Europe 2008 – Day 03 (Thursday)

Late breakfast today and off to Old Souk again to check out the Dubai Museum which is located in the Al Fahidi Fort, which was built in 1799 and has been a palace, garrison and prison, but was converted to a museum in the 70's. It houses some very interestin dioramas depicting Dubais history and the way people lived in those old days, some artefacts date back more than 3000 years and apparantley Dubai had a thriving pearl industry also. But now relies on oil.

It is very, very hot today so headed back to the hotel early for some lunch and to recover!

Tomorrow we are off to Moscow

Europe 2008 – Day 02 (Wednesday)

Today we have been off doing some exploring.

Walked (BAD mistake in this weather!!) from our Hotel to a place called Deira City Centre. It is a shopping mall and we were very glad to get there and into the air conditioning, and these place are huge and multi storey .

From there got a taxi to the Mall of the Emirates and this is even bigger!! This mall has an indoor ski slope, but not just a ski slope but toboggan slopes ski school, all sorts of winter sport stuff and it is 43C outside!! (hate to think what their electricity bill for this is). It is really weird seing people getting around in snow gear, when you are in a desert.

Grabbed another taxi (no more walking!!) and headed off to the Gold, Spice Souks (markets). Drove past the Burg Dubai on the way and it is the tallest building in the world (and against a desert background it appears very, very tall). I would not like to go to the top, it tapers to almost a point at the top so I could imagine it sways a fair bit up there. The markets were basically closed in the middle of the day so got a water taxi back to the hotel. These Water taxis are terrific when you get to know how to use them and where they go, very cheap (about $1.00 each per ride) and they are air conditioned (which is becoming a very high priority).

Have not tried the local Abras' – they are an even cheaper open water taxi (however very expensive if you want to hire one privately to do some sightseeing up and down the creek).

In the evening and after dinner went to a place called Old Souk. But the water taxi did not go as far as we wanted so we had to walk, but at least it was evening and the temperature had dropped and there was a breeze up. Anyway walked around to Shindagha to pick up a tourist boat for a cruise on the Creek. When we got there we saw it was also the site of the Heritage village, so may have to do that tomorrow.

The cruise was interesting, we were the only ones on board! Looks like all the other tourists must have been in bed (it was late)

Old Souk is a very interesting place, it is the old Dubai, not the flash big buildings etc, but all the old traditional houses and markets. Will go back there again tomorrow to check out the buildings.

Europe 2008 – Day 01 (Tuesday)

Well we are off and left Perth at 6.00am this morning to fly to Dubai to start a 3 month journey through Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Norway and Holland (phew! That sounds toooo much).

Arrived in Dubai at around 1.30pm and were immediately hit by the crowds of people at the airport trying to get thru Passport control (took nearly an hour for us to get thru)

Anyway the hotel is fabulous, very friendly and relaxed and we have a great view over Dubai Creek to all the buildings on the other side (including the tallest building in the world). But it is damned hot!! Over 40C each day and not much less at night.

Everyone is very friendly, courteous and helpful. Went for a walk along the Creek and watched the sun go down behind the Grand Mosque, what with all the dust in the air, the sunset is magnificent because the air diffuses the colour and it is like looking thru a filter, great!

It is very strange because the people you see out in the street are mostly men (very few women in public)