Friday 20^th April 2012

Landed in Abu Dhabi at 6:15AM local time 6 hours behind Melbourne. Breezed through customs, collected our luggage and were picked up by our driver for the 30-klm trip to city.

Arrived at our hotel, Hilton Abu Dhabi and checked in by 7:30AM.

Weather was hot, about 32° and very hazy from sand blowing in from the desert.

Visited the Emirates Palace Hotel, which is extremely opulent. It cost an estimated USD$3.0 billion to complete. Cost to stay a night ranges from USD$600.00 – USD$15,000.00.

Had a look at the Marina Mall shopping centre and went up the viewing tower. As the landscape in totally flat the views were great but again the sand haze made visibility very limited.

As the Hilton has its own beach club we decided to have a swim followed by lunch looking over the pool and Arabian Gulf, which is magnificent. The water is aqua.

Saturday 21^st April 2012

We were picked up at 9:00AM along with 3 other Aussies from WA for our half-day city tour. Drove past many of the ruling family Palaces and past the Capital Gate building which has been constructed with an 18° lean similar to the Tower of Piza.

Next was a tour of Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque. Very stunning, built of white marble with 24c Gold leaf on top of all the domes. Inside is just as stunning with  Swarovski crystal chandeliers, hand made carpet and flower inlays on floors, wall and pillars all made from coloured marble. The mosque is able to hold 40000 people at the same time. All females including Lynne had to dress in the black robes and head scarf before being allowed to go inside the Mosque.

The date market was next, where we sampled a number of different date varieties and Lynne bought some chocolate covered dates.

Final stop of the tour was a visit to the Heritage Village that provided an insight to Bedouin culture. Lynne rode a camel.

After a quick lunch back at the hotel we were picked up together with our 3 Aussie friends in a Lexus 4X4 for our afternoon/evening for our Sand Dune Adventure tour. First stop on the tour was a camel farm, where we met up with about a dozen other 4X4 landcruisers. A convoy was formed and we headed for a drive around, over and across the sand dunes. It was during this 45-minute drive that we decided the tour should be called “Extreme” as the speeds were in excess of 80KPH and most of the time the vehicle was not just sideways but at very precarious angles as well.  The drivers in UAE are all crazy!!

Took some fantastic photos of sand dunes. The scenery was very impressive and we half expected to see Laurence of Arabia come over one of the dunes on his camel.

After as somewhat slower trip back across the dunes arrived at the Bedouin camp for diner followed by a very tall girl who gave us a display of belly dancing. Arrive back at the hotel about 9:30. All in all a very different way to spend my birthday.

Sunday 22^nd April 2012

Departed Abdu Dhabi at 1:30PM heading for London. Landed at Heathrow 6:15PM GMT. It took about an hour to clear customs due to the large number of flights which all seemed to arrive at the same time.

Collected our luggage and caught the tube to Russell Square and checked into the Hotel Russell for the evening. Cold and wet.