Gday or marhaba as we say in the UAE. Cathy again - Our plane touched down at 12 midnight after a relatively easy 6hr flight from Prague. We had the 'rush' assistance through immigration and then had to wait for our transfer and so arrived at our hotel 'Arabian Dreams' in Bur Dubai at about 2.30am on the Sat morn. Apartment had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, and a much needed washing machine. The bell hop was from nepal and considering the time of the night was very chatty. He asked us if we were having a mother daughter holiday. We laughed so hard I thought we would cry until we both realised the other one had assumed the other was the 'mother'. So our little nepalese sherpa did himself out of whatever tip was coming his way and he was promptly thrown out on his ear. We decided later he just didn't know the english word for sister.

No rest for the wicked so we were up for 'breakfast' at 9am. Breakfast consisted of some strange things. Kind of curry baked beans, some unknown things, a few cereals, a bit of fruit under some glad wrap and not one other customer. Coffee was straight out of the nescafe tin. Made mental note not to ever eat breakfast there again. Liam tells me his breakfast when he was at his 5 start resort was an event that took all day to eat - not so in the old Arabian Dreams!!!! Hotel staff (nepalese guy aside) were very helpful and helped us organise our itinerary for the day.

I'll leave space for krista to write more about the days but we got on the hop on hop off bus and headed out to Jumierah beach and saw 'The Palm', the Burj Al Arab and did a bit of shopping at the touristy (and thankfully air conditioned) souk in the the hotel resort liam stayed in. It was about 35deg and hot in the sun so we didn't go up top on the bus. We then hit the Mall of the Emirates to see the ski slope and the shops. Then we got back on teh bus and did the Creek and the inner part of the city. We had a nice lebanese dinner in deira City Centre and then onto the night bus for the night time tour. Big day out - 12 hours of sight seeing and only a few things purchased!!! Where had we gone wrong????

It was decided on day 2 that we had to hit the shops hard and lay down sacrifices for the handbag gods. As we had avoided the breakfast at the hotel we went down to the old souk and chose a nice little indian place and had THE BEST and spiciest breakfast ever. Not sure they normally got too many tourists in this place but the guys were helpful and made sure we got something to eat. Best coffee for days made right in front of us. We then went to Al Karama markets where we could feel the handbags calling us (we may have even heard the whisper from a wallet or two). Everyone wanted us to go into their shop and they all promised the best price as we were their first customer of the day. They could see tourists to relieve of dirhams and we could see handbags a plenty.

In the shops they take you inside and then tell you there are more handbags upstairs. When upstairs suddently one of the shelves beaps and swings open inside are the 'real' or 'better fakes'. There were tiny rooms on 2 floors filled to the brim with handbags, wallets, scarves, watches and I'm sure anything else you could desire. After lighhearted negotiations with our salesman from Kerala in India we eventually allowed ourselves to purchase a few wee handbags and other accesories. Prior to this we were having to be careful as our luggage limit had been 20kgs. On Emirates this was now 30kgs. So we both had some holiday schekles left over and luggage allowance to burn. In hindsight we should have gone harder and bought more but oh well. Lunch was at a Lebanese place the handbag shop recommended and it was terrific. Fresh great food.

I'll leave Krista to tell you about our Desert Safari. Carmel had warned me that the dune drivers were crazy but being brave wee things we booked one anyway.

Next morning we were being picked up early for our 10am flight and were lucky we could make a sacrifice to the Gods of the Duty Free in Dubai.

So we headed on to our loooooong 14 hour so many minute flight to Brisvegas but to comfort me I had the smell of new leather in my nose and happy handbags snuggled up in my bag in the hold.

Thus came an end to the adventures of cathy and krista - the bobsey twins. We will update with photos and more stories as Krista downloads her photos and diary. We had a great trip and a great time and are ready to do it all again some bat time, some bat channel.

We'd like to thank Liam and Ron for looking after the kids and the kids for looking after Liam and Ron.

