luckykaa

Been meaning to upload these to Picassa for ages.

Singapore
Melbourne Day 1
AussieCon 4!
A trip to Fitzroy where I met Jaz
A trip to the narrow gauge railway
St Kilda Beach in the early srping
Sydney
Dubai

So, today was the driving around on Sand dune days, and the full Arab Experience (Disneyfied for the tourists).

Stop at the Sheik's Palace for a photo op, then the driver heads to the desert.  Really big road, very few cars.  For some reason a lot of the desert is fenced off.  No idea what we're being stopped from seeing.  It's slightly bizarre that they're building towers out here, and there's the occasional store.  I wonder why so far from the city centre.  Also saw Universal studios. Don't think it's open yet.  Either that or it's modelled after Diggerland. 

But anyway - the tour itself.  Stopped in the desert.  Took photos of the desert.  Took photos of each other.  Got back in the cars, and drove over sand dunes.  Lots of sand dunes.  Cool stuff.  Lasted a while.  Was keen to get onto the next bit.  We eventually got off the sand dunes and onto a track and then onto a road.  Soon arrived at the destination.  A Beduin village where we got a short camel ride, were taken into the village itself, the locals attempted to flog us loads of stuff using the sales tactic of not understanding the word "no". 

So inside there were various further attempts to entertain us and possibly sell us photos, although we could take our own.  So there was the chance to hold a falcon (handed my camera to a guy with a nice camera since he probably knew what he was doing, and he did). 

Watched a video about the early days of Abu Dhabi before it was anything.  it was a very old video in black and white and narrated by a very Chumley-Warner narrator.  Were given food.  It was tasty.  We were entertained by dancers.  An al Tanoura dancer (spinning around in multiple skirts) and a pretty good belly dancer.  Not seen Al Tanoura before.  The guy was a real showman, and was simply fantastic. 

So yes, on top of all the things I mentioned in the last post, driving around on sand dunes is also an option and kinda fun.

Before I left I was unreliably* informed that there's nothing to do in Dubai except drive around on sand dunes.

Here's a list of things you can do

• Take a bus tour. 
• Visit the Dubai museum.
• Take a river tour on a dhow.
• Visit Sheik Saeed al-Maktoum's House.
• Visit the camel Museum.
• Visit Jumeirah Mosque.
• Visit a theme park.
• Visit a park.
  • Have a barbecue at the park
• Visit the beach
  
  • Swim.
  • Jetski.
  • Fish.
• Ski. 
  
  • Yes, Dubai has an indoor ski slope.  A snow ski slope.
  • Alternatively go to the snow park in the same place.
• Go to the dolphinarium.
  
  • Swim with dolphins (expensive but not  completely unaffordable if you can afford to get to Dubai in the first place)
• Go to a bazaar and find things to haggle over the price of.
• Go shopping at one of the many malls*

There's probably a lot more.  I haven't mentioned anything that involves going out of the city yet.  Abu Dhabi is reachable, there are presumably several desert related things to do in the desert.

One thing I want to do is visit the observation deck on the Burj Khalifa.  I like observation decks.  I'm also intrigued by one that's half a mile high in an area where there's not that much to observe, and where the desert haze (or possibly smog) limits visibility.

My plan was to do a bit of the red tour, then do the blue tour round to the tower and hopefully get a ticket for a convenient enough time.  So, I just did the bus tour, plus the Dhow trip and the Sheik's house.  That's not the way to do things.  My plan didn't work out.

The bus tour is pretty good.  You actually get two tours.  "Red", and "Blue".  Red takes you around the old city.  It tells you all sorts of interesting facts, and stops at lots of places, includes the Dhow cruise and entry to a couple of the museums, and all the chiled water you can drink (this would be quite a lot).  You get to hop on and hop off at any of the stops.  Also gives useful information on which places you're expected to haggle.  The Blue tour takes you around all the expensive modern areas.  I wanted to see the Burj though so got off at the appropriate stop, which was Dubai Mall.

They don't actually tell you how to get to the tower.  I left the mall and walked around to try and find the entrance.  Eventually I was redirected back into the lower ground floor of the mall where I found that the next available ticket was for after sunset.  Would rather visit during the day so bought a ticket for 11:00 tomorrow.  So that was a bit of a failure.  Should have treated the Blue tour as the sightseeing tour it really is and seen more of the stuff on the Red tour. 

Went to a restaurant in the mall.  Very tasty, and service was fast and helpful until it came to getting me the bill where they seemed to forget about me.

Thought I'd get the metro back.  There's no convenient way to get from the Dubai Mall to the metro other than by bus.  Seems to be missing the point. 

Slight annoyance is I think some sand got in my camera.  It makes a nasty grinding noise as it turns on.

Dubai has a lot of malls.  I was tempted to add something along the lines of:

• Shop
• Shop
• Shop
• Shop
• Shop
• Shop

*Information was from my mother according to a friend or maybe several friends.  I can't remember.  However, they're clearly wrong.

Curiously Facebook and twitter are blocked by this hotel's wi-fi service as "social networking".  Either that or Dubai itself has issues with these sites.  Since I can't get POP3 email access I'll put this down to bizarre hotel net filters.  Whatever the case, I'll not be on facebook/twitter for the next few days. 

Missed the place I could go to to get tax refund on purchases.  That was a bit annoying. 

Have now completed the epic 14 hour flight where I got next to no sleep following a night of no sleep.  I last slept 36 hours ago.  Was expecting to land in Singapore, like the Brisbane and Melbourne flights do.  Turned out this one is direct.  The range of a 777-200LR is very impressive.  Have to9 feel sorry for the flight crew though.  They looked pretty exhausted leaving an 8 hour flight.  14 must really be tiring.

For a UAE based airline they didn't seem to have a lot of cabin crew who spoke Arabic.  That seemed odd. 

I was asked if I was a drink.  I said "have you any red wine".  The steward said "Of course".  I should have realised it was a silly question since his name was Jesus.  

Room is very nice.  Actually a "serviced apartment", so it's essentially a bedsit.  I get a microwave oven, two halogen hobs, fridge freezer cutlery, crockery and a washing machine, as well as comfy sofas around the telly.  Have showered, changed, replaced blade in razor, and feeling pretty refreshed.  Will have to poke my head outside and see Dubai.