Dubai: On Monday night, at 8.28pm, Jalal Bin Thaneya walked over the sands of Fujairah city’s beach, and dipped his hand in the cool waters of the Gulf of Oman.
For the 30-year-old Emirati, the simple gesture meant a lot.
Fourteen days earlier, just a stone’s throw from the Saudi border at Al Ghuwaifat, Bin Thaneya dipped his hand in the sand.
Over the next two weeks, the Emirati would run, jog, walk — and at times, limp — hundreds of kilometres across all seven emirates.
His quest had two parts.
The first was to raise awareness for people with special needs. “I don’t know anyone personally who has special needs,” he says. “You don’t need to be victims of this situation in order to talk about it.”
The second was to take home a Guinness World Record for making the fastest crossing of the UAE’s seven emirates on foot.
But things have changed slightly since then.
Under the rules set by Guinness officials, he had to cover around 700 kilometres in seven days, and wore a tracking device with data that he has now sent to the records body.
Hampered by scorching heat, faulty support vehicles, scarce food, and dusty unpaved roads, the record-hopeful claims the journey is unfeasible under the set conditions.
Over 14 days, he covered roughly 810 kilometres — a figure that he is still having verified.
-Off the record-
Not that he seems to care much about the possibility of picking up the coveted blue certificate.
“What am I going to do with that piece of paper?” he says.
As well as the months of training he did in preparation for the journey, Bin Thaneya was funded by several UAE-based sponsors.
The money and resources raised went towards funding a three-man motorised support team who helped supply him with food and water — and a vital morale boost.
Six days into the journey, a sympathetic sponsor supplied him with a plush motorhome, where he could sleep in comfort.
There, he also had the luxury of taking a shower that did not involve tipping the contents of plastic water bottles over his head.
During scarce breaks he took on the trip — he slept only five to six hours every night — Bin Thaneya posted trip updates to a social media audience of around 10,000.
While his friend and support team member Yahya, would sometimes walk or jog alongside him during the gruelling trek, Bin Thaneya found that his road was a lonely one.
“I believe people no longer believe in the physical realm,” he explains. “Everything is digital now.”
“For me, I use social media to record my journeys but nowadays people will just take selfies in the gym, [and] they’ll become very popular.”
-Royal welcome-
The route through the UAE seemed far more harder than first thought. The trip through Abu Dhabi emirate took around eight days. Then, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman and Umm Al Quwain took another four.
Over the last two days, he went through the mountains of Fujairah emirate, passing briefly into Ras Al Khaimah territory by going through the remote village of Masafi. He then made the final stretch through Fujairah down through the city to the beach.
Soon afterwards, exhausted — and sporting a dark tan — he met Shaikh Abdullah Bin Hamad Bin Saif Al Sharqi, a member of Fujairah’s ruling family. “He’s a fitness enthusiast,” Bin Thaneya said, recalling their conversation.
“He said he was proud that someone from this country was doing something like this. He was very happy.”
Afterwards, Bin Thaneya and the team drove back to Dubai.
One main question remains: What’s next?
Bin Thaneya doesn’t know yet. He says he has the same feeling he had after cycling across all six Gulf states — in 2013 — or the time he walked from Abu Dhabi to Makkah — in 2012.
“There’s that emptiness,” he says, as if thinking out loud. “Because every person has to have a purpose in life.”
“So I just feel, once I finish this, I go back to having a routine job, routine life. I feel that this is not life. So I’m sure I’ll be out on the road at some point.”