Shaika (the female version of a shiek) Krista Camel-aro here ... well, Dubai woke me up from my preconceived image of the 'land of 'Arabian nights and Ali Babas', although my genie did appear in the form of my credit card, making all wonderous sorts of silk, leather and spice merchants appear before my very eyes; and I did buy some bottles of multi-coloured desert sand in glass bottles from a guy called Barber Ali, but more on that later.

Dubai has been in a futuristic metropolis building frenzy for the past 15 years and their buildings are not only gravity defying, but there is much beauty in their design. Dubai should have a very long entry in the Guiness Book of World Records for the biggest, longest, tallest, most expensive ... which apply to hotels, bridges and even flagpoles and even the highest consumption of water use per capita. But you can't help but be agog at the sheer magnitude of their building approach. In just 15 years, out of the sand has appeared a skyline of magnificent buildings where only one had previously existed. Even the Kalifa, the world's tallest building, shimmers like an Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz. In this case, the wiz, Shaik Mohommed Al Kartoum (with a few more names in between), the current leader of Dubai, appears in somber photographs in hotels, billboards and the sides of buildings and his yellow brick road is definitely lined with gold, owning most of the public infrastructure, countless 5 star hotels and most of the Dubai shoreline with his palaces.

Dubai runs out of oil at the end of this year and while only 10 percent of the residents are 'nationals' (even those non-nationals who were born and have lived in Dubai all their lives can't buy property), most of the country's wealth now lies in tourism, and they really are very service oriented and helpful.

Every mechanical crane in the universe is currently located in Dubai and they straddle the the tops of buildings like hungry birds jutting their heads out of a nest. From the air, it seemed like a landscape of dunes and sandcastles. On the ground, in between great swathes of lush green grass that gets watered every 13.5 seconds, Dubai is a very heady mix of cultural anomalies and blue sky engineering innnovation.

Of course I was fascinated by the women's haute couture, usually featuring a head-to-toe cocoon of black fabric, sometime the face was exposed, or dark eyes could be seen through slits in headwear, and there were even women whose faces where totally concealed by the thick veil of their religion. And yet, under those 'tardis-like' outfits, from time to time you would see the slender heel of a pair of red stilettos and most carry a Prada or Gucci handbags over the shoulder. Of course, Cath and I supported the domestic leather trade too through our own purchases, but for some strange reason ours were labelled Pradar or Guccy - must have been a translation problem at the manufacturers. Shopping is the number one leisure activity of Dubai for tourists and locals, and let's face it, it sure beats spending an idle day at home in 50 degree heat on a usual Dubai summer's day.

I loved the hop-on and hop-off bus tours routed along a 'city' path and a 'beach' path, which not only allowed excellent viewing from air-con buses of sites from the Burq al Arab and visits to exclusive shopping centres like the Emirates Mall and Wafi complex, it also minimised the number of times I could get lost. We visited many souks (markets) in both up-market outlets, like the Souk Madinet Jumeirah where we bought and watched Barber Ali create Arabian desert scenes in small glass bottles with coloured sands and a pipette, complete with your child's name (I love a personalised service). There was also the open-aired old souk near the Dubai Creek where traders tried to lure you into their tiny stores for bags, clothing and hubbly bubbly (shisha) pipes). You couldn't walk one metre without being hassled so it was tiring, but safe enough.

Of course, Cathy and I did not venture into these retail 'rabbit warrens', despite the wily pleas of the storeholders, in case we were abducted and traded for camels or at least camel cigarettes. Yet, two hours later, we were going into tiny bag shops in the local markets at Karama, going up tiny, winding spiral staircases into hidden low-ceiling rooms for the 'better bags' and then even venturing into connected rooms that appeared behind small 'hidden' doors concealed with shelves of bags, that were locked behind you (so we discovered later). Yes, nothing like compromising personal safety for a canny handbag purchase!

