United Arab Emirates

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Sharjah nightstop

Leaving Iraq With our flight departure of 1420, we had a relaxing morning at the hotel’s buffet breakfast before getting a taxi to the airport around 1040. Erbil airport is a high security zone and our taxi queued up for a check during which we had to alight.  Our bags weren’t looked at but the […]

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The longest day

Today is a big day for we depart Kiwengwa for Male in Maldives, taking three flights in succession.  At 0900 we got picked up by the driver who had dropped us of at Kiwengwa. His name is Said Abdullah (Happy Servant/Slave of God). This was our big day of flying, starting with Zanzibar to Dar […]

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Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque

For breakfast I made muesli and yoghurt with a fruit salad from the supermarket. We taxied to the nearby Sheikh Zayed Mosque (named after the man who united the seven emirates into one country) but the route was quite circuitous due to the one-way system (and coming back wasn’t that straight forward either). It was […]

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Ferrari world (or not)

Today was Kim’s big day at Ferrari World. I had as much interest in that as I have in Hello Kitty Land or Lego Land. Incidentally, Lego Land is opening up in Abu Dhabi but I think it might melt away in the 45 degC heat during summer. The hotel had a free shuttle to […]

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Short night-stop

I had booked a night into a relatively cheap Panorama Deira Hotel in Dubai for my overnight.  With the scheduled flights arriving from JFK at 1945 and departing for Sana’a at 0710, it would have been a little cruel to oneself to spend the night at the airport after a sleepless night flight.  But it […]

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Overnight in Dubai

Leaving Yemen Today I fly to Dubai for a nightstop before continuing to Morocco tomorrow.  Mohammad, the school driver knocked on my door at 0650 rather than the agreed 0730.  I hadn’t been awake very long and hurriedly prepared myself.  We left at 0700 and was at the airport some twenty minutes later for check-in. […]

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Friends and family

We have a full social calendar today, after having yesterday free for exploring Dubai’s malls and shops.  Not that there’s much we wanted to buy. For lunch, we met Carolyn, Brad and their two children.  They are from New Zealand and moved up over a year ago.  They enjoy the lifestyle here and wouldn’t consider […]

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Mountains, oases and wadis

Today we have a daytrip, with a pick-up at 0830, to Buraimi Oasis and Al Ain via Hatta and Hajar Mountains. Our driver James, from Karnataka drove us through sandy dunes on the side of the motorway before entering more rugged territory. At Hatta Fort, it was a brief stop as it was closed being […]

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Meeting with expats

We rose around 0600. The sky seemed quite light way before the actual sunrise time. After breakfast, we set off in our Land Cruiser to Camel Rock where the sand was redder and there was no vegetation. We were taken back to our hotel around 0930 and were fortunate enough to be given a room […]

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The real Dubai and desert overnight

The real Dubai After a simple of breakfast of items from the supermarket we took the hotel shuttle to Deira for the Gold Souk. The traffic was a shocker, just like yesterday evening. It was already hot when we wandered around, despite in largely sheltered alleys. The gold necklaces and adornments of various types were […]

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