Dubai – The Second Attempt
Our second trip to Dubai! We first went in November 2007, this time was always going to be different.
Foe & Erin moved here in October and we decided it was time to go and say ‘hello’. We booked flights on a whim as they were dirt cheap and popped along. During our last visit we really just stuck to the hotels along the Jumeirah beach section and we realised just how much of a building site Dubai was with much of the remainder under cranes. That was November 2007: 19 months on and there have been changes and we didn’t waste any time getting to one of them.
The Jumeirah Palm Island is the first of the audacious attempts to increase the size of the Dubai coastline and at the head of the palm is the Atlantis hotel. We had the day to ourselves so we got a cab up to there and spent the day at the waterpark in the complex and took in the newly formed beach and aquarium. It’s amazing how big the whole thing is – Wikipedia puts it into perspective, it’s the size of 800 football pitches.
It was then Friday. Friday in Dubai, it’s their weekend and the hotels like to get the western alcohol sales in and encourage you in with their Friday Brunches. These brunches are 4-hour booze fests with all the food and drink you can take in. It’s top-quality stuff and very reasonably priced; the best ones tend to book up very early. We were all very nicely cooked by the end but had to a party to go to up at the top of one of the JBL residential towers. With the news about Michael Jackson filtering through the party had a Michael Jackson edge to it with his songs on all night.
The following day was a lazy one, especially for the hungover Pezza. We had checked into our hotel and I made my way down to the pool. It was 40 degrees and very humid; when you step out of the air conditioned buildings your sunglasses steam up with the humidity. We were all feeling worse for wear and needed an earlier night – especially for the natives as they had work the next day.
It was an early start for us on Sunday. Foe had booked us in to do a desert safari in the morning, the dude turned up in his Land Cruiser and took us 45 minues inland to the middle of the desert. He let the tyres down and took us for a crazy spin through the desert – Pezza was screaming all the way through as we were on the verge of rolling down the dunes. We stopped and got out to get some pictures and then he asked if I wanted to try sandboarding, I gave it a go but fell quite early on and realised it was a foolish thing to do. The air temperature was 46 degrees and the sand was so hot it blistered my hand as I climbed back up the dune. I would only have regretted not doing it though!
We had the rest of the day by the pool before heading out to Downtown Burj – this is the new complex that incorporates the new Dubai Mall & Burj Tower, standing at 818m it’s the tallest bulding in the world and tops the CN Tower by 265m. We also saw the impressive Dubai Fountain, designed and build by the people behind the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas they have many similarities but being 10 years newer they are bigger and better. You could fill up an entire blog with facts and figures about how much bigger the towers, shopping malls, fountains, ski slopes, man made islands are than anything comparible in the world but I’ll leave it to you to do the Wikipediaing yourself.
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So, Dubai has changed loads since we were there in 2007. The Palm and Downtown Burj are two massive examples of how this place is developing and the desert was a great way to come back down to earth with where we really were.
So that was Dubai, the second time! It’s developing all the time, current projects are more Plams, the World Islands and Universal Studios. They are also investing heavilly in attracting high profile sporting events such as Pakistan’s home cricket games and Premier League pre season tournaments. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like an a year or so and if flghts remain so cheap we’ll be doing another Foden visit to find out.
Show on map The pin on the map for this post is in the desert where we did the safari.
When we were there in March, the fountains were not working yet, it was great to see them in your Video. We wondered with the sea breezes if the people sitting out at the cafe’s by the Mall were going to get sprayed from the fountains ?
Yep – we got soaked. Some of the performances were cancelled due to ‘high winds’; something you associate with Manchester rather than Dubai. They’re on every 20-30 mins so missing the occasional performance is no big deal.
Obviously this time of year in Dubai a bit of spray would be quite welcome but Mark reliably informed us that the water in the lake is still highly toxic due to all the construction! Once the building has finished they will clean it up.
Last time we were in Dubai we also did the desert safari and it is amazing fun!!! looks like your living it up and having plenty of fun!!! by the way i really cant get enough of your new look blog man its super sexy!
.-= Aaron´s last blog ..The 10 best budget guesthouse/bars in Southeast Asia… =-.
Cheers Aaron,
It was amazing – I just wish it was 10 degrees cooler so I didn’t burn on the sand!
Looks like you guys have spent the last few weeks solidly on the piss! How much longer you planning on being away for?
[...] with Samar’s post, The Truth About Dubai, my fellow traveller Andy Geoghegan has a followup: Dubai – The Second Attempt. A worthy read [...]
The Burj Dubai is a modern marvel of engineering which stands at 818 metres tall. The Burj Dubai will have it’s grand opening on 1st of December this year.
[...] with Samar’s post, The Truth About Dubai, my fellow traveller Andy Geoghegan has a followup: Dubai – The Second Attempt. A worthy read [...]