Fear And Loathing In Lancer

The road into Sharjah Town Centre looks more like a raceway designed by a cross-eyed architect than a main arterial route. Considering I wasn’t even supposed to be headed this way, this was doing nothing for my already elevated stress levels – a state I seem to often enter whenever I get behind the wheel out here.

After a relatively uneventful trip along Sheikh Zayed Rd (the main drag linking most of the key points throughout the emirate of Dubai), I had now strayed from my meticulously hand-written-and-sketched directions supplied by my colleague Uneetha.

Chicanes of pain

In recognition of the fact I was now in uncharted territory, unspeakable words (but yes, I was speaking them – loudly – as I pounded on the steering wheel) were uttered as I crawled through the jammed traffic, turning first left, then right, then left etc etc ad nauseum through the insane chicanes of whatever road I was on.

I had been expecting to get lost again – after my colleague John looked at the directions I’d been supplied with he grinned, pointed at one section (where I was right now) and said “yep, this is where you’re going to get really stuffed up – good luck – haha”. But still, I wasn’t taking it well. There’s something about getting lost while stuck in the hideous traffic here that is really irritating. It’s the knowledge that maybe if I hadn’t taken or missed that last exit, I wouldn’t be sitting in an unmoving morasse of cars for 45 minutes.

I eventually cleared the chicanes and found what appeared to be a relatively main road with a few shops by the roadside where I could stop. Once on foot I discovered they were mainly car rental shops – about 20 of them at least lining both sides of this street – weird! After sticking my head in one store and asking for directions, I was greeted by the all-too-familiar head-shake and ‘no English’ before being led a couple of shopfronts further down the street to another car rental place.

Rent-a-direction

This didn’t go much better. After establishing he spoke English, I asked the owner of the exclusive car rental establishment ‘Ferrari Rentals’ (no Italian sportsters in sight, but plenty of banged-up Nissan Sunnys!) how to get to Ajman.

I needed to get to Ajman because it was on the way to Umm Al Quwain – where I was supposed to arrive at 10am to meet some PR people from Gulf Craft and have a look around their latest 88-foot Majesty yacht. It sounded like quite a fun way to spend half a day, cruising the gulf on a luxury boat, but I was anything but relaxed right now.

After he asked whether I just wanted to get from Ajman to Umm Al Quwain or back again as well, I realised the guy thought I wanted to hire a car. I shook my hands, “no, no, I don’t need a car, I have one right here (if you can call it that), I just need directions. I’m going to Umm Al Quwain and need to get from here to Ajman first”.

He seemed to understand. But then this same exchange occurred another couple of times – either he didn’t understand, or he thought that somehow he could convert this situation into a sale. I began explaining again: “no, I do not need a car. I just need directions – I’m lost and don’t know how to get to Umm….ahhhh….don’t worry about it,” I trailed off. “Khallas – that’s enough….shukran – thanks,” I said as I walked out of his store.

I decided not to ask in any more rental stores for directions.  Instead, I drove around aimlessly for another few minutes before finding a supermarket where I finally found out where I was meant to go. It also took the use of another few ‘phone-a-friend’ lifelines too, before I finally found my way back onto the route that meant I could follow my hand-written directions again. Then I hit a few ‘traffic calming devices’ (such an ironic name!).

Fear and loathing in the Lancer

They love their speed bumps out here. Which is more than I can say for me or the Mitsubishi Lancer I hired three and a half weeks ago. Because I have no love for this Lancer, I usually hit them at a decent clip, usually causing the spare wheel in the boot to bounce up and down. Because I have Lancer Loathing rather than Lancer Love, this actually gives me some kind of sadistic pleasure. (I just re=read that…I know…I’m weird).

I’ve recently discovered that Lancer-lot isn’t even running on all cylinders all of the time. This is a problem when you only have four tiny cylinders to begin with. A fouled/worn out spark plug is probably partly responsible for this and its lack of power – or it could be something more sinister. I don’t care – I’m just thrashing it til I give it back.

It has an annoying engine-misfire that occurs whenever you accelerate hard (which results in a sensation of….nothing….for a count of 1-2-3-4 seconds before the transmission kicks down two gears, screaming it into a really low gear with a shudder and a disconcerting whine as the revs build up to redline. With such noise, you might think you’re actually moving pretty quickly, but you’re not. Some cars deliver effortless power – not this 1.3L Lancer – it delivers revvy disappointment instead.

Tough day in the office

Anyway, I eventually made it to Umm Al Quwain where I was shown around the Majesty 88, snapped a bunch of photos, made a few notes, interviewed the executive manager, sailed around for a while and then got a tour of the factory.

I was impressed – they build these things well and the factory looks very well organised, turning out a lot of boats of various sizes but all built to exacting standards with high-quality materials.

I made it back to the office again about 3pm after a much simpler trip back to Dubai along a different road this time – the Emirates Highway would have been a much easier route to use on the way there I think.

Though I complain about the trip there, it was still a pretty cool way to spend a morning out of the office – been there, done that, and now have a ‘Majesty 88’ t-shirt to prove it (one final freebie contained in the media kit).