Day 5 in Dubai

The next day I took it easy cause I got food poisoning from that Mexican place. I bought souvenirs at night but otherwise lazed around most of the day.

I took some pictures of Svasti in the car ride over:





She was singing “Paper planes” by MIA in the car ride over, which makes her the coolest little kid I know.

Since she was so cool, she got a reward:

Day 4 in Dubai

The next day we took it easy during the day then we headed to the beach around 4 pm. The pictures below I took with my cousin’s camera. The water was crystal clear blue and warmer than I expected. Me doing my best Michael Phelps impression:




The view of the Burj Khalifa from the beach:



My cousins Rishma and Anish in what Rishma called “A perfect Facebook picture” ;)




Me and Svasti in another perfect Facebook picture:


After the beach we got Mexican food. It was called “Senor Ricardo” or something like that. Don’t ever go there. That place gave me the shits.

After we had dinner we went to the mall where this crazy Arab guy was tearing up the ice rink in traditional Middle Eastern dress. He was too fast for my camera!

Desert Safari- DuneBoarding and Camp

After the Dune Bashing we stopped at a large Dune to try some Dune Boarding. They bust out a snowboard and almost everyone in our tour group (~ 50 people) lined up to try it out. My turn finally came up and I got on the board, the guy gave me a little push and I thought I was gonna go down nice and easy but I picked up speed fast and caught a sand edge. I flew head first into the sand and sand went everywhere. I definitely heard a lot of “ohhhs” behind me. Haha. The fall wasn’t bad but sand went everywhere. It even got into my camera and totally fucked it up. I turned on the camera to see if working but it would open and close the lens three times. Then “Lens error” would flash on the LCD screen. So no more pictures for the rest of the day, which is a shame because I had a great time at the camp we went to after. A corner of the camp was dedicated to smoking hookah with a guy lighting coals for almost 20 hookahs. Heaven!

While I was smoking shisha I met a bunch of college kids from Ole Miss that were pretty cool and fun to talk to. One of the girls I met was a junior at Ole miss that actually grew up in Saudia Arabia, which was definitely something different.

Desert Safari- Dune Bashing

After the bar my cousin Rishma picked me up and dropped me off at the pickup spot for the Desert Safari. First we started off with Dune Bashing in the Driver’s Toyota Highlander. The pictures speak for themselves:

Garment District

After the Dubai museum I walked around the garment district in Dubai. I eventually found a place with made to order dress shirt with a French cuff. After some haggling I got it for 80 dirrhams (~22 dollars), so of course I couldn’t pass that up. When I got it back I was surprised at how well made the shirt was. It was pretty hot outside and I was looking for a place to take a break. I somehow managed to find a bar in the middle of Dubai. If you’ve ever been to a Muslim country you’d know this was not an easy find. Understandably it was pretty tucked away. Here’s a pic of my Foster’s.

Dubai Museum

The morning of the 17th Anish dropped me off at the Dubai Museum in Bur Dubai (transliteration: "Old Dubai"). The exhibits in the museum mostly pay homage to when Dubai was an old fishing and pearling village.

Here's a picture of a skirt that has shells attached to it. When a belly dancer wears one of these they can make music:


I found Bin Laden!


Traditional Saudi Dress:

I saw some women dressed like this in Dubai, they looked kinda like Big Bird with that metal mask they were wearing.

Day 3 in Dubai

I woke up too early and tried to kill time. I still had bad jet lag at this point.

By 11 AM my cousin Anish dropped me off at the Dubai Museum on the way we saw a quite poignant sign:

Day 2 in Dubai

I woke up pretty early, around 4 am, and I can't go back to sleep. I read one of the books I brought with me to try to get back to sleep. It's a Bond book called Thunderball. But it's no help so I relax until people get up.

Rishma and I leave for the Sharjah beach around 10 am. We hang out for awhile on the beach... it's fantastic looking, white sand and crystal clear blue water. I don't go swimming but I get my feet wet, and the water is already pretty warm.

We eventually get bored and leave. We stop by the Blue Souq, "Souq" being the Arabic word for market. I look around for souvenirs for everyone back home and a Hookah for myself. But we don't buy anything because the prices seem a little high and Rishma suggests I shop around.

Anyway that night we went to the boardwalk. On the boardwalk there was a huge Ferris wheel called Eye of the Emirates (60 m high=196 ft ). That was pretty cool except our gondola smelt like body odor. And there were no windows.

1st day in Dubai

Haven't exactly been updating very often so I'm gonna start from Day one:

I got in late Monday night at Sharjah Airport. I met my cousin Rishma and her husband Anish and daughter Svasti who I'll be staying with.

Svasti was initially very shy but I think she's coming out of her shell. Cute kid.

I'm dead tired and go to sleep within an hour of getting to their place.

The Pearl in Doha

Check it out, it's a huge pearl. Almost 15' high.

Couple gets month in Jail for kissing in Dubai airport

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/15/tourist-couple-jailed-for_n_498980.html

Both of my parents sent me e-mails separately to warn me about this:

Hi, Neal I read in newspaper British couple were sentence for one month to kiss and hug on Dubai airport. Love Daddy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Neal We just find out that some British couple who hug & kiss on Dubai airport who has to go to jail for one month.pl do not even give good bye kiss to svasti or rishmadidi in public the way you you kiss your sister & mom. Love Mom ------------------------------------- Just for the record, I'm 22 years old.

Get up and call Lufthansa demanding that they deliver the bag. I don't have a car and the person Im staying with won't be able to drive me to the airport at 11 pm to pick it up. They give in and I should get it tomorrow morning.

1st Day in qatar

I get off my plane and go the baggage claim. After about 15 minutes no more bags are coming out and I still don't see mine. I wait for another 15 minutes, scanning the bags already out and I find out that my bag isn't there.  I fill out a lost bag report and they tell me it should be in tomorrow and that I have to pick it up. Thats a huge pain in the ass but I'm too tired to argue.

Introduction

Hey all,

    I created this blog to document my time spent in Qatar and Dubai during Spring Break 2010. I hope it will give you an idea of fun things to see in the Middle east and also learn a little about me.

Enjoy,

Neal K