Day 8 - Dubai to Abu Dhabi and back again

Just a short post this morning Dubai time.

I was very busy at the concierge desk yesterday booking tours.

Today I'm starting with a full day city tour of Abu Dhabi, which is about 120km away. Among other things, we'll get to see the Jebel Ali Port & Free Zone which is the largest man-made port in the world. Also the Sheikh Zayed mosque, which has a capacity of 40,000 people!

I'm also hoping we go somewhere near Yas Island - for those uneducated, it's where the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 track is.

I'll post photos of Abu Dhabi later.

I've also booked a half day city tour of Dubai tomorrow, and that will be followed in the evening by a dhow cruise dinner on Dubai Creek. Let me just say that "creek" is the wrong name for it. It looks fairly wide to me, so I wouldn't want to try and swim across!

And on Friday, the holy day of the Muslim calendar, I'm heading out of town in the afternoon for a 4WD desert safari where I'll get to go dune bashing, see a belly dancer and eat a barbeque under the stars.

Last night I had to go out and get some money. It was quite an eye opener because the area around the hotel is mostly Indian, so I wandered through many lanes of fabric stores, electronics and replica watches. And I only walked for about 10 minutes to get to the ATM! Even saw a chicken wandering about...

When I got back to the hotel, I had dinner in the hotel's English pub themed restaurant. Even the fine touches were covered. The wallpaper, the HP sauce and mustard, some Bowie music and the food - and did I mention that most of the staff were Indian? I had a cottage pie and whisky flavoured cheesecake - it was superb...and best of all with drinks it only cost me $20 Australian.

Tonight I'll be checking out the hotel's pizzeria - looks like they charge around $10 for a large pizza. Woohoo!

Anyhow, got to head off and have breakfast. We'll be leaving for Abu Dhabi in about an hour, so look out for a Part 2 post later on.