Trekkin

Day 17 – Saturday 30 December

Getting used to these lazy mornings, starting to become a habit.  Today we are off to see Ferrari World attached to the Yas Island Mall which is very big with lots of shops, cafés & restaurants. Ferrari World is a huge complex with a massive red roof that is very distinctive.  Firstly we have lunch at the German Donor Kebab – Melbourne Restaurant – Branch 2 inside the Yas Mall.  A strange name for a food place in Abu Dhabi, no idea what the German or the Melbourne connection is.  The food was good, presented differently than we are used to.

Ferrari World was very busy, a Saturday in school holiday time.  They cater a lot for small kids with amusements, shows & displays.  They have a winter wonderland, lake to go around in a boat, cars to drive around in pretend Italy, dodgem racing cars & more.  It is basically a large amusement park with a Ferrari theme.  We got silver passes that are supposed to get you express queues to the rides that are busy, not always.  Our first experience was a virtual reality where we were strapped into seats with a very large motion picture screen in front & taken on a quick driving experience with Sebastian Vettel.  The seats move up & down, lean sideways & tilt backwards & forwards, with the occasional blast of wind through the hair & some water spray at the appropriate time.  It was a blast, big smiles all round when we finished.  Next was a virtual helicopter ride following a Ferrari driving around.  We were strapped into pods of seats with a massive parabolic screen in front of us.  Massive hydraulic rams lifted all of us up & forward towards the screen about 30 feet above the ground.  Again the movements with nearly totally surround vision, it is an amazing experience, this time with cold air as we went through the snow covered Italian Alps.  We flew over the cities of Venice, Florence & Rome then over Lake Maggiore, it was very clever the way the scenes were stitched together.  Another exhilarating experience.

Jackson & Charles then went on a ride that we chickened out on, a short very fast blast then straight up, hang briefly then drop down & blast back.  The ride lasts around 20 seconds & they move a long way in that short time, they said it was great fun.  This is at the very centre of the complex with the ride going outside into the open air up through the roof.  The other large rollercoaster ride that they wanted to experience was closed for 2 hours of maintenance.

Then a driving simulation game, Jackson & I sat in separate cars with virtual reality headsets & headphones driving Ferrari race cars around a race track.  I got the drop on Jackson at the start but his many hours of gaming experience had taught him lots & he ended up beating me by 23 seconds.  This was an amazing experience, surrounded by vision of whichever way you turned, plus the seat moved, bumped & vibrated with acceleration, braking & track irregularities.  I could have done it all again & again.

Next stop was the room of road Ferraris on display, they do make some nice looking cars.  I think Tereza nearly gave me permission to buy one for her.  But common sense prevailed, they are so low to the ground that at our age we could never get in & worst most probably never get out, the kids wouldn’t be too happy with such an expensive choice of coffin.  As we were leaving we were going through little Italy with cafés & restaurants, the buildings had all the look of Italy & even the snow was falling in parts.  Out through the mandatory gift shop & no, I did not buy one single item.  We stopped in at the chemist to buy some Panadol for Tereza as her knees are sore & we have a lot more walking to do on this holiday.  No Ferrari for her, sadly.

Monica wanted to buy some groceries so we stopped in this enormous store – they certainly make these shopping malls huge, I suppose when it gets so very hot they can do a lot of shopping & entertainment in one place.  Back home we had no need for dinner as the donor kebab was so much.  Except for Austin & Jackson who ate dinner & ice cream afterwards – they are growing boys.  A relaxing time gaming with the boys then bed, another fantastic day.

