We had expected to be on our way to Sydney on the 18th but Emirates airlines had other ideas! Due to their routine overbooking policy and having confirmed seats we still ended up being put into the Millenium Airport hotel annex. So after getting settled, at around 11:30 we decided to have a walk out and see if we could find the coast. 2 hours later we still hadn't found how to get there. Eventually we found a metro station at 14:00 so went to the Financial Centre. The whole area is still being built. We saw a welder working on [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Dubai in the early hours. I set the alarm for 09:30 so that we could have brekkie before it stopped at 10:00 - I was awake, Brian for once was not - well it was his birthday! We had some coffee and crisps for brekkie then wandered around using the map I'd printed - what would we do now without Google? Came across a metro station (Khalid Bin Al Waleed) and decided to see if we could see the famous hotel Burj Al Arab. We were confused by the map as not all the stations are open even [View Full Entry]

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Brian's card opening with his final surprise provided by Liz - a 30 minute helicopter ride over Sydney Harbour and bridge! [View Full Entry]

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I first visited Dubai longer ago than I care to remember. Well actually I can't remember the year but I vaguely recollect that Emirates launched that year with a single second hand plane. According to wikipedia that was October 1985 so it must be true. Wherever possible we took the British Caledonian, Hong Kong flight which had a refuelling stop in Dubai. It was always cheaper and less crowded than BA and used modern DC-10's (all long since scrapped I'm sure). The airport at the time was single runway, single terminal, with only a handful of planes on the tarmac most [View Full Entry]

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Hello again Well after my luxurious and relaxing 10 nights in Doha staying with Trude and her family it was a bit of an effort to pack up my bag again and catch my flight to Dubai. Luckily it was only about 45 minutes of flying so it wasn't too taxing. So I made it to Dubai...arrived in the rush hour apparently but didn't get stuck in traffic....the only hiccup getting to my hotel was that it was so new that the taxi driver had never heard of it and tried to take me to another one further down the road....after [View Full Entry]

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I woke when the hot sun leapt the balcony and splayed over the floor of my hotel room. I opened the glass door and for a while watched this part of Dubai - Deira, the markety, bustling part - wake up. My priority for the day, as it is most days, was to arrange my next travelling leg. After some quick research on the web I caught an airconditioned bus to find the main Emirates Airlines building, where Sri Lankan Airlines also had an office. My revised plan, since I decided to pass on Pakistan, had been to (regretfully) fly to [View Full Entry]

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Good-morning, good-evening and goodnight....... RIGHT!, so currently sitting in a large part of the Dubai international airport, the food lounge to be precise. But there is a significant lack of food around. However the actual building itself is rather impressive. Oil does buy some pretty cool things. including reclined tacky leather chairs for me to lie about in whilst i wait for my connection. Yeh, about that, got off the first stint of this trip, to find out that i am in-fact flying via Singapore, before getting off at Brisbane. Just checked online, and i dont even get off the plane, [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to our first travel blog.. We cant promise it will be the most entertaining read but we will try our best to keep it up to date. After too many goodbyes (and tears from me!) we are eventually away! Flight was OK, shorter than 7 hours although tv was rubbish, we both wanted to watch ice age as it was the only decent film on but the sound wouldnt work, so we entertained ourselves by having a few drinks and playing chess (No one won, I quit, as I was distracted by the woman constantly kicking the back of my [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Dubai at about 7.45am and it was 33 degrees outside. Thankfully, on the first day, it was a dry heat but it was pretty humid for most of the fortnight. The first thing that struck me about Dubai was that it was much bigger than I'd first imagined. The clusters of towers sprawled out around us and in to the distance as we drove to Cam's (O's best friend) flat. A common misconception about Dubai is that it has loads of oil and it is this which financed it's rapid growth over the years. In fact it is [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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