The next part of my adventure took me to Dubai to see my good friend Paul Kelly (PK) who I use to go to Uni with. Another one of my friends Dan Clarke was out in Dubai working so it was a good chance to catch up with him too. So after one of the worse flights I've ever had (I advise nobody to use Pegasus Airlines) which had me go from the UK to Istanbul to Dubai I was finally reunited with PK in the early hours of the morning. What initially struck me that even though it was 4am in the morning it was still 30 degrees and outside felt that you were in a sauna, it was just so hot. We made our way back to his apartment which over looked the mariner, caught up for a while and then got some sleep.

Dubai offered lots of fun things to do including the world's largest building the Burj Khalifa standing over 800 meters and also the world's largest mall. One day Dan and Myself went Canoeing at see. I was pretty shocking at this, I kept spinning in circles, the heat was really intense and I ended up retreating back too shore after only 30 minutes of the hour we had the canoe for and after only making it 100 meters out to sea. While Paul was at work we also went to the shooting range we had a bit of nightmare here as I didn't know you needed your passport to use a pistol of go clay pigeon shooting so we had to make do with Archery instead. It was good fun though as we had unlimited hours for an hour. Being both from Notts we felt like Robin Hood and Little John as we fired arrow after arrow at the target. I was much better at this than canoeing, but when we had a competition despite nailing a bulls eye on my last attempt, he did the same meaning he beat me by one solitary point. The rest of my time there involved catching up with Paul, drinking in various five star restaurants (these tended to be the only places in Dubai you could purchase alcohol) I can personally recommend the Marriott as it looks over the Palm, even though it must have the slowest lift in the world, chilling at the pool in the 50 degree heat and visiting the mall, where I purchased a new book and also convinced PK to buy an external hard drive.

My time in Dubai also coincided with the start of Ramadan. This is where Muslims fast between sunrise to sunset. It is something I never really got but as it is the religion of Dubai you are ask to respect this and not eat or drink in public. It wasn't as hard as I expected, and the fast meant that in the evening most hotels put on an all you can buffet called Ifta or something like that. We tried it once meaning I'm probably the only ever backpacker to eat at a five star hotel. It was ok. But to be honest I'd have preferred something else, but it was nice to experience the tradition once.

Dubai also let me experience some of British finest sporting memories including us watching Andy Murray win Wimbledon; The Lions beat Australia and England winning in the first Ashes series. So if British sports starts rapidly deteriorating now I have left I will have to head back there.

So after more or less ten days spent in the blistering heat of Dubai it was time to head back to Sydney, Australia to carry on with my second year visa. First though I had to conquer a 24 hour, 15 minute journey. The first leg was a flight from Dubai to Delhi, India. Then I had four hours until my next flight from Delhi, India to Singapore. This was the worse flight I have ever had, not because of the airline, but because of other passengers and where I was sat. I was sat in front of the fire exit which meant I couldn't recline my chair, and the passengers in front of me decided to recline their chair all the way which meant I had no room what so ever, which was made worse when the guy next to me wanted half of my space for his elbows. It was a horrid 5 hours cramped up but I got through it. I enjoy the stretch of the legs in Singapore and also enjoyed a Burger King. Then to my surprise for some unknown reason they upgraded my flight from Singapore to Australia to premium. It was brilliant, lots of food and drink, lots of movies and TV choice and also copious amounts of leg room, it was bliss. Then finally after 24 hours and 15 minutes I had made it back to Sydney.

So until next time, stay safe and take care

Adi

xx