My second full day in Dubai brought a sleep-in of epic proportions (till 11am) although in saying that I didn’t get to bed until about 2am so it’s not quiet as bad as it sounds. I had booked the desert safari for the afternoon / evening so did not want to venture too far from the motel and give there was nothing to do near the hotel this was fine by me.
I took my time getting ready having a cup of tea in bed and catching up on the essentials like e-mail and facebook and then headed to the tiny hotel gym for a workout. My shoulders are feeling it today but feeling that post workout muscle fatigue is actually a nice feeling, I’m looking forward to getting back into a routine of going to the gym regularly.
Speaking of the gym I jumped on the scales there which say I have lost just over 2kg, while I know most scales are different so this one could be a couple of kg different to the ones at home, I take this to mean that I haven’t put on a tonne of weight like I kind of half expected given how terrible my eating has been this trip. There’s something to be said for being on your feet all day if that is the case.
After the gym I went up to the rooftop pool and sat in the sun reading my magazine for a while before I decided it would be a good time to get ready for the safari.
After being picked up about half an hour later than the latest time they told me we were on our way, our car had 5 people plus the driver, a couple, two ladies who I later found out worked in Saudi Arabia (they sounded English to me?) and myself.
The actual safari itself consisted of Dune Bashing (awesome, highly recommended), Camel Riding (I didn’t bother the line was HUGE for a VERY short ride), Henna painting (Considered it but decided against it as it lasts a couple of weeks and they do them on your hands, if I had to go to a clients when I got back to work it wouldn’t look too professional), a number of shows (mostly belly dancing which I found average to be honest but there were these other dancers that twirled around in circles for ages (think 10 mins at a time) with amazing costumes which were really cool and well worth it.
There was also a BBQ dinner and when you arrived you could get a falafel sandwich (which was in pita bread and had a lot of cucumber in it, I’d never tried falafel before it was strange and some Arabic sweets which were little balls of fried dough with some sticky sweet sauce on them they were ok but I’m not a huge dough/bread/pastry fan so if you like that kind of thing and you have a sweet tooth I’m sure you’ll love them. The price also included free water and soft drinks as well, I thought it was pretty reasonable as I paid about $40NZD for the trip.
As with a lot of tours and whatnot in countries like this you should do your research before you decide which company to go with, I did this and ended up paying AED115 plus AED20 because my hotel was in the middle of nowhere where I heard someone else saying they paid AED179 for exactly the same thing, in fact they were in my car but had obviously booked through a different company. So essentially they paid more for the same thing for no reason in particular. Just search for companies online, check their english on the website looks ok (I crossed one off my list for this reason) and the website looks kind of official and ring them yourself (or get your hotel to ring).
Oh and another treat, since Dublin my skin has turned against me, it’s not pretty and there is a distinct lack of photo’s with me in them for that reason, I’ve never had it this bad before I had to buy some acne spot reducer stuff it’s that bad, usually a few doesn’t worry me too much. Hope it buggers off before I get home!
As I type this I am sitting in the Dubai Airport (Friggen Huge by the way, oh and it also has a waterfall within it, WTF!) waiting to head to Kuala Lumpar, my last stop of the trip!