Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We spent the morning by the pool enjoying the resort and had a couple of lemon mint mocktails (very refreshing). Temperature was a dry 42 degrees centigrade.
Our taxi driver to Dubai thankfully knew where he was going and after a 45 min drive through the desert, where we went past a hotel called "Endurance Village" and saw some people cycling in the desert #crazy, we arrived at Fairmount the Palm where we had sneakily booked in with travel agent rates (great deal at $100 a night).
The Fairmount was gorgeous (as expected) but rather full of chavey Brits on holiday and we headed out to take a boat trip to see the Dubai skyline from the waterfront.
The boat trip with Yellow Boats was excellent and our guide Kevin fantastic, a fountain of knowledge. We sailed through the Marina (largest in the world) and out around Palm Island. We sailed passed Atlantis (replica of the Bahamas property), then we headed towards the Burj al Arab (most luxurious hotel in the world at 7 stars). It truly is a beautiful building shaped like the sail of a Dhow and a landmark figure in the Dubai skyline. The boat trip was a great way to get a feel for the development of Dubai and taking it in the late afternoon meant the heat was more bearable.
Dubai has many restaurants to pick from and most of which are aimed at the higher end tourist, this is not a country that wants to encourage anything other than the tourist coming to spend lots of money. We picked a more reasonable priced Thai restaurant called Mango Tree which had great views of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world and the fountains which flank it and put on a spectacular show every 30 mins. The food and service were both excellent and location fantastic. After dinner we had a quick walk around the Mall of Dubai (largest in the world) it was interesting to see all different types of cultures shopping both European and American brands.
Dubai overall - Plastic Fantastic - Shiny, new, featuring "world biggest/largest/most expensive", construction ridden, no visible poverty, lacking in culture (although there must be some somewhere!), expensive, multicultural.
- comments