After a long journey, well 7 hours which isn't that long really, we arrived in Dubai! I have never felt heat like it! We got our transfer to the hotel and as we were driving through the city... I thought, oh dear, we are poor backpackers, how are we going to survive in this place! Dubai just symbolises money money money!
As we had arrived early morning, out hotel room wasn't ready and we were informed that it may not be ready till the afternoon, so as backpackers do, we went to sleep in the lobby with our feet on the tables and all of our luggage sprawled over the floor! After only an hour and a half waiting, they took pity on us and gave us our room key! RESULT!
As Frankie and I discussed what we were going to do for the next few days, we realised that we may not be able to afford much food but thankfully we had our secret stash of Mrs D's homemade flapjack, mini cheddars and Nature Valley Gronola Bars- that was to be our diet for the next 3 days! JOKES!
After stuffing our faces with the hotel breakfast, making sandwiches for lunch and stealing fruit, Thanks G'MA for the bag- its great for stealing food from hotels! We decided to head to the gold and spic souq, off we went to the reception to ask for information on how to get there etc. We asked if we could walk, he looked at us completely gone out- like he had never heard the word 'walk' before!
There is a reason why people don't walk!
1) Too HOT
2) There isn't any sidewalks in most places
3) Everything is so far apart
Ok, so we asked about public transport. No, the only way to get around is in a taxi- great, we have 50quid for 3 days, we definately won't be eating if we have to get taxi's everywhere! So we got a taxi to the gold souq and drove past a massive swanky bus station- Hello to public transport!
After lasting about an hour in the souqs, we ventured to the bus stops information centre, yippee for aircon! The guy that worked there was very helpful and we ended up buying a travel card that we could use on buses, water taxi and metro- Result we thought, we can get around the city! We headed on number 8a bus to the beach for a swim!
We arrived at the beach, in which you had to pay for! It was baking hot so we wanted some shade, you had to pay for the shade also! So we settled for some shade under some coconut trees (death by coconut sprang to mind!) The beach was ok, although I have been spoiled with Zanzibar! We lasted for about 2 hours before I felt like I was going to pass out and thought, I really should drink some water!
Then we discovered the most amazing invention... Bus stops with aircon! I was so hot I just wanted to lye down on the cold bus stop floor but resisted as I thought it wasn't very lady like!!
We ventured back to the hotel to get some food from the shopping mall (where are the street food venders)! However I did have a mean curry! We decided that as we hadn't spent much money that day we could treat ourselves to Baskin Robbins Icecream! We looked at the prices and thought bargain 11dhms each, we can afford that! It ended up costings us 48dhms! 5 quid for icecream! We had a browse round the mall as it had aircon and dreamed about what we could buy!
The next day, armed with our travel passes we ventured to the posh mall and hung out with the cool kids in the designer section- god we looked so out of place!!! After eating our sandwiches made at breakfast and our water from the tap, we decided that this mall wasnt as good as ours and got the bus back to Deira City Centre.
We decided to get the metro to Little India as we thought we may be able to get some local food. From our previous track record of feeling too hot walking from the hotel over the road to the mall, we were abit ambitious thinking we were going to last any longer! We lasted 15mins! Our number 27 bus appeared so we jumped on that for abit of air-con!!!
Then packing commenced for our flight to Kaula Lumpar! That's after I went shopping in Accessories!!
So, Dubai in three words! Aircon, Aircon, Aircon!
