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Published: February 12th 2008
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Dubai
At the beach Dubai
8.2.08 - 11.2.08
Landing in Dubai airport was great it looked as though we were landing in the middle of the city. I have never seen so many lights, even when we touched down we had lights all around us. After the 20 hour flight a few people clapped as the wheels hit the tarmac.
Getting off the plane and out of the airport was a breeze as there are no customs in Dubai. So soon we were out of the airport smelling the fresh sweet air, the weather was crisp similar to a Christchurch morning, but it soon heated up. We got to the Golden Sands apartment surprisingly quickly and safely considering we had a Schumacher as our shuttle driver. (Later learning that everyone here drives fast and often use the horn).
First destination for us was the Gold and Diamond Market getting there at 10.30am we thought we would have heaps of time until we had to be back at our apartment to meet our tour representative at 2pm. Unfortunately after paying 50 Dirham’s and getting out of the taxi the Gold and Diamond market was shut until 4 pm. Luckily the market was
within walking distance to the Emirates mall. We spent a couple of hours wondering around the mall, which also was the home to Ski Dubai the world’s only indoor ski park in the desert. It was massive! Ski Dubai has a slope of 5 different runs the longest being 400meters with a fall of over 60 meters, Snowboarders have their own freestyle run and children and adults can toboggan in the interactive snow park. (Mental note if you were shorts in the mall be prepared to be laughed at by little kids)
Later that night we went on the Sun Downer Cruise down the Dubai Creek, the traffic was crazy because Friday is a holiday every week in Dubai. We got there and all down the side of the creek was buzzing with people. There were ferrites wheels and mini bumper cars and for the adults bungi jumping off cranes, ahh crazy.
The cruise was cool we got greeted with Arabic tea and prunes and then got on board the dhow. Then there was a huge fireworks display similar to our guy Fawkes display (except they have it every Friday and Saturday night). The cruise itself was fun and
relaxing as we slowly floated up stream. The food was yummy there was hummus and pita bread and salad feta and different kinds of meats. Desert was good too I liked the baklava.
The next day we had our city tour which took us on a drive around the city past the mosque and onto Jumeirah Beach where the world famous Burj Al Arab (the Sails Hotel). I put my feet in the water and found it was much colder than I expected properly colder than New Zealand beaches at this time of year. We would have loved to go inside the Burj Al Arab but we found out that to get coffee it would cost $175 US (lucky I don’t drink coffee. The rooms prices range from $10,000 US to 25,000 US per night, with only 200 rooms available (that’s how big they are).
We ended the city tour at the Gold Souk, one of the largest retail gold markets in the world. I tried on a Diamond ring and the man gave me a price of $2300 (US) for it. We thought it was way too much so we left, I decided not to buy diamond rings
in Dubai just because we are clueless and didn’t want to get ripped off.
On Sunday we went back to the beach so I could go for a swim and later on we went on a Desert Safari on 4 wheel drives through the desert. This was defiantly the highlight of the trip for both of us. We were lucky to be in the car with Australians which was nice, I could finally be understood. The 4 wheel drive went fast over the dues which ever ended. We stopped to cool the engine of the car down and to take photos. We saw six or more camels wondering around with their babies it was cool. We continue over the dunes and stopped at a camp. Here we went on a Camel, had dinner and participated in some belly dancing, henna tattoos, dress ups and flavoured pipe smoking. After the belly dancing show we headed back but this time we made it to a road so we didn’t need to cross the dunes again. It was a fantastic trip and I’ll be sad to say good bye to the Dubai sun.
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