Day 1 – To Dubai

The trip started when we finally all met up at the airport in Auckland. Everyone was in one piece thankfully – and anxious to get started. Getting to Dubai was the boring part – with almost 18 hours of flying time. Karla sat next to Mrs Kumar from 32A for the entire time (aka the wriggler…) needless to say there wasn’t a lot of sleep to be had – particularly when she kept on asking pointless questions. She even asked a flight attendant if something was wrong with the plane – as there was a funny noise.

We arrived in Dubai about 45 minutes early – and whizzed through customs. Mark picked us up and took us for a drive through the city to the Palms – where you can now drive to the far end. We took a look at the Atlantis hotel (from the outside) as it has just opened. It’s not the prettiest building around in Dubai – that’s for sure. We then drove to the Marina to wander around – it was very quiet as it was a Friday and Ramadan to boot – so nothing was open at all.

Then it was off to Marks place to shower and have breakfast (again). After being suitable refreshed we went to the Dubai Festival City for a look around before ending up at the Wafi – at a place called Medzo for lunch (the service was crap). We finally were able to check into the hotel for a well earned siesta… not sure how we all made it this far without keeling over – but we did it!!!

For dinner, we went back to Carters at the Wafi for a quick bite – then met up with Mark at a party that some friends of his were having. It was a pretty cosmopolitan bunch – and great to meet some other ‘locals’. One of the people at the party remarked that Dubai now has 82% ex-pats – which is a staggering number. We finished the evening with a quiet drink at the Somerset bar in our hotel. Not sure what time it was when we finally retired….but we managed to pack a lot in with very little sleep.

The first photo was taken by Elwyn at Auckland airport – and shows us starting how we mean to continue…

The second photo sums up Dubai – an awful lot of construction with plenty of cranes and sand and unfinished buildings. The picture shows the Burj Al Arab on the right and the edge of the Palm on the left. The photo was taken from the access road onto the Palm.