Day 16 – Friday 29 December

Another lazy morning, taking it easy with the family & Monica prepared a beautiful morning tea, cinnamon buns for us.  Tereza & I tried the spa & enjoyed the massage jets before jumping in the pool with the boys.  We had a great time in the pool playing around for hours, today it got to 29C, the middle of winter.  Austin didn’t want to get out he was enjoying it so much.  So we ended up having a late lunch.  Late afternoon we went for a walk on the other side of the canal where the builders are just finishing off a new apartment block.  There is still a fair bit of rubbish around from the builders & they are a bit rough around the edges outside, there is a fair bit of damage, its seems they don’t take much care during construction.  However, the overall effect looks good, the designs seem interesting.  There are several stylish bridges crossing the canal, but some of them go nowhere I suppose when it is all finished they will lead somewhere meaningful.  Charles cooked some chips & nice hamburgers with Australian Wagyu beef patties – they were very nice, he also cooked some spicy PORK sausages but Ron & I were too full to try them.  Monica reckons that they aren’t nice like in Australia, but Charles craved for some & he reckons they were not too bad.

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.

Day 14 – Wednesday 27 December

Another lazy start & we spend the morning helping the boys building their robots.  We only make a few mistakes & it takes an hour or so more to sort it out.  After that the programming, it is amazing the advances that have been in aids to programming, the basics are still all there but now it is drag & click & pull to set up the chains of commands.  The robot does exactly what it is told to do & Austin has a load of fun experimenting with it, picking up a bottle, moving forwards & back, stopping at set distances in front of objects.  This seems to be a great way to teach kids the basics of how to program computers.

Monica & Tereza in the morning watched some old movies – Australia & Gone with the Wind.

The afternoon is spent at the pool, me snoozing on the deck chair & Tereza with Austin in the pool.  I sooked out, it was too cold for me, 25C but the wind was cool.  Charles & Jackson practised some karate in the gym.  The water in the spa would have been lovely & warm but Austin is too young for it.  They spent hours in the pool & then back to the robots again.  Monica & Austin made delicious pizza & garlic bread for us, then after dinner more robot stuff & a game of Uno.

From the huge apartment building windows you can look out & watch the world go by & we see the most beautiful sunsets looking up the canal, in the dark the city lights & the cars are magical.  I suppose that is the plus in living up on the 9^th floor.  A very relaxed & pleasant day.

Day 13 – Tuesday 26 December

A relaxed lazy morning recovering from xmas day, Charles & I went by taxi to pick up the car from the Viceroy Hotel.  In Abu Dhabi if you are caught driving with any alcohol in your system it is instantly 3 months jail.  On the way back with the car we refuelled & picked up some groceries.

After lunch we visited Yas Waterworld, a very large water based theme park.  Today the temperature is 25C & the water in the park is all heated, almost like bath water.  There are lots of people enjoying the various water features, but it is not crowded, it is winter & today is a work day.  There are lots of children because it is school holidays.  We start out in the large beach pool which now & again starts to have nice big waves & even more fun.  Then we move onto the moving rivers, floating along on a tube, through tunnels & waterfalls, we do a few circuits of these, getting totally soaked under all the fountains.  Next up we slide down the slippery belly of the cobra, a twisty & very fast waterslide in a tunnel before we burst out the mouth of the cobra into the large warm pool at the base.  Austin is screaming so loudly as we come down the waterslide that the rest of the family can hear him.  Once is enough for me & I chicken out doing any more but the boys have another run down the belly of the cobra.  Tereza, Austin & I walk back to the big lagoon pool whilst Charles & Jackson seek out the roller-coaster ride.  We spend a long time in the water & in the kid’s water park mucking around before the sun starts to get low in the sky & we head out, but we met a desert eagle & Austin had to have a photo with him & then back home.

Charles excels by whipping up another wonderful baked dinner for us all.  We are all tired.  Shower & early bed for all of us.

Day 12 – Monday 25 December – Christmas Day

A snuggle in from 6.30am with Austin who was still tired but couldn’t sleep because he was so excited about Christmas.  The magic hour for him to get up is 7 am.  He is so excited that Christmas has arrived at last.  I got up soon after him to find a white Christmas – very thick fog.  I said “Austin Santa may not find us in this fog.”  The sweetheart boy touched his nose & said “Rudolf’s red nose will shine & guide Santa to Abu Dhabi.”  He was right Santa did find us!!  Charles cooked pancakes for us this morning & the boys tucked into them before present opening time.  They did very well & spent all morning playing, then started putting together their programmable robot machines before it was time for lunch.

