Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Our weather has not all been so fabulous...we had 3 or 4 days of wind and clouds and high temperatures. Unfortunately this time period was when Les and I planned to go to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Oh well, you just have to make the best of what you're given and enjoy. So we did.

Les took Thursday morning off and we were on the highway to Dubai by 8 a.m. And a good thing we left when we did because the drive was a bit white-knuckly!!! The wind was really bad and when you remember that we are living in the middle of a desert, you will imagine just what was blowing around out there - lots and lots and lots of sand. Visibility was poor, blowing sand on the highway and in some areas, the sand drifts were dangerous. This was a lot like driving in a snow storm. But the temperature was still in the high 20's and when we were in Dubai the mid 30's.

We arrived in Dubai and the wind was still with us. It was disappointing because we couldn't see as much as we wanted too. We could see the massive amount of construction that is going on in this very fast moving city. We saw the building that when completed will be the world's tallest building, tower after tower after tower - either under construction or standing tall already. You can not believe the number of cranes being used. Apparently 30% of the world's construction cranes are in use in Dubai as we speak. Not bad for a city that has been in existence for only 30 years. The traffic in Dubai reminded us of Cairo! But this time Les was driving and we didn't even have a map to navigate from!

Even without a map we managed to find a few places that interested us. The first was the Harley Davidson Shop. We stopped (of course!), looked at the bikes (and yes...like Cairo, the prices are comparable to Canadian prices), checked to see if they had t-shirts for Les (I really didn't want a repeat of the sad disaster at the Cairo Harley shop), and YAHOO!!!! success, a couple of new shirts for Les (and for me too!).

Our next adventure was to find the soukes - gold and spice - and I was told there is a sort of fabric souke too. We were happy to go around in circles for only about an hour before finally finding the souke area. Never in my life have I seen so much gold in any one place, or so many stores that sell gold all lined up one right beside the other. Wow! We had lots of fun looking at the sparkly, the tacky, the shiny, the BIG, the beautiful. And we found the spice souke too, what a wonderfully aromatic area that is. Fresh spices and herbs galore. We will be making some of our favorite cooks very happy when we get home! And of course the shawl and souvenir sellers as in Egypt. And just as pushy as the Egyptian ones, although in the end you couldn't bargain these guys down as good as we could in Egypt.

While we were walking in the soukes we were constantly harassed by men who came close whispering, "Looking for watches", "Looking for handbags...Gucci...Parada...Channel...". Many of you will remember my adventures in New York City a couple of years ago when the little Oriental people would whisper in my ear about the handbags...well, yes, you guessed it...I followed. This time though we didn't go down dark alleys and staircases but close! We went down a very narrow little street (which actually took us closer to the spice souke I might add), and up a staircase. And as in New York, Les who has an intelligent, healthy fear of what might happen to us in a narrow little street muttered not nice words to me, who is probably too stupid to be afraid, all the way. We went up the stairs and were locked into a little room full of handbags of all descriptions. And all knock-offs of the best designers. Unfortunately for Sarah, the purse queen of the Jackson family, the prices quoted for these gems was way higher than I would pay and way higher than what we paid in New York. So down the stairs we went again and this time I not only had the salesman begging me to make another offer, I had Les giving me supreme you know what. But all is well and, as I mentioned, we were now right by the spice souke!

We also went through a little area of fabric sellers. Mostly fabrics for East Indian garments and upholstery fabrics. No quilting fabric!!!

We continued on our way back to Abu Dhabi, where we spent the night at Le Meridien Hotel. Les and his co-workers stay here, in a not so expensive wing of the hotel, when they are in Abu Dhabi. It is a beautiful hotel with 4 or 5 restaurants, 3 swimming pools (a regular one with a waterfall at one end, a kiddie pool and a larger hot tubby kind of pool), tennis courts, water features, birds, trees, grass (this is very important when you live surrounded by sand all the time), and best of all...a clean, sandy beach and Persian Gulf. We anticipated spending all day Friday laying on that sandy beach and swimming in the Gulf.

Too bad the wind gods weren't with us on this one!! Friday dawned and the wind continued. We did go to the beach and I swam in the Gulf and Les was sandblasted by the blowing sand. The water was rough and kind of scary so we found ourselves a nice secluded spot in the pool area and parked ourselves there for the morning. Because the weather really wasn't cooperating, and we knew the highway wouldn't be any better today than yesterday, we left in the early afternoon. On our way out of town, my lovely man who knows me well, stopped at...STARBUCKS!!!! I have not had a latte since I left home...yes believe it! It was sooo good and I truly enjoyed every last drop.

Our drive home wasn't any better today. On this side of the highway the sand drifts were, in some areas, really bad and we were glad to do the drive in the daylight when we could see them and avoid them or at the very least slow down for them. We did arrive home safely and are planning our next little outing!