Off the Cuff: The joy of a long drive

I love to travel and usually pack light; just two pairs of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, a toothbrush and I would be on my way.

But when I was told that I would have to drive more than 1,300km from Dubai to the southern tip of Oman and record my journey for the paper, I also took along two smart phones, a net book, a digital video recorder and a pocket notebook.

Two smart phones because I was told that the roaming services would kick in once I drove off from the border check post into Oman and was warned that the charges would be pretty steep (about Dh 2.40 per minute or something like that).

So I pinched my son’s smart phone, which is pre-paid and I topped up the credit and had to take along my phone since it had all the contact numbers.

Between the three of us, a photographer, a graphics designer and myself, a journo, we had six smart phones and of course I had forgotten the chargers for my two phones! (Luckily, our photographer had a USB charger which looked like an octopus and had wires coming out of a tiny box for various smart phone connections).

We had hired a large SUV for the drive and I was told that the car hire company had just bought it and we were the first customers. When the photographer drove it from the car rental, it still had plastic wrapped seats and when we sat on them, we kept slipping off, looking like those folks who never take the plastic covers off the new sofa in their living room.

Cruise control

The steering wheel was also tightly wrapped up in plastic and it seemed impossible to tear it off as it was wound up with duct tape. Since we were behind schedule, we just drove off and whenever we let the window down the plastic would make an irritating slapping sound.

The giant SUV helped keep the high temperature out and informed us that it was 46 degrees centigrade outside and how lucky we were to be sitting inside in the expansive interior of the vehicle, which told us we were travelling south-west, how much petrol we had left and when we would run dry, but unfortunately it did not have a GPS.

(A reader wrote back after our journey and said that it was a truly monotonous drive most of the way and his GPS said turn left only after 970km).

I found the vehicle’s manual in the glove compartment and learned how to put it on cruise control and when my turn at the wheel came, I switched it on. A cruise control is a wonderful invention, you just click a switch up on the steering, push the gas pedal and set the speed you want and then you can just sit back and relax and clean your nails like Mr Bean.

I enjoyed the relaxing cruise control for only 10 minutes because after that there were road diversions and trucks slowed down in front and motorists were coming barrelling in our direction, trying to overtake on the single carriage road.

After a while, I regretted that I had put off synching my net book and my phone and had not downloaded any songs on my smart phone. Since we were in the middle of nowhere with no sign of civilisation for miles around, the car’s radio only picked up static from the airways leaving us longing to hear the inane chatter of radio DJs.

After hours and hours on the road and starved of virtual contact with anyone, we trooped into the reception of one guest house that looked fairly livable and the first thing we asked was: “Do you have Wi-Fi?”

When the receptionist said, “No”, we nearly cried.