A Very Sandy Tour

This was my second time to Dubai, but my first trip with some time to explore this developing city.

Dubai to me is similar to KL minus the natural greenery. You can see construction taking place everywhere, it's hot with only a handful of trees for shade. Traffic jams are common in central areas and it can get quite dusty. Even the value of their currency is similar to the Ringgit.

We arranged to go on the desert safari tour the very day we arrived. Sunflower Tours picked us up from our hotel in Deira (Dubai emirate) at 3:00pm and the journey to one of the many deserts in the Sharjah emirate took about an hour.

We made a pitstop at a row of shops that seemed to be set up in the middle of no where. Every shop had sign boards leading to toilets and we were strongly recommended to ease ourselves since the drive through the desert dunes will not accomodate toilet breaks.

Out of curiosity, I wandered into one of the shops. The friendly shop-owner approached me and offered to tie the headscarf on me so I could take a photo. He must have found it amusing to have a chinese wear it.

In the meantime, our driver was busy releasing air from the tires to suit the desert terrain.

There were easily ten 4WDs in the convoy that evening. It was perfect to enjoy the desert while the sun was setting.

The desert sand was soft and fine. The evening breeze was cool. It was perfect to walk around bare-footed in the sand.

After our hour-long undulating journey through the dunes, we drove back to another desert in Dubai where tents were set up for various activities.

Our pre-dinner treat, though, was a short camel ride.

While the chefs were preparing the BBQ dinner, we busied ourselves with Arabian coffee, fresh dates and henna tattoos. There were also tents with shisah pipes and Arabian outfits for guests to try on and take photos.

During dinner we were entertained by a belly dancer.

The night desert weather was so lovely. And along with good company, it was hard to leave and our driver had to call us twice before we moved our butts. We arrived back in the hotel at about 9:30pm and called it an evening well-spent.