Dubai

Dubai is amazing! For those of you who haven’t visited it, put it on your list of places to go!

The skyline is just unbelievable; the shopping is a shopper’s paradise; the beaches are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen (on tv, since I’ve not been to many in real life!).

It took us 4 hours and 15 minutes to drive from our house to the hotel in Dubai, spending around half an hour at border control. We had to stop to buy a ticket (a leaving tax) to leave Oman; then we had to stop to have the ticket stamped; then we stopped to hand in the ticket; then we were out of Oman and in a kind of no-man’s land as we drove for around 10 minutes before we came to the UAE border! We had to get out of the car and go to passport control for them to be stamped; we had to show proof of Simon’s insurance that he is insured to drive in Dubai and also that we had an orange form which all drivers in Dubai must carry with them, in case of an accident. We were given another ticket at passport control which we then had to hand in once we were back in the car and then, finally, we were in the UAE!!

During the drive we saw donkeys and camels, both in Oman and the UAE. In Oman, the donkeys were being used to pull carts full of stuff, but I’m happy to say they looked well cared for. We saw a herd of about 8 or 10 camels in the UAE, all resting in the shade under an electricity pylon. Unfortunately, there’s no time to take photos when on the main roads.

Driving into the UAE was interesting, as the landscape became less rocky, as it is in Oman and more like a desert with orange/red coloured sand interspersed with bushes and trees for as far as you could see. Sand had blown onto the road and was piled up in sand drifts against the central reservation in the middle of the road. It felt like we were in a real desert.

Then Dubai. A city in the desert. The skyline of buildings are very faint as first, almost ghostly. They get bigger and bigger as you approach and more clear and you can see that the skyscraper buildings are along either side of the main road through Dubai, Sheik Zayed Road, which in some places widens to 7 lanes on either side!!

Our hotel, the Crowne Plaza Dubai, was directly opposite the Trade Centres, which are somewhere in the middle of the stretch of skyscrapers. They are tall twin towers, with triangular shaped tops. One of them is a hotel and the other is a business/commercial building. Our room overlooked the Trade Centres and also the swimming pool for our hotel below us on the 3rd floor (we were on the 9th, with a total of 23 floors in the hotel altogether).

We checked into the hotel (which is very nice, 5 star!!) and took half an hour or so to unpack and refresh ourselves. It’s Ramadan at the moment, which means that the Muslims fast during daylight hours and we are not supposed to eat or drink in front of them as it is offensive. However, the hotel, which has around 6 or 8 restaurants/bars, remained fully open, serving food and drinks. The restaurants were all screened from public viewing by curtains, which are obviously there for this 4 week period every year. The Harvester Pub didn’t serve alcohol until after dark, but this seemed to be the only restriction.

We then jumped in a taxi outside the hotel and asked to be taken to the Mall of the Emirates. The taxis in Dubai are very good because they are all metered, so white people aren’t automatically charged double the fare, which is what happens in Oman. The drivers are all uniformed and the cars reasonably well cared for. The fares are extremely cheap and cost us no more than about 3.500 RO or about 5 GBP for a 25-30 minute journey.

The Mall of the Emirates is heaven on earth for those inclined to shopping!! It is a massive building, beautifully decorated, very clean and well laid out. The home shops were all together, as were the ladies fashions, mens fashions, etc. Ski Dubai is attached to Mall of the Emirates and is the largest indoor ski slope – not something you expect to see in the middle of a desert!! From the viewing galleries in the shopping centre, you can’t see all of the ski slope as it turns a corner, but what you can see is amazing. The photos really don’t do it justice. The prices for Ski Dubai are also quite reasonable.... next time!!

The shops are a mixture of well known brands from UK and USA, as you would find in any nice shopping mall in UK, with a few touristy shops selling souvenirs as well as some of the nicer shops that are found in the Gulf region.

There is a large food court and plenty of restaurants and cafes in the mall, but unfortunately, due to Ramadan, they were all closed, only opening after the sun had set. However, the shops are open until 1am so there is plenty of time in the evenings to have something to eat!!

After wandering round the mall for a few hours, we went back to the hotel for a brief rest, then down to the Harvester Pub for a quick drink. It was so nice to go out in the evening for a drink; I’ve missed that, even though it wasn’t something I did very often! Then we went downstairs again to TGI Fridays and enjoyed a very nice dinner.

The next morning we got up and jumped in a taxi and headed for the Gold Souk. This is a small area of shops, along 3 or 4 streets, plus a tiny shopping mall, full of jewellery shops. It was great fun wandering along looking in the windows, some of the pieces were so outrageous that anywhere else you would think they are made of plastic, but here, you know they are real. They were also some beautiful pieces and I know someone in particular who would have spent many a happy hour here, not to mention a great deal of money – you know who you are!!!!!

