the job and get the flight back to Dubai for a long-awaited weekend with friends. So what do I take from this mission? First and foremost the utter chaos of life in Dhaka, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Next, the very interesting office I have been working in, full of bright young things, all Bangladeshi (except for one British lady) but with a very western outlook; this was a real surprise to me. Finally, and a real positive here. Three weeks and more in the country and no Dehli belly!

The job itself was not a great surprise; one more country with institutions that didn’t really work too well, but not unlike those I have seen in parts of the former Soviet Union. Last of all was the reason I was there-the water bodies of this part of Bangladesh-absolutely filthy, black and almost certainly completely dead, the result of a complete breakdown in pollution control over very many years.

Will I come back? Yes, if asked, I guess. The people are pleasant, the place seems to be safe, my hotel was comfortable and the office works well. But will I get asked? I suppose that depends on how well my report is finally received by our ultimate clients, the World Bank.

But before I have to think any more about work, it’s back to my old stamping ground of Abu Dhabi and some much needed R&R.

Sightseeing

On my last weekend, at last a chance to see the city. Robbie, the office assistant/factotum/Mr Fixit had arranged a car and driver for us, and we were joined by two of the bright young things from the office. Mushfik speaks good English and Raisa speaks perfect American, having spent a year in High School in Minnesota as an exchange student.

They took us first to the Mogul Fort, and then to the Pink Palace, the home of the Nawabs of Dhaka., effectively the rulers of East Bengal during the Raj. The Pink Palace did remind me of a National Trust property, laid out very similarly, route of visit, dining room, bedroom…. Both were notable for being havens of peace and tranquillity in this noisy, crowded city.

But then the interesting stuff. They took us into the old city, a warren of tiny streets where no car could go, and the better for this. The place they took us was in fact a Hindu quarter, full of small temples and with a different atmosphere to anything we had seen before, not least because there were monkeys walking along the balconies of the houses above us. And, to our surprise, people were feeding them; but this we were told was because to Hindus monkeys are lucky.

And then the biggest surprise of all; in the middle of this great Muslim city, with its substantial Hindu minority, we came upon an Armenian church, beautiful and in beautiful condition , lovingly looked after by the custodian. They told us that now there are only two services held in the year, at Easter and Christmas, and that there is no priest here, but it is looked after the Armenian Archbishop of Australia. The Armenian community in Dhaka numbers 9 families, all of whom live in the wealthy quarter of Gulshan, where our hotel is.

And so for a meal. We couldn’t find a Biryani house open so we ate Mexican!

Sylhet

I was off to Sylhet for my one and only field trip. Sylhet is the third city of Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong, but its real claim to fame is that most of the “Indian” restaurateurs in the UK are not Indian at all; they are Bangladeshi and they mostly come from Sylhet. Don’t ask me why!

Sylhet is in principle a 4½ hour drive. I say in principle because this is Bangladesh and the traffic can give you anything. On the way I soon learn the rules of the road and they are frightening. There are tricycle rickshaws on the road. They battle to overtake each other, but are mown down by tuk-tuks, who in turn are run off the road by cars. The cars get run off the road by lorries, but the kings of the road are the coaches; thousands of them, and they give no quarter. If they overtake, no matter who is coming the other way they carry on. It’s up to you to get out of the way. And of course all the time everyone is “giving it that” with the horn. Absolutely deafening when a coach is right up your backside. And all very Darwinian. Our driver is an old hand, and knows when to attack and when to drive defensively; but for this newcomer to a new set of rules it’s absolutely frightening. But (and this is a change from Russia) there are working seat belts in the car-thankfully.

So we make our way, gingerly, towards Sylhet, through paddy fields which are just being planted with rice from the many nurseries by the side of the road. It’s an interesting time of year because just as the new season’s rice is being planted the harvested rice is being prepared for being packed in great yards by the side of the road.

I can’t tell you anything more about the countryside, because there is nothing else to say, apart from the fact that there are also loads of brickworks as well. But that’s it. Bangladesh’s countryside. Done.

So after our 4½ hour drive, we get to the Sylhet offices of the Department of the Environment, find it’s a small villa with 6 people, not the 28 on the organogram, and that it has a tiny laboratory with non-functioning equipment. Still, if I hadn’t seen it, I would have made big mistakes in my report. But we’re on our way back after an hour and a half, and that included lunch-Ruby Murray of course. And this is where the trouble started.

We made good progress as far as a rest house about 50km, or two hours (!) out of Dhaka, had a cup of tea and pretty quickly drove into the biggest traffic jam of my life. A traffic jam shouldn’t be confused with a British, disciplined traffic jam. It’s full of people jockeying for position, horns blaring, getting through gaps that you wouldn’t believe possible. It went on like this for about 30 km, which we covered in 4 hours, making the journey just over 7 hours. It was absolutely awful, and the worse for being on the way into Dhaka, not on the way out. Because that’s what you learn here-that traffic jams are absolutely random. Wonder how I’m going to get to the airport in time?

But at least I’m alive; quite a feat given these roads.

Déjà vu

I remember a previous trip away, in 2007, when I first saw on CNN, in my apartment in Kiev, the devastation that was Tewkesbury after that dreadful day’s rain on 20th July. As if only yesterday I recall the following days when I watched everything unfold on the news but also had my own reports from home and from mum in Tewkesbury; how my uncle and cousin Lyn had been flooded out along with hundreds of others. And the surrealism of it all in the Ukrainian cloudless summer.

So here I am now, in the warmth and dust of a dry January in Dhaka. I came home this evening and switched on Sky News to see the reporter at Upton Marina, talking about the flood defences and the flooding at Warwick, Evesham and Tewkesbury against the backdrop of a flooded Severn. Weird!
He says that so far the flood is not forecast by the Environment Agency to be severe. Let’s hope he is right. But I guess in the next day or two I’ll be seeing a little more on the TV of the place I always call home.

Consultancy Colleagues

One of the joys of this job is the people you meet-not just the clients. In my last post I spoke about the Pompey fan. He is staying in another hotel to me-perhaps a wise precaution, because one can only give and take so many insults.....

My own hotel mates are Robert, a German from Heidelberg and Samir, from Dehli. Both, interestingly American educated in part, Robert in New Orleans and Samir in Houston. Robert has excellent English, Samir excellent American. Both are about 40, so I am most definitely the old man of the party.

Samir can eat for India; although, let us say, of regular size he has the most enormous appetite. He eats with us in the evening but he will probably already have snacked on half a chicken before he gets to the table. Big breakfast, lunch, nibbles on the hoof, everything. Then, possibly something from room service late at night. Amazing!

He has been making up for Robert who, unluckily, has had a dose of Dehli belly, something that has so far eluded me. He had three days out, surviving on chicken soup, for another hearty eater, but as I write this he is starting to rev up again.

Our hotel is about 10 minutes drive from the office and we get picked up and dropped off every day by the office driver, Amin, or one of his colleagues. I say 10 minutes loosely. It can take an hour or so, with traffic conditions as they are. And even a long drive like that is kept to the minimum by Amin's extraordinary skill. He weaves in and out of traffic inch-perfect, missing trycicle rickshaws and tuktuks and somehow squeezing out the big 4 x 4s that are the big shots' mode of transport. This precision driving is assisted by thin bull bars which are attached to every car and which give just that little bit of extra security. Because collissions are inevitable. Not much chance of injury though-it's absolutely impossible to go more than 30mph in the city.

Whilst I was working yesterday Robert and Samir went into the Old Town for a recce-and came back saying that Gulshan, our neighbourhood, is almost empty compared with downtown. Difficult to believe, because here there are people and vehicles everywhere.