Blogs from United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 181

Wow, talk about blowing a whole budget in 2 hours. Well, after a week of not spending a penny at the CPF, as EVERYTHING from food to laundry detergent was paid for, I finally made my way back to Dubai and to the gold souk. I must have been in shopping withdrawl. We got on the sketchy twin otter plane to land in the Yemen airport at 4am. I don't know why so early, but we ended up waiting and waiting to get on the 8am flight to Dubai. Yemenia airlines out of Riyan is cattle call: no seat assignments, every man, woman, child and goat for themselves. I didn't actually see any goats on the plane, but I have heard stories about people bringing them on board as carry-on. Anyways, didn't like the idea of ... read more

Jules just reminded me of some more crazy stuff from Dubai... OK, I'll explain Ramadan to you...Basically you cant eat during the sunshine hours so from 5am to 6pm, you are NOT allowed to eat or drink. Basically all day people are just lying around the streets all lethargic and pissed off. Even our taxi driver told us he was going crazy cos he couldnt eat all day and his wife live in India....don't know how the two related...but they did to him. Juliette had a bit of trouble at the markets on the first night, women over there are not supposed to show any skin, Jules was walking around in long shorts which was causing no end of attention from the locals. We couldnt figure out why these guys kept starting at her ankles...but when ... read more

We arrived at 5:15am local time. It's Friday which is their equivilent of Sunday, and it's Ramadan so NOTHING is open. Customs is hilarious....no documents, just present your passport, tell them you are a tourist and they stamp you in. As for anything to declare? Don\t bother, the x-ray machine (yes, singular) was recycled from the war and about 5 guys wearing bed sheets just sat around telling jokes...I suppose though, not like they have a roaring agricultural industry here to ruin. The city is 4km from the airport, and we got a free bus to our hotel. The currency thing is a bit hard to get used to. We just had a $42 breakfast, a couple of pieces of fruit, a croissant and a hash brown..oops! Ciggarettes are cheap, at duty free it was about ... read more

Hello. Here are some shots of us on the plane, looking a little worse for wear on our 14 hour flight fromMelbourne to Dubai. Dubai was definately an experience in itself - about 40 degrees celcius by 7am. It was hard to walk around with the heat baking up from the footpath. No one has backyards - they were all just plots of hard dirt surrounded by a fence. There were camels tied up as pets, and everything was really sandy. We went on an amazing desert safari that included a 4WD kamikaze ride over sandunes, a BIG (awesome) cultural feast, camel rides (yay!) henna (temporary) tattoos, dress-ups, & a cultural dancer or two. It was really, really excellent. Shopping (especially Duty Free) is ridiculously cheap in Dubai, especially if buying gold products or electronics. It ... read more

after coming back from sri lanka in january i had accomadation in Abu Dhabi paid for within my air ticket, i had no idea about the country untill i arrived at the airport on the 5th january 2005. got a free taxi to my 4* hotel where i checked in and went to my room, later had a huge western breakfast and then explored the city. the buildings in the city where amzing, the architecture of modern design. clean streets and cheap places to eat! later that morning i had explored a sopping cenre known for gifts and lots more, it was really nice, cause it was surround the sea, apart from a road which linked to the city. from the shopping centre it had grt views of the city and its large harbour, the crystal ... read more