It turned out to be a beautiful sunny 26C.

Charles drove us to the Viceroy Hotel on Yas Island in the middle of the Formula One Grand Prix race track.  This hotel is very fancy & decked out very lavishly for a big smorgasbord lunch.  The decorations around the hotel are elaborate & the tables are set beautifully.  The food is something else again, a huge selection of top quality food put together by a team of chefs.  My favourite is seafood & the choice is amazing, lobster, salmon, scallops, prawns, calamari, smoked salmon, sushi, sashimi).  There are several types of roasts (no pork), soups, breads, shish kebabs, vegetables, salads galore there so many different foods that it would be too many to name.  We have our fill then go back for more, the variety & taste is exceptional.  Then there is the dessert, exceptional, again the variety & amount is amazing & I can’t begin to imagine how long the chef’s took to put it all together.  Outside the dessert room was a chef making dessert with liquid nitrogen, so Tereza & I partook with a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream to top it off & it was delicious.  Santa arrived & brought every child a present.  Then Tereza & Austin visited the kid’s room – where there was more food, jumping castle, train & face painting.  Austin chose to be painted up as Santa.  We were all so full, so we had a wander around on the rooftop pool area then a walk outside to admire the gardens.  The Yas Marina is also inside the Grand Prix track & we had a look at some of the multi-million dollar yachts.  The Emirates amaze us how clean & well organized it is with most of the architecture very modern & having real pizzazz.

Back home around 4pm & a very quite afternoon with very full tummies.  Tereza, Monica & the 2 boys watched some old Christmas movies.  Out on the balcony we were watching the sunset & looking at the building construction.  Here in Abu Dhabi construction (there is a lot) goes on 24 hours per day, even Christmas day because it’s just another day here.  Even though I have not seen more or better celebrations & decorations than in Abu Dhabi, Dubai or even Jordan, I feel that it does not matter whether you are a Christian, other believer or a nonbeliever – it’s that little bit of magic that brings joy to children & to all.

Monica, Charles & the boys gave us an amazing Christmas experience.

Day 11 – Sunday 24 December

7.30am before Austin gives us a wake up snuggle.  This morning we take a walk around the island our apartment building is part of & explore the beach & boardwalks of surrounding apartments.  The architecture is very good & the water features & fountains really set the scene.  The base of all the apartments have restaurants & cafes with outside tables looking over the beach.  The other set of apartments look over a nice marina.  Just across the water is Yas Island, with the Formula 1 race track next to the water, no wonder the 12 hour race was so loud last weekend.  After our walk we stop in the club, have some drinks & play pool.  Tereza, Charles & the 2 boys have a lot of fun in the swimming pool, they told me that the water was nice & warm but I am a sook so I watched them from a nice lounge chair.  It is winter but the temperature is a pleasant 23 C in Abu Dhabi at Christmas.

Austin is very excited, it will be his first Christmas here & he is hoping that Father Christmas will find him & leave him some presents.

Day 10 – Saturday 23 December

A later start today, 7am before Austin crawls into bed with us.  A huge fog, we can barely make out the apartment block next door, it doesn’t lift until after 11am.  It turned out a lovely warm sunny day.  We spend the morning planning our next adventure to Oman & booking motels.  A relaxing afternoon with the kids playing games while Tereza caught up with a few Z z z. then a trip to the very large Yas Mall for groceries & last minute xmas shopping.  Charles’ delicious stir fry dinner & a nice glass of beer went down very well.  Lazy night at home, I sat with Jackson & watched him play on the  Xbox while Tereza played a memory game with Austin.  A lovely relaxing day after those exhausting days in Jordan.

