Arabian Nights - our final stop before home

We’re sitting on the Emirates A380 flight back to Sydney from Dubai now so we’ve just about come full circle on our holiday. We finished up where we started - in Dubai - but this time staying for two nights. We arrived in Dubai at about 4 o’clock in the morning and we were lucky enough to be able to check in early to our hotel room and get a few hours sleep before taking a look around. It was about 2pm by the time we surfaced and got on to the Big Bus that takes you around Dubai giving you a running commentary and stopping at the major attractions. We got a 24-hour ticket and split it over two days. A couple of the highlights were the Dubai Museum, which gave a great history of the area from pearl divers and desert nomads to gold traders and oil tycoons; and the Atlantis Hotel, which is the one situated at the end of the islands shaped like a palm tree and is HUGE with an aquarium-sized fish tank inside complete with stingrays and a whale shark. We also took an evening boat cruise along the ‘creek’ on a traditional Arabic boat, which was included in the bus ticket.

The best thing we did in Dubai though was, without a doubt, the evening desert safari. A driver picked us up in a Toyota Landcruiser around 3.30pm and took us out to the desert for some insane “dune bashing”, which basically involved a procession of four-wheel-drives fanging it over the sand dunes sliding all over the place, plunging (sometimes sideways) off the edge of dunes and giving us awesome views of the desert. Our driver was amazing. There were so many moments that we thought he was going to tip the car, but he didn’t. We did end up with a flat tyre and an overheated engine though so we had to get rescued.

After the dune bashing we arrived at a traditional Bedouin camp where there were all sorts of free activities to partake in. We did most of them including a camel ride, sand boarding, getting henna tattoos and dressing up as Arabs. We then got fed a massive buffet BBQ dinner, which was really tasty, and were entertained by a belly dancer who, of course, chose both of us to get up on stage with her (at different times) and do embarrassing things…which we got on video! This was in front of a crowd of about 200 people! It was a fantastic Arabian night and a very fun way to finish off a great six-week adventure.

Now to get some photos on Facebook!