United Arab emirates

After a very disrupted night attempting to sleep on a bus from Saudi, amidst children crying, multiple stops and a border crossing at 1am, we arrived in Abu Dhabi at around 6am. The bus dropped us off at a completely different location than expected, and another very unofficial and slightly crazy ‘taxi’ took us to our hotel in the city centre. After leaving our bags there, we went to get a much needed coffee and to explore the downtown and Corniche area. We were pleasantly surprised with the feel of Abu Dhabi, which was quite relaxed, with a nice combination of well maintained parks, fancy skyscrapers and cheaper, quirky areas. After a siesta in our hotel room, we headed to a mangrove forest on the coastline of the city. We had a lovely time kayaking between mangrove trees and watching the sun set on the Abu Dhabi skyline (thanks to Carl and Ashleigh for the honeymoon gift). The following day we met with a colleague of Sam's from Reaction Engines, who had very generously invited us to go sailing around the Yas Marina. Gillian and her husband Steve welcomed us aboard their beautiful 50 foot yacht, which they had recently sailed from Turkey to Abu Dhabi, during a 6 week trip. We were very excited to go sailing again as we hadn’t been since our Day Skipper course in Greece, and really enjoyed getting behind the wheel again. We had an amazing afternoon chatting with Gillian and Steve about life and travels, swimming off the side of the boat and tucking into a tasty feast they had prepared for us. They even gave us our first mince pies and Christmas carols of the season - as we had been travelling through predominantly Muslim countries for the past few weeks, we had entirely missed the lead up to Christmas! 

Next we took a bus from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, two hours further up the coast. Despite the journey supposedly only taking 2 hours, we were met with a few challenges, and were therefore quite tired upon arriving! Luckily we were doing Dubai in style, and our 4 star hotel had a sauna and swimming pool on the roof, so we made the most of the luxury. Feeling refreshed, we headed to the nearby Mall of the Emirates, one of Dubai’s many extravagant malls. This one had a ski slope inside it with real manufactured snow, and some actual emperor penguins! After taking in the unusual sight and exploring the rest of the impressive mall, we went for dinner at a pan-Asian restaurant we had been recommended. The following morning we headed off to spend the day in the world’s biggest waterpark (Atlantis Aquaventure) - thanks to Van and Andy for the honeymoon gift. It was located on The Palm Jumeirah, a man made island in the shape of a palm frond! The park was really impressive, with over 100 slides, private beaches and even a dolphin swimming area. We had an amazing time on all the different slides; racing each other down duelling slides, floating down rapid filled rivers and riding a slide through the middle of an aquarium with sharks swimming above.