Dubai

Dubai

We made a slow start this morning, Cairo Crap not abating, we have such a lovely room that it's a shame to leave it really. 

 Panorama taken from our bedroom window

 We went down to see how we could handle breakfast, neither of us feel really ill, no sickness, maybe a bit of stomach cramp now and again, just raging diarrhoea.  We had something light to eat and then made it back to the bedroom where it passed straight through us!

We only have one day in Dubai, we are already booked on the hop on hop off bus tours today, so we will go and we will manage.

On the causeway to the Atlantas Resort

We needed to catch a cab to the Atlantis resort at the top of the Palm where the bus tour starts.  It was just a matter of going out of the front door and the concierge hailed a cab. Going out of the front door my glasses steamed up, just like they do when you walk into a steamy shower!  

The entrance to Atlantis

We exchanged our bus passes for tickets on both the blue and red line which would pretty much take us to all the main areas of interest in Dubai, plus a book of 'special deal' tickets with discounts for eating, drinking and shopping. 

 The blue bus was here within 10 mins and we got a good seat upstairs with air conditioning, great!  

We started soon after with a commentary giving us details on the construction of the islands:

Wikipedia : "The Palm Islands are artificial islands constructed from sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf. The sand is sprayed from the dredging ships, which are guided by a Global Positioning System, on to the required area. The process is known as rainbowing because of the rainbow-like arcs produced in the air when the sand is sprayed. The outer edge of each palm's encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. Each rock was placed individually by a crane, signed off by a diver and given a Global Positioning System coordinate."

Our hotel, the Fairmont 

The monorail 

The indoor ski slope

The sky line from Sheik Fayad Road

77-storey twin towers Emirates Park Towers Hotel & Spa:

Burj Khalifa the tallest building in the world

Dubai Mall

Emirates Towers

Sheikh Fayad Road

World Trade Centre

The roundabout coming into Wafi

Entrance to Wafi Mall

We changed buses at Wafi Mall to the Red Line, crossing over we went through a small park and took a photo of the lovely tiled garden edges 

Creek Park. Children's City

Sheikh Rashid Hospital

Dubai Creek

Arabian Dhow, 

The bus ticket included a river cruise in a dhow, we decided to stay on the bus!

Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding

Basktakia Quarter

Waiting at the bus stop

Heritage Village - Old Souk

Under Dubai Creek and through the Shindagha tunnel

Deira fish, meat and vegetable market

Gold Souk - if only I could have got off the bus!

Sea merchants trading, they still sail to other ports on the Arabian Gulf, some of the bigger ones sail as far as Africa.

Back over Dubai Creek on the Al Maktoun Bridge

Jumeirah Mosque

Raffles Hotel

Jumeirah Beach Park : ladies Private Beach

Jumeirah Public Beach views of Burj Al Arab

Wikipedia: "Burj Al Arab (Tower of the Arabs) is a luxury hotel located in Dubai.  It was 'The world's only 7 star Hotel' since 1999 till 2008. At 321 m, it is the fourth tallest hotel in the world; however, 39% of its total height is made up of non-occupiable space.  Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 m from Jumeirah beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the sail of a ship.

Atlantis on the Palm - lost chambers of Atlantis

Relief, this lovely hotel had a ladies room that wasn't all crouch toilets!  We had held on for 5 hours, and I felt so much better I even had a look around the hotel shops!  

We were soon out in the heat again and waited 5 mins for a taxi to take us back to the Fairmont. It was a relief to get back to such a nice room, we were able to relax, 

Our first 'selfie' 

we sat out on the balcony and watched people on the beach and in the water, and there were life savers in their hut but the beach 'safety signs' were quite close together so they had only a small area of beach to watch, there were only a handful of people down there, it was very hot, and also there is a strict dress (undress?) code.

I felt quite ill!  So we were going to have room service again tonight.  We ordered sandwiches, and they came up with a table with fold down arms, set the table up, get the food out of the warmer, set it on the table, pour the glasses of water, and make it quite special.  

Unfortunately I just couldn't eat it, the waiter who brought it in sympathised and was quite concerned for us. Offered to get a doctor, etc, but as we were going next day we thought it wasn't worth it.  He did suggest we drink some ginger ale and went away to get some for us, he was back in no time and it did help, I felt quite a lot better after that. We then packed, we had an early transfer to the airport at 7 tomorrow, and went to bed.