Day 9 – Friday 22 December

5am again this morning, but now I know what it is, the door to the balcony was open & it was very loud, it is the Muslim call to prayer that is waking me up by calling the faithful for the start of the day.  We get organised, pack our bags & are ready for breakfast by 7am, another motel smorgasbord.  We all have our fill and pack a couple of bananas & a few Danish pastries & muffins as we know there is no stopping until the airport & the boys need some snacks – they are so good on these long trips.  We are on the road before 8.30am.  Today is Friday, Muslim prayer day & the traffic is very low so it is a lot easier driving out of Petra, thanks to Google maps as well.  Onto the main roads & again there is hardly a car in sight.  This time we are going on the highway instead of the windy scenic route.  The countryside turns from desolate to bare desert plains stretching to the horizons.  Now & again we come across a village, goodness knows what these people live from.  Near one town we spot some kids out in the desert, they are tending goats, goodness knows what the goats eat.  We turn onto the main highway to Amman & the traffic gets heavier, mainly trucks.  The scenery doesn’t change much, desert on all sides, more towns, unfinished dwellings, poverty, neglect & no pride – many places have rubbish piled up & everywhere plastic bags & bottles are strewn around.  The road varies from very good to very bad, divided four lanes.  We pass the odd police & military checkpoints, a lot of these have armoured personnel carriers, we are not stopped at any of them.

An interesting feature of the roads are random speed humps, mostly near towns, often near mosques & always near police check points.  The speed limit is 110 km/hr & the speed humps slow us down considerably, most of them are signposted.  As we get closer to Amman the towns get a bit larger & there are more houses scattered around the desert.  We come across a patch of green, an oasis in the desert & there are a lot of tents nearby, perhaps the people that tend the gardens live here.  People on the side of the road are selling their vegetables & fruit, it is amazing that they grow in such poor arid land & they look so good (we only see them as we drive past).

We make good time & reach the airport ahead of our plans.  We need to wait a little for our check-in to open, then through to a lounge for some rest, food & drink while waiting for our flight.  The plane is again a new Boeing 787 & we have a very comfortable flight back to Abu Dhabi of 2hrs 40m.  Our exit is one of the smoothest & quickest we have ever experienced at an international airport & we picked our bags straight off the carousel then out & straight into a large taxi.  It is very foggy & 23C & we get back to the apartment in about 15 minutes.  Even driving in the dark in Abu Dhabi you can see a well organised, clean & wealthy city, such a difference.  Jordan was a place where we felt as though we stepped back into history.  However, there is such a contrast, in Jordan there are many very flash new 5 star hotels, new malls & other buildings & very large extravagant rich people’s homes.  Not far away there are many people living in poverty. It has its raw & barren beauty of its own, friendly people who seem to have to struggle to get a living.  We are all tired but happy for the great experiences we had in Jordan.

Day 8 – Thursday 21 December

Today is Petra day – we have had Petra on our bucket list for many years & had been hoping that one day we would get here – today is the day & we are both so excited.  I am awake at 5am again this morning so is Austin who decided that it was cuddling time – no chance to lie & maybe snooze a little.  After a delightful buffet breakfast we cross the road from our hotel & are at the gates & we hire a guide before starting the long slow descent past a few tombs to the entrance of the As Siq.  There are locals everywhere trying to sell us horse rides, donkey rides, camel rides & carriage rides as well as stalls full of tourist trinkets.  Our guide is a young local & very informative, we would have missed so much if we did not have him.  Petra began to prosper as the capital of the Nabatean Empire from the 1^st century B.C. though human habitation is evident up to 10,000 years before this.

We start seeing tombs carved into the rock straight away, there are tombs everywhere & then we come to the first elaborate tomb, Bab Al Siq, it is very large with carvings on the face & it is multi-story.  We then come across a dam & an 88m long large tunnel to divert water in case of flash flooding, these people were amazing hydrological engineers.  We reach the entrance to the Siq, a very narrow deep rocky gorge that is 1.2km long.  On either side of the Siq are water channels cut into the rocks on both sides, some with ceramic pipes.  This is amazing in itself & along the Siq there are numerous niches for prayers to the Nabatean gods.  The Siq twists & turns, narrows & opens before our guide gets us to go to one side of the Siq, walk directly across to the other side, turn towards him & shut our eyes.  He then asks us to turn & open our eyes.  We are amazed, the Treasury Building appears before our eyes & is as magnificent as we had envisaged, carved out of the solid rock.  We can only imagine what it must have looked like before the centuries of conquer, occupation, vandalism, neglect & the forces of nature inflicted upon it.  There are lots of locals here offering donkey & camel rides as well as endless trinkets.  The guide told us at the beginning that he will tell us quickly what is for sale but we should say “no” unless we want it.  These poor people including young kids are trying to sell their wares but very few sales are made.