Unfortunately, the roof over the streets meant the temperature was very high and it was extremely humid and you are also hassled every 10 steps by locals wanting you to follow them down a street to look at fake watches and Fendi bags. The owners of the shops are nearly as bad, trying to persuade you to come inside the shop if you spend more than about 30 seconds looking in their shop window. It made me feel very guilty for getting their hopes up by looking at the jewellery but also very annoyed that we couldn’t just wander and look in peace.

We then went back to the hotel to recover in air conditioned comfort and to have a much needed drink and something to eat in the Harvester Pub (they did nice food!) which is where we discovered the hotel’s temperature related food discount! During the summer months they discount the food in the hotel restaurants according to the temperature outside. On that day, it was 42 degrees outside so we received a discount of 42% on our food bill.

We went to Madinat Jumeirah Souk in the afternoon, which is on the coast very near to Burj Al Arab, the world’s only 7 star hotel, built to resemble a sail. I loved this place! Although it is a new building, it is built in the traditional Arabian style and it feels very authentic (plus its air conditioned!!). The shops were a nice mixture of touristy shops and rather posh shops selling pictures (of which we bought a few), furniture and other things for the house, plus a few clothing shops. There were also several cafes and restaurants, many of which were open, although screened from public sight. Simon and I spent several happy hours wandering round here and could happily have spent the entire day there, however, Daniel soon became very bored!

We decided that evening, after a quick drink at the Harvester Pub, to go back to Mall of the Emirates for some dinner and to see a film at the cinema. We had a very yummy meal at the Chinese restaurant called Chop Chop, sitting at a table by the window overlooking Ski Dubai. Then we spent a couple of hours wandering round the shops waiting for the film to begin. We had missed the 10pm showing, as we didn’t arrive at the mall until about 8.45pm, which wouldn’t have given us enough time to eat first, so we decided to see the midnight showing!! When we went into the cinema at 11.30pm, the mall was very busy and there were lots of families with young children – in fact, lots of them were also going to see a film. I guess no one gets up very early here, nor in Oman, or they all spend the afternoons in bed asleep?!

Anyway, we watched Ice Age 3 and thoroughly enjoyed it. The cinema was very nice and there were very few people in our screen. We came out of the cinema and walked through the mall to the taxi rank at 1.45am; although the shops were all closed, there were still people in the mall...!!

We had a late start the next day, due to our very late night the day before and got up in time to have lunch at the Harvester Pub (again!). Simon had spotted the all day English breakfast with pork sausages and bacon on the menu and was desperate to try it out!!

We had decided to go back to Madinat Jumeirah that afternoon to take some photos of us all (Daniel had been in a bad mood the previous day and refused to have his picture taken) which turned out to be a fabulous idea!! We were wandering around outside of the souk by the water canals taking some photos and we saw that you could go on a boat ride around the canals, which is what we did! It took about half an hour and it was pretty hot, though there was a canopy over the boat for some shade.

The canals wind their way through a very nice resort, with a hotel connected to the souk plus villas and another hotel. They are all linked to Jumeirah beach and are quite simply stunning. The man steering the boat gave us a tour as we went, mostly pointing out the resorts 42 restaurants and cafes. We had some excellent opportunities to take photos of the Burj Al Arab which was right next door as well as some photos of turtles which were in a part of a canal which was screened off so they couldn’t escape. This place is just so beautiful, I could have spent several weeks there on holiday and words are unable to describe it sufficiently. I hope the photos give a better idea of just how lovely it was there.

We later dropped Daniel off at the hotel and Simon and I went on to the Burjuman Mall, which is the designer label mall for a quick wander round. I guess it is a sign of the times because a few of the shops were closed and it was very empty. However, it is a very nice mall and I expect in the evenings, it is much busier.

We then went back to the hotel to pack and a late check out and we started our drive home. It took us about 4 hours and 20 minutes to get home including stopping to obtain a new tourist visa for me at the border.

I would recommend Dubai to everyone. There is something for everyone there and we only touched only a couple of the things to do there. It suits for a long weekend, shopping and seeing some of the tourist places, but would be as equally nice for a fortnight’s holiday, relaxing by the pools or on the beach and seeing more of the sights in the evenings. I expect it would even nicer when it’s not Ramadan as then you would be able to sit and enjoy a drink and meal and people watch.
I’m certainly looking forward to going back there in the future. I hope you like the photos I’ve uploaded.