I heart DXB

The great thing about having people visit you when you are living away from home, that is apart from just seeing them obviously, is getting to do all the touristy stuff you don't bother with normally. Having to show people the sights of your new home really forces you to see stuff you would probably never get around to seeing, and doing things you haven't yet gotten around to doing. This is exactly what happened to us this past weekend. Some of our friends' family are visiting Dubai at the moment from the UK, and we were invited on (ahem gate-crashed) some of their outings. It's been great actually.

[the "Big Red" sand dune]

On Saturday we started with a Desert Safari, or "dune bashing" as it's affectionately known. All six of us were collected from the villa and piled into one 4x4, along with our local driver-slash-tourguide. We headed off on the Al Madam road toward Hatta, did the ubiquitous u-turn at some point along the road (near "big red" actually) and then abruptly veered off into the desert, along with about 100 other vehicles.

[traffic in the desert]

I did not expect to see a traffic jam in the sand like that, but there you go. Every operator seems to take more or less the same route through the dunes. Our man Abdulla asked us if we wanted to wait for the other vehicles from their company's group or if we would rather head off alone. As we were all together in one car and didn't know the other people we opted to start off alone, then and there. What followed can only be described as a roller-coaster ride on a track assembled by people that were very very drunk and had lost their spirit levels. We lurched, veered, careened, swerved and ramped over dunes and small trees for what felt like eternity, but was in fact only an hour or so. All I can say is that I was glad I wasn't Stu sitting in the front seat with an unobstructed view of our imminent demise. It was bad enough seeing the sand rushing towards me out of the side window, well that is when I had my eyes open. The feeling of sliding sideways and backwards with the engine roaring is one I won't forget in a hurry. However I will say that not only is Abdulla a master, totally at one with his vehicle and clearly extremely experienced, but the Toyota Land-cruiser is an engineering marvel. I still don't know how we didn't flip or roll. It is, in my humble opinion, nothing short of a miracle.

[tracks]

At this point we paused at the top of a large dune to stretch our legs, take some photos and throw up as necessary (OK not really quite that bad), and then proceeded at a slightly more sedate pace to the camp for dinner. Here we could have some tea or coffee on arrival, use the bathroom, try on traditional Arabic dress (and take a picture), have a henna tattoo and lastly eat a meal. My face lit up when I heard the words "for the alcohol you have to pay extra". The belly-dancer strutted her stuff after a delicious supper, and embarrassingly made us all take part in the last dance. We then piled back into the car for the ride home. Our trusty driver decided to up the ante and turned the head-lights off for some of the ride back to the tar road. Clearly he knows this road like the back of his hand. Happily there wasn't any dune bashing involved here, just regular sand road driving. And call me crazy but this was actually my favourite part. Probably a combination of being all adrenalined out and a little more relaxed from a few glasses of wine. Happily we arrived home in one piece.

All in all I enjoyed the experience. I only have two negative comments, firstly I did not expect the desert to be so full of vehicles whizzing around and that was a bit nerve-wrecking at times, and secondly there is a great deal of litter left behind by all the visitors which is horrible to see. I also worry about the ecology of the dunes as there doesn't seem to be any system or protection at all, but maybe I am wrong? I hope so.

Today we took the visitors to Abu Dhabi to see the beautiful great Mosque there and for a spot of lunch at our favourite local restaurant. The Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque, according to the visitAbuDhabi website, is

probably the most imposing religious and national landmark in Abu Dhabi to date. It is also arguably one of the most important architectural treasures of contemporary UAE society - and one of the most beautiful in the world - initiated no less by the late president HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who is fondly thought of as the father of UAE.

[the Grand Mosque]

[marble mosaic-type inlays on the columns]

The architecture was originally Moroccan but has evolved to include some Turkish touches. The Mosque is constructed from marble, stone, gold, semi-precious stones, crystals and ceramics. It features 80 domes decorated with white marble, the largest of which is the main dome which measures 32.7m in diameter and is 85m high on the outside. The Mosque has 1,096 columns in it's exterior and 96 columns in the main prayer hall. The columns are are embedded with more than 20,000 handmade marble panels encrusted with semi-precious stones, including lapis lazuli, red agate, amethyst, abalone shell and mother of pearl. Furthermore, beautiful minarets standing 107 metres are built on the four corners of the Mosque. Artificial lakes, totalling 7,874 square metres and laden with dark tiles, surround the Mosque, whilst coloured floral marble and mosaics pave the 17,000 square metre courtyard.

We ladies were given abayas to put on over our clothes, and scarves to cover our hair, before being allowed to enter the courtyard of the Mosque. Unfortunately because it was 12.10pm and therefore time for prayers, and also because we are not Muslim and had missed the public tour, we were not allowed to enter the prayer hall. So after a brief stroll around the outside of the Mosque we left and went for lunch at Al Safadi which was awesome as always.

Isn't it fun being a tourist? Much better than looking for a job anyway :-)