On the first night, after 10 yours of sleep-deprived sightseeing, we took a bus-top night tour trip of Dubai (out of air-conditioning I might add) - carpe diem! The second and last night of our whirlwind two day trip to Dubai included a 'Desert Safari' which included a 45 min drive out of Dubai until we hit the sand dunes for some 'bush bashing', followed by a banquet out in the dunes with belly-dancing and music. The bush bashing is not for the faint-hearted, but I'd highly recommend it. We travelled in a convoy of three 4WDs each containing about 6 weak-bladdered, wide-eyed and white-knuckled tourists. Imagine being driven up 'waves' of sand dunes where all you see is sand, the crest coming up, but not what's on the other side; or driving fast along the tops of the dunes where the sides seem to slip away into sand caverns below, or even skidding down the sides of the dunes with the sand dumping down on the windscreen. As the person in the passenger seat, I can assure you it was a butt and jaw-clenching experience! But really fun! The poor Iranian behind me was white-faced and sweaty browed, and I'm going 'woo hoo, let's go faster!'

I was amazed at the competent our khaki-clad driver - a great bear of a man, who spoke few words but liked his Arabic-pop music at eye-splitting volumes (which strangely added to the dune-bashing excitement) - was at manoevering the vehicle over the sand dune crests considering you can't see what's on the other side. I just couldn't work out how he could anticipate what was on the other side. Turns out, he couldn't either. As we came down one 'sandwave' a thick bush appeared in front of us and as 'Ali' swung the 4WD around it did a serious pitch to the side and seemed to be hooked onto the bush. I knew things weren't looking good when I saw the whites of the driver's eyes, which then matched my own as I saw his 150+ kilo frame hovering nearby, his seatbelt straining as we were in what felt to be a 45 degree+ pitch on the side of a sand dune. It was like being literally suspended in time waiting for the 4WD to roll over. Luckily, Ali slowly bunny-hopped around the bush, righted the vehicle but 2 metres later we realised all was not well when he pulled over to inspect a tree branch, the size of a limb, embedded within the tyre. It was the branch that had pinned the vehicle in position which thanks to Mohommed (peace upon his name) probably ensured the 4WD didn't roll over. In fairness, Ali was a very good driver and none of us seemed scarred by the experience - it was just one of those things that happen and I'd certainly do it again. In fact, while he and the others changed the flat tyre and dug the vehicle out, it bought us another hour in the dunes, and we were able to watch a beautiful Arabian sunset.

We finally got to the banquet, with a million other 4WD companies and tourists and the evening under the stars, sitting on thick sand-filled pillows, on carpets (no, they didn't fly unless you smoked some of the shisha) at low tables. Men and women had to line up separately at single-sex only buffets. Frankly, I was pleased at that as I'm not sure that some of those men appreciate women eating before them and I think some of their personal hygiene standards were questionable, along with their moral ones (ie one of the tour operators asked Cath and I if we could hook him up with some 'virgin women' in Australia but we couldn't think of anyone that wouldn't involve a jail sentence. Seriously though, we were both pretty stunned at the time).

During the evening, we were entertained by belly-dancers, although after three weeks of a high carb, pasta and bread-fuelled diet in Italy, we able to do our own version of the belly-wobble; Arabian musicians and Whirling Dervishes (those crazy guys who whirl in one spot for hours on end, swishing their skirts around them in dizzying patterns). Dubai, despite my initial reservations, turned out to be a wonderful experience including the food - the best hummous and baba ganoush I have ever tasted, lamb and chicken kebabs and, surprisingly, the yummiest fresh fruit juices (the strawberry and orange was sublime). Next time, I'd like to have a few more days to visit the museums, and their only non-muslim mosque to learn more about their culture and lifestyle. For now, I'd just have to be content with leaving with my jar of desert sand, brass camel and Aladdin lamp, an Arabian head dress and a hot pink belly-dancing sash, complete with gold coins (for my kids, honest); and one or two handbags. A great experience!