I had another friend who was in Dubai for a few years. IIRC she had to bring all the money back in suitcases in cash to avoid being taxed by HMRC…

Dubai has quite an MTB scene, Oman has big mountains and is only and hours drive so they tend to go out very early morning (4-5am) till 10-11 ish.

Went swimming in the mountain pools too. Very nice.

I could handle a year or two in the UAE for the right money, but not Saudi.

UAE/Oman are nothing like Saudi. Nothing at all. Even Kuwait is much more relaxed and that’s pretty traditional.

With everything going on in Iraq and with ISIS I imagine they will find it virtually impossible to hire anyone. If you ask for double the money they are offering you could well find they accept.

jambalaya, you’ve completely sold it to me. I’m getting contracts sent over tonight 😉

The contract term was for 3 years, but I don’t think they can complete the deal in 3 years, so would expect to be held against my will until it’s done.

Despite definitely not going, I am strangely attracted to the place in a perverse way now after reading this thread. Then again, I’m the numpty who always puts my hands up for jobs in areas of unrest and for corrupt governments. Keeps it interesting!

The works out as house in good compound, staff (not sure what this entails but I think it’s a driver),

haha, a friend described the role of his ‘driver’, it included the line “negotiate ransoms, that kinda thing”.

@peter – you are making the right call. My mate hid under the stairs with his wife and two daughters as the terrorists kicked in the door to his apartment and sprayed it with bullets (the truck bomb was to destroy the gate/security and the guys then came in with guns, story I heard is the gate security team had had a tip off and had left). He left immediately and never went back.

By all means visit, I still go fairly regularly.

EDIT I was goign to make a comparison to Nigeria but see you have been there too. My old employer used to insist we have private security there too.