Dazzling Dubai :)

Dubai - my first stop on a pretty exciting travel adventure around Asia - diving, yoga, trekking and whatever else happens in between :)

I went with no expectations, as advised by a friend, and was extremely open minded about what I might find. I did not expect to love Dubai nearly as much as I instantly did!  Of course, some of that may be to do with the luxury in which I found myself surrounded ;)

I was lucky enough to be staying with a friend who I met in Bermuda, briefly, before he moved for his own life changing reasons to the Middle East. I could not have asked for a more awesome host, he had bought me a new toothbrush, bubble bath salts (knowing it would be a while before I saw a bathtub again...), and organised a kick ass itinerary which involved him spending every spare second showing me new exciting parts of Dubai. Lucky Caroline :)

The adventure started at the airport, as I looked around me at other backpackers in the Emirates queue who had half empty backpacks (how I dreamed for months mine would look after very careful and considered packing) and compared that picture to my overloaded trolley with backpack (packed to brim, and side pockets bursting), dive equipment bag, day pack and a yoga mat.  Not exactly ideal... The lady behind the counter agreed and quickly told me my bags were 7kg overweight (my allowance with Emirates is 30kg for check in, to offer you some perspective lol...). Meanwhile I messaged Russell and said please can I store some stuff at your apartment while I travel and vowed to not break my back whilst backpacking.

Straight onto the plane, and handed red wine. Ah happy Caroline.

After a seriously long line up at Immigration, worse than Bermuda for work permit holders...I was free to go and explore! And yes we did explore despite fact it was after 10pm. Straight to the Fountain Show outside of Dubai Mall - largest shopping mall in the World.  Awesome display of lights and water alongside music.  Next stop much needed food - dumplings! Then straight into the car to go and drive around Dubai! I saw so many things that evening/morning - we stopped at Atlantis Hotel and took a walk around the grounds, we stopped at the aquarium within the hotel and watched the eagle rays, stingrays and sharks swimming around in their huge open space (still not cool but at least they seem to have lots of room, and hey is it any safer in the ocean these days?!).  We drove through Jumeirah, along JBR Walk (bit like Miami South Beach) where there were literally hundreds of people out at 2.30am. Tried to get into a beach bar called Baristi and failed, too late. We saw the Palm, the Burj Arab, Burj Khalifa....in fact I saw so many things that night I can't even recall everything.

Friday morning after a lazy lie in, we got ourselves ready for a desert safari. The company were supposed to collect us at the apartment, but in true local fashion we ended up driving ourselves to the desert and meeting the car there. I wasn't convinced we weren't going to get kidnapped lol.  Dune bashing - what an adventure. Literally our driver, in convoy with other cars, drove headfirst into big sand dunes, we raced down head first, we slid down sideways, we held our breath to see if we would roll and before you knew it, it was all over.  In a state of shock, we moved inside the camp and headed straight to the sand boarding! I was terrified, but it was made quite clear that I WAS going to try this... so up we ran with the boards, which is hard work, and set our feet into place and down we went! SUCH a buzz! I fell off the board twice two thirds of the way down but was determined to get it. Luckily I did the third time, just as the recording for facebook began :) So much fun, loved it.

After some local food, belly dancing show and a male dancer - who encouraged other men to copy what he did, and they jumped up all cocky and sure of themselves and needed carrying off stage at the end as they fell all over the place lol! We got back into our car to travel home. We asked driver jokingly if we were dune bashing again...he said yes night bashing...we assumed he was joking. He wasn't. How we didn't hit a car I have no clue as he couldn't see out of his windscreen. Was awesome fun and I am grateful to be alive!

That evening we had a reservation to go to the top of Burk Khalifa- the tallest building in the World. The lift took us up 10 floors per second to the 124th floor, which is the observation deck.  We got to walk around the whole thing and see all views of Dubai, and it was awesome to see how huge and bright that city is. After this we stopped at a local place for some shisha (apple and strawberry flavour I think), desert and tea. The guy handed us an iPad each as a menu - got to love Dubai :) So we ate disgusting amounts of desert, and tea and people (or more accurately - building) watched. Such a chilled way to end the adrenaline filled day.

Saturday we drove to Abu Dhabi to see the Grand Mosque. It seemed I had brought the English weather with me, and although Dubai only gets rain 6/7 times per year, Saturday brought with it the second day of rain in a row. Anyway all good :) We explored the Mosque which was enormous, and required men and women to use separate entrances and exits (even though you could meet each other two minutes later). I was invited to wear a burqa to cover my shoulders, arms and head.  This amused Russell and there were photos taken... From here we went to a lebanese restaurant with the MOST delicious food ever.  The restaurant was called Maroush, and fantastic. We ordered too much food and ate as much as we could - flat breads, hummus, salad, olives, and wraps. (Russell can correct me on the names of everything haha).  On the way home I was asked to tell stories about myself to keep us awake on the highway, so I told him about close misses with sharks underwater in Borneo, rip currents in Philippines, a train crash in Nairobi and so on.

Sunday I started to feel guilty about no exercise so I went for a 5 mile run. 4 miles of which was around the Dubai Mall which is just surreal! Felt great, 21 degrees and so much space on the pavements and amazing views. Definitely the best way to explore that part of Dubai. Watched Russell play volleyball with his team and win, and went for celebratory dinner afterwards. Everyone joined in trying to convince me to move to Dubai after my travels :) I wasn't saying no...and I hadn't even seen the beach by this point!

Monday - my final day. I had grand plans of going running, ice skating, skiing, to the souk, see Burj Arab and go to the beach as well as pack for my flight. What actually happened was a 6 mile run, a visit to Madinat Jumeirah - a gorgeous souk with amazing views of the Burj Arab and gondolas gliding along the water, and a stroll along JBR, a starbucks coffee sitting on the beach while I looked around me and appreciated every single moment of awesomeness in front of me.  JBR Walk is such a cool place to just chill out. You have a fab beach (bearing in mind you are in a built up, growing by the day, city), heaps of cool restaurants and shops along the boulevard. It is like something from South Beach, Miami, minus the tackiness.  I love that Dubai has just about everything you could want to do! I could literally go ice skating in the morning, visit a souk afterwards, then have a ski lesson before hitting the beach.  Just so cool! I have skiing, ice skating and sky diving on my "To do next time in Dubai" list :)

The day ended with a beach volleyball tournament, and several glasses of wine at Barasti Beach Bar before taking me to the airport. Despite removing loads of clothes, my bag remained overweight but luckily the women found us quite amusing and let it slide this time. Phew. I slept my way to Singapore!!! Knowing full well that Singapore has to work hard to leave a better impression on me than Dubai already has.  Such an awesome few days :)

Things I remember most about Dubai: the bright lights, the amazingly modern and funky buildings, the view from Russell's apartment, yoga headstand lesson, sand boarding, the crazy 7 lane highways, the expensive cars - ferraris, lamborginis, rolls royces, the bright skies, the BEACH and endless possibilities for fun things to do :)