Summer travels part I.

I somehow made it through my first six months of teaching - well enough that they've given me a permanent contract and my own classes from next year - so we decided to celebrate by doing some travelling over the summer. 

Since we moved to Mauritius, I've spent a lot of time in Dubai airport, usually in the middle of the night. I took a non-stop flight once from Paris and hated every second of it, so now I try to always travel with Emirates and have a stop in Dubai to break up the flight a bit. I'm definitely in the minority amongst my ex-pat friends, but for me the chance to stretch my legs, brush my teeth, and have a quick wander round the duty free shops makes all the difference. The only problem is that you never have time to actually leave the airport and see the city. As Merv and I were travelling together for once, we thought we would change that.

We had already planned a trip to England with Emirates so we just created a break of 3 days between the flights and booked ourselves a nice hotel. We stayed on the banks of the Dubai Creek, in an area which is pretty much still a building site, but was close to everything. 

View from our room on the 22nd floor

My absolute favourite thing about the hotel was the bath. I couldn't work out how to fill it at first because there were no taps, but I eventually found a button with a picture of a bath, and when I pressed it, this happened:

Yes, that's the water pouring down from the ceiling!

The other cool thing was the swimming pool balcony. I'd packed for a holiday in England so didn't have my swimming costume, and just had to admire it from a distance.

Because we had limited time to visit, we went for the super touristy option of a sightseeing bus which did routes around the old and new quarters, as well as the marina and the artificial palm islands, which we'd seen so many times on Emirates in-flight adverts. It was extremely hot, but fortunately the bus had a covered, air-conditioned part at the front and we had a great view.

To get to the bus, we had to cross the creek, which we did in a traditional little boat. Everybody sits on the raised part in the middle and it felt a little wobbly, especially as we navigated our way through the hundreds of other boats on the creek. I'm sure they knew what they were doing though, and we didn't fall in!

First stop on the bus was the Gold Souk; passages of jewellery shops with more gold than you can imagine - over 25 tons at any given time. Most of it was a bit bling bling for me, but it was definitely worth seeing.

Dubai, we were told through our sightseeing bus headphones, is always trying to set records: the biggest, tallest, longest, most expensive, most luxurious, and this is certainly shown by the skyline. There are literally hundreds of skyscrapers, each one taller than the last.  It's kind of cool though, as a lot of them keep some elements of islamic design which I really like. It's all those interesting shapes and never-ending patterns. 

The tower that breaks all records is the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at almost 830m. We didn't visit because the queues were huge (we should have booked online in advance!) but we took some pretty photos from the outside. After all, if you're at the top of the tower, you can't get a good photo of it, can you?!

We weren't the only ones taking pictures!

By night, from a taxi, could be better.

 

 

 

 

 

The malls in Dubai are amazing. They are full of shops from around the world, including lots of French, English, and American stores I hadn't seen for a long time. Sadly Merv isn't the best shopping companion, so we only had a quick look around before moving on.

One mall had a giant aquarium:

 

There's even a ski slope complete with fake chalets and crazy inflatable bubbles that you can roll down the mountain in.

 

In the evening we went on a dinner cruise down the Dubai Creek on a dhow, another traditional Arab boat. There were lots of them and some had very pretty lights, like this one. There was a buffet dinner, drinks and entertainment. We saw some sword dancing and a crazy spinning man who I later found out was a whirling dervish. It was fascinating but made me feel a little sick watching him for too long!

  

We only stayed in Dubai for 3 days and although we did see quite a lot of the city, I didn't realise how much there actually was to do there. We could have taken trips to the mountains, to the sand dunes, the racecourse, and many more places. We also didn't go at the best time of year as some tourist attractions like the Miracle Gardens and Global Village were closed because of the heat. While it still wouldn't be my first choice of holiday destination, I'm really glad we had the chance to visit and would definitely recommend it for anyone who likes shopping!!