Day 228 - The final stretch begins

Dubai - Premier Inn

You may be wondering .... why hasn't this blog been updated for so long? (though we're sure you're not, after all only one person contacted us to find out why we stopped at Paris back in October!). Without going into too much detail, we unexpectedly had to head back home for a while, but we're now back into traveling mode to end our trip as originally planned by traveling to South America and the grand finale at Carnival in Rio.

We're going the long way round to and from Sth America via Dubai, with a short stopover to rest and do some sightseeing. We arrived in Dubai early Friday morning, had a few hours rest at our hotel then caught the metro in see the sights.

Dubai seems to be a city of malls - so that's where we headed first. First stop was Emirates Mall, a look around didn't reveal much of note - just another huge collections of shops really. The indoor skiing centre was interesting to look at from the outside, but we didn't think it was worth a visit inside.

We wanted to visit the beach and see the Burj Al Arab (the sail shaped building) so we left the mall and walked down towards the beach. It was another one of those deceptive map situations - it didn't look that far on the map, but ended up taking a while, fortunately it was a pleasant sunny day.

We made it to the entry gate of the building, but weren't allowed in as you need a reservation to eat there, so we walked further along to the public beach, where we saw a mix of girls in bikinis, and fully clothed people in muslim attire, quite a combination.

We caught a taxi from a nearby hotel back to the mall, hopped on the metro and headed to the Dubai Mall (site of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa). We spent a little while there, then decided to head to our next destination before it got too late. Getting off at a nearby metro stop, we managed to find our way through the very Indian neighbourhood to reach the very quiet Bastakiya district. By this time it was dark, so although we were a little dubious about entering as it seemed deserted, we found some beautifully lit buildings amongst the few open restuarants and stalls.

Back to the Dubai Mall for dinner, after which we saw the entertaining fountain show in the outdoor waterfront area, with Burj Khalifi in the background. Back on a very crowded metro to our hotel, to get some sleep before our early flight the next morning.