Dubai - Sunny and Hot!

Hello again! We're actually now in HK, being a bit slow with the blog update as expected, but we'll attempt to get back on schedule soon!

Dubai was a great start to our trip. After the stress of packing up and leaving the UK, what we really needed was a bit of chill out time with not much running around.

The Dingle family (Richard, Laura and 5 month old Layla) were fantastic hosts. We arrived on September 19 early doors, and within 10 minutes of walking in the door we were wisked down the beach with a view of the famous 7 star Burj Al Arab (the sail like hotel where Agassi and Federer supposedly had a tennis match off the heli-pad). However, it wasn't an all day thing like in Bermuda as in 36 degrees sun at 10am it feels like you're being baked in an oven.....so back to the air-con it was!

Our overall impressions of Dubai after 10 days here was that it's a lot bigger and spread out than you expect it to be. I think we were expecting a city congregated around a central hub, but it's actually more sprawling than that, with designated areas for international business, media etc etc. The old town of Dubai sits both sides of a creek, then the larger hotels spread out from there down the coast. The amount of construction still going on (even though it's been severely slowed by the recession) is immense. You can't go 10 yards without seeing a road or building under construction.

So anyway, a lot of our time was spent relaxing in the house or by the pool, with our lovely hosts ferrying us around various sights during their weekends (for which we are very grateful!). One of these sights was the Burj Dubai, which when finished at the end of this year will be the tallest building in the world. The thing is massive, very cool looking as well. Patrick describes it as a load of loo rolls stacked together! We also had great use of 'the Entertainer' which is a book for about £50 that had hundreds of discount vouchers (mainly 2 for 1) for restaurants, excursions, sights etc etc. Thanks to Laura and Richard we must have saved around £150 or more using these vouchers, brilliant idea.....wonder if it will ever catch on in London! We also went to watch Richard play rugby which didn't end very well when he was dropped by his own team mates in the lineout! Bit harsh and meant he was suffering over the next few days.

We did go on a few excursions by ourselves including a Desert Safari where we were driven around the desert dunes in a 4x4 jeep. There were a few screams as the guy drove us up a 20ft dune, to then slide sideways back down to the bottom. All good fun though, the rollercoaster fans out there would have loved it. We were then taken to a camp where we had dinner watching belly dancers and had a go on a camel.

Another highlight was visiting the old town which we did twice. First time was on the open top bus company tour which was a little disappointing as it took forever to get down to the old town (3hrs) as it kept stopping in one of the many malls there are in Dubai. We did however have a chance to go on an hour Dhow (type of boat) tour along the creek. The second time we went down we went on the metro opened just recently on 9/9/09. Only 10 of the 46 stations were actually open but it's an amazing feat given the metro line would have to go over and under the huge road system and then go under the creek in the old town (plus it only took 40 mins as opposed to 3hrs). We then walked around the old souks (markets) and visited the Dubai museum which is in the old fort (built in 1787). It housed a great history of Dubai, with scarily real looking people depicting life back in the day.

The weirdest thing we did was going to the ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates! We were given ski pants and a jacket to wear and luckily we knew to bring gloves. It was freeeezing in there! Quite strange coming in from the 40 degree heat into the minuses. Ok, so the slope isn't any whistler but it was big enough to do a few jumps and switches. At least that's what we saw others doing. ;-) Quite fun though for the 2 hours that they give you, which was more than enough before my fingers and toes felt like they might drop off!

On our penultimate day we went to the Atlantis water park which was great fun (and is on the man made Palm island, which is awesomely big considering its all reclaimed land). Although this was marred a little by our little accident coming off the rings on one of the rides which resulted in a few cuts to my hand which then got slight infected. So yeserday we had to visit the doctor in HK to get some antibiotics. I thought we'd visit the hospital at some point, just not this soon!

The hotels and restaurants in Dubai are fantastic as well. We went to the Jumeirah beach hotel which has beautiful views and the Madinat Jumeirah is amazing as well. I would highly recommend either of these if you ever go to Dubai, that's if you can afford it as I have no idea how much these places cost! You can also guarantee good weather (Harriet, this is your guaranteed sun holiday you were looking for!). The whole time we were there (and apparently all year round) we saw no clouds. Absolutely incredible to wake up every morning and not have to worry about what sort of day it's going to be! However, the summer months, and when we were there, were really quite hot (36-40 degrees and even hotter in July nearer 50), and dare I say it, probably even too hot for me (Patrick had a fit when I first said that!).

So overall we really quite liked Dubai. Thanks to Laura and Richard (and little Layla!) we got to see the real expat living and is on the list of potential places to live in the future. It certainly has enough shopping malls to keep me busy. ;-) though Patrick says not enough bars!!!

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