Dubai

Dubai

Sydney first. We had an early start to get to the airport for a 6am flight.Our daughters,Glenn, the grandchildren and Lee made the effort to see us off. Thank you for that. It didn’t hit us until a bit later that we wouldn’t be seeing them for a year or so. Thank you to Bonnie and Stephen for the Dubai tips and prepaid Metro day tickets.

I might add that our daughters paid for our accommodation in Dubai as a Father’s Day present. We need more of this activity.

06 Oct 2013  Had a long but good flight from Sydney to Dubai. Emirates, good food, friendly service. Went to Dubai market section, gold, fish, (not goldfish) and spice all good. The natives are friendly. They have a great Metro rail service, easier for us to use than Sydney’s. Clean and new stations, no graffiti and clear destination announcements in English and Arabic. Someone stood up for Judy in the train and then a bloke stood up for me, I’m impressed, and it only costs a few Dirhams for a day pass. In general prices here are cheaper than Sydney. All signs and shop fronts are in Arabic AND English. Haven’t seen a tat’ or piercing all day. Been up for about 26 hours now, bit sleepy. 10pm.

07 Oct 2013    3am can’t sleep, jetlagged. Having got the lay of the land yesterday we are going to do some serious touristi today.

Went to Dubai Marina which is a beautiful waterfront with contemporary Arabic architecture and Dubai mall with the highest building in the world all very spectacular then back to the old market area where we took a river cruise along the “Creek” we were the only passengers on the dhow. I bought an Arabic headdress from a merchant, I look like Yasser Arafat, which protected me a little from further harassment from the vendors (by the way I bargained the price from 270 Durham’s to 30 and other vendors said I got a good deal).

08 Oct 2013   3.30am  can’t sleep jet lagged. Off to the airport soon and Durban.

A funny thing happened at the airport. We had been through passport and luggage checks and sat in a big hall waiting for our flight to be called. I noticed that people were drifting off to one end of the hall, Judy had gone to the powder room and by the time she had returned I was alone in the hall. We proceeded to follow and ended up rounding a glass partition. We, and all the rest of the people (about three hundred passengers) ended up at our original place. A classic case of following like sheep.