Walking further past the Treasury we pass a row of monumental Nabatean tombs carved into the cliff face before coming to a massive theatre carved into the solid rock, capable of seating 4,000 people.  This is the only theatre in the world carved out of solid rock & is very impressive, the sheer amount of rock they must have carved out of here is staggering to comprehend.  Next along is the façade of the Royal Tombs, with the Palace Tomb the largest & most impressive, again amazing the sheer amount of work that was done to create these beautiful structures.

We keep walking & are greeted by a colonnaded street with the Great Temple complex, one of the major archaeological & architectural monuments of Petra.  The temple complex is huge & was completed in the 1^st century B.C.  Next to it is the most important structure in Petra, the Temple of Qasr al-Bint, dedicated to the Nabatean god Dushara.  This structure, like the one next to it, are not carved but made from stone blocks carved from other structures, such as the theatre.  This temple still stands over 20 metres high.

We leave the ladies & Austin here.   (Tereza) The guide told us that it is a very hard steep 800 step journey – poor Austin’s little legs are so tired, Monica isn’t feeling too well, her throat is very sore & my knees had more than enough, even though I really would like to go but common sense must prevail because there is still the trip back, approximately 4 kms.  We start the long walk back to the motel after a rest for a while at a restaurant – we drink & eat some dry apricots, dates & Danish pastry.  Us big boys start the next venture, off to see the Monastery, or Al Deir.  This is a further 2.5km hard walk uphill & up many stairs, said to be over 800 stairs carved into the rock.  It is very hard walking as the sandstone is badly worn & the ascent is very steep.  Amazingly, there are trinket sellers with their stalls set up right along this path.  Eventually we reach the Monastery building & it is so much larger than the Treasury building, more than twice as high & wide, it truly is impressive in its size.  Standing at the base of the building it overawes you, it is so large.  We see another very large tomb on a high hill overlooking the Monastery & decide to walk up to it.  The view from up here is amazing, you can see the rugged mountain ranges in all directions heading off into the distance.  The Monastery is also very impressive from up here.  Amazingly, there is a trinket shop selling drinks on the top of this mountain.

The walk back down is a lot easier, standing aside as donkeys carrying tourists walk up or down the steps. As a consequence, there is a lot of donkey poo over the stairs & there are people cleaning up at various spots along the path.  The view from the other direction as we walk back down is just as impressive, we stop often for photo shoots.  The walk back to the Treasury is relatively easy, however, the walk back along the Siq is all uphill back to the gates.  By the time we get back to the motel my shirt is saturated with sweat, a good thing it is a cool day.  We find the girls back in the rooms relaxing then Charles & I head down to the bar for a couple of refreshing beers, they do go down very well.  Next is a shower, a very welcome relaxation, then a nice rest.

Austin wanted to ride a donkey back to the Treasury building, about half way back to the motel.  Monica & I tough it out.  We see police & guards along the way, that giving us that warm fuzzy feeling that they are keeping us tourists safe.  We have a few rests, water, apricots & dates & finally we make it back to the motel where the 3 of us lie down on one bed & go to sleep.

Wow, wow, wow it was an amazing day to see one of the 7 wonders of the world – we are very privileged even the children agree.  Now we can tick off Petra from our bucket list.

We play a few games of Uno in the lounge & then another great dinner (once again we all ate too much).  Hopefully we will have a good nights rest because it is an early start in the morning for a long drive to the airport & back to Abu Dhabi.