http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Chellebelle/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Chellebelle en-us Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:37:37 BST Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:37:37 BST Daversquos weekend was such a catalogue of mishaps to be polite that I may as well go through them in chronological orderhelliphellip.. 1 There is now irrefutable proof that the speed cameras in Oman work Driving down from Sohar towards Muscat with the sexy Swedish number Dave spends all his time lavishing attention on Dave triggered a camera at c. 160kmh ahem 2 After the f http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Oman/Muscat/blog-303245.html ldquo In a departure from usual reporting procedures this last weekendrsquos diving is going to be a bit of an epic split into two blogs one will be full of marine life and eloquence unbounded the other will detail Daversquos dive trip which bore a remarkable similarity to ldquoCoco the Clown gets on a boatrdquo I was in Oman again for a meeting so Dave drove over for the second ti http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Oman/Muscat/blog-303243.html Well we officially celebrated my 31st birthday on July 11. Phew what a day. We went back to the same place where I went last year to celebrate Al Qasr in Madinet Jumeirah. And it was fab. This has to be one of the best brunches in the world EVERI had such a good time. The food was fantastic and there was so much alcohol that it wasn't funny. http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-300099.html I arrived back from the UK to find that the wonderful Brit bloke had bought me what had better be the first of my birthday presents. Have a look at the picture and yoursquoll definitely see where 50 of the loyalties in this household lie with the only sport that really matters. Dave had the wheel cover couriered across from Auckland in time for my birthday. Dave has said he may have troub http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-294813.html What a clever boy I have. Just look at the yummy meal that he cooked for us last night http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-293213.html Chelle had to go to Muscat for work late last week so she managed to convince her lovely boy to drive over on the weekend and come to make some bubbles with her. I flew to Muscat on Monday night and then worked there on Tuesday and Wednesday meeting clients and doing some training. Muscat runs a slightly different weekend system than Dubai. They have their weekends on Thursday and Friday.So I had http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Oman/Muscat/blog-292817.html Dave finally pulled his finger out got rid of the fat 4WD car and bought himself a very flash Saab convertible. Dave had got a taste for opentop driving when he used the Peugeot for a short while but wanted a car that a man should drive not a girlrsquos car. His appetite was further whetted with the abortive attempt to buy Beach Boyrsquos Saab see previous blog when we had a wonderful fre http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-290333.html Well yesterday was an experience. For the first time in Dubai I had to go and reregister the car. One of my friends at work told me what he had had to do a few weeks ago so I thought that I was all ready and clued up for the process. Apparently the place opens at 7am and if you get there early you will get in and out quickly otherwise you could be there for hours. So Dave and I were at Tasjeel at http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-285626.html and its getting hot. http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-282382.html Well finally here are some photos of the garden. It has taken me long enough to take them. but now you can see where we go when we want to relax http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-282070.html Yay Another Spa trip with the girls. It had been a while since the last trip but the new body book had finally come out so it was time to rally the troops and attend another Spa extravaganza. The testing team was a little different this time as the Hendersons were off enjoying africa so we had Jessie Sasch Anita another friend from work and myself. Mandara spa is part of the new Monarch Hot http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-282041.html Well we went on a wee dive trip on the weekend to Al Aqqa in Fuijairah which was just lovely. I purchased an advanced diving course for Daversquos birthday present as well as two nights accommodation at the lovely 5 star Le Meridien Al Aqqa Beach Resort. I had stayed at this hotel with Ma and Pa Ade when they were over at xmas and at the time I thought that it was just lovely so I decided to go http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/Dubai/blog-277560.html Boy was Day 5 a big day. This was the Petra day and our tour guide got us up rather nice and early so that we could get into Petra before all the crowds arrived. I have to say that if we were getting there before all the crowds I would hate to see what it would be like with crowds. We were staying in the Petra Palace hotel yes that is right it was actually called the Petra Palace which is just http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Petra/blog-273886.html We woke up this morning in our camp site at Wadi Rum. The night in Wadi Rum was really quite freezing and it is only because Dave is so warm and toasty that I actually managed to survive the night at all. Dave even said that he was a little cold in the tent. Dave and I had headed off to bed relatively early and it was only the following morning that we discovered that most of the brits had stayed http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Wadi-Rum/blog-273875.html Today was a massive day. We joined our tour group in the morning at about 9am at the Shepherd Hotel in Amman. They had all only just arrived from the UK at about 2am. We were the only people doing a land only trip so we were in a pretty good state compared to all of them. There were about 14 people on the tour and only one other man so Dave was in women heaven. Unfortunately most of the ladies wh http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/West/Al-Karak/blog-273866.html After the massive walking of yesterday both Dave and Chelle were completely exhausted. So it was with great joy they woke up and hopped into a rental car for a full day of more walking and sightseeing. Because the tour that we were going on didn't actually start until the next morning oops a wee spot of bad planning that actually turned out really rather well we had decided to rent a car for t http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/North/Jerash/blog-273863.html Well it has been a long time since the last post. Work has been totally frantic with Chelle travelling to London Madrid Bahrain and Oman. In fact during the month of April Chelle spent more time out of Dubai than she did in it. Luckily however on April 30th Chelle and Dave jet setted out business class on Emirates to head for 6 days holiday in Jordan. Heaven Our limo arrived nice and early in http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/North/Amman/blog-273849.html I had to go to London for work last week and due to other work committments the following week it turned out that I was going to have to stay the weekend in London so I could go onwards straight to Madrid and then back home to Dubai. It wasn't the end of the world as it turned out as Dave had to be in Paris that week as well. So he decided to buy a cheap ticket and come on over to London to join http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-268236.html We took a day in lieu from Bovis Lend Lease on Sunday and went off to the Grand Prix in Bahrain for the day. It was really quite a wonderful day. A big group of friends from Dubai went with us the usual suspects Jessie Rod Leanne Steve Sascha Linda Dave and I. We bought our tickets to the grand prix over the internet with a company called dream days. They were actually really good and we http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Bahrain/blog-264423.html I took Dave on a dive trip to the East Coast of the UAE on the weekend to try out diving again. The diving was pretty fantastic but the hotel that we stayed in and the dive operation itself weren't the best. We went diving with Divers Down and while the people were really lovely and friendly the operation just felt a little haphazard. I'm a bit of a dive operation snob these days and I get pretty http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/United-Arab-Emirates/blog-264421.html