Day 15 – Thursday 28 December

A nice 6.15am kiss & snuggle up from Austin before sleeping in a bit.  We are off to Dubai for the day.  There is a 4 to 6 lane divided superhighway between Abu Dhabi & Dubai with a speed limit of 120km/hr & a posted maximum speed of 140km/hr, they give you a bit of leeway.  The 95km gets eaten up in under an hour, however, the post xmas sales are on, from 26th December until 27th January with great bargains in all the shops & the traffic is intense, parking is a struggle anywhere in Dubai, Charles has never seen traffic this bad in Dubai before.  We knew the sales were on but not how popular it would be – unfortunately this is the time we are here.  We walk along Dubai Creek & past a couple of old watchtowers, passing a line-up of modern dhows used as tourist boats to take people on a tour of the port part of Dubai, the lines are long with tour groups.  Next we pass the old souk area & the textile sales part of Dubai, full of Indian traders & their shops.  There are a couple of large mosques blaring out their calls to prayer very loudly.  We visit the original old Al Fahidi Fort, built in 1787 & the oldest existing building in Dubai that is now the Dubai Museum.  It was the tallest building in Dubai until 1973.  It is packed full of tourists, mainly Indian.  It is amazing how quickly Dubai has grown from a small fortified fishing village & trading port to the amazingly large & rich city it is today in such a short period of time (mainly in the last 30 years).  The power of oil money put to use to benefit the people of Dubai.  The Dubai Museum is interesting with a display of the lifestyle of the original inhabitants with dioramas setting out the simple lifestyles of the fishermen, pearl divers & boat builders, as well as the tradespeople of the souk.  The archaeological exhibits are even more interesting, with relics from thousands of years ago of the original inhabitants living near Dubai.

Our next stop is downtown Dubai Mall which is enormous with a huge aquarium where we have tickets to see the interactive otter display at the aquarium complex inside the mall.  We walk through the indoor aquarium tunnel & enjoy the multitude of fish varieties on display.  There are divers in the water cleaning the tank.  The otters are interesting & amusing with their antics with the trainer teaching them to be silent & rewarding them.  He has a really good rapport with them.  The otters finished entertaining us by sticking out their little paws for us to pat.  We are starving, so back out into the mall for lunch at an upmarket café.  The food was very good.

Back into the aquarium complex & we wandered around taking our time looking at the rest of the fish & animal exhibits, with a few interesting birds as well.  Some of the fish species are very interesting & very unusual, nature is amazing.

A bit of shopping in the mall (it is no fun with so many people) before stepping out to watch the water fountain display with lights & music in the very large ornamental pool in front of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.  The crowd is very large & we wait patiently until 6pm when the display starts & entrances us with the dancing fountains for 15 minutes.  Certainly very impressive & worth jostling in the crowds for, which are even worse trying to get back into the mall after the display.  The traffic back out of Dubai is just as busy but it starts to flow freely once we get back onto the main highway again.  We are back in Abu Dhabi by 7.30pm.  Once again we are grateful that Charles is driving us around.  It was a tiring day but the boys were so good.  We had a beautiful & interesting day thanks to Monica & Charles & they are also fantastic tourist guides.