Hi all,

We are writing this in Dubai airport as they conveniently have free internet...good times!!

Dubai has been lovely, in terms of appearance its a bit like a small version of New York. When we arrived we were heading down the motorway and in the distance we began to see skyscrapers including the Burj Khalifa which towers above them all. However Dubai is only just beginning to grow, they are building everywhere so in a few years time it will probably be huge with many many more skyscrapers.

So on the first day we arrived feeling very tired as we didn't sleep much on the plane. We spent the morning by the pool enjoying the sunshine however by the evening we were looking slightly lobster like as we didn;'t have our suncream for the first hour of sun, and we were far too pastey for the Dubai heat!! For the rest of our stay in Dubai we stood out as the English tourists with our trendy t-shirt tan (well redness). In the afternoon we took the free shuttle to Deira City Centre, we had no idea what was there, turns out its a giant mall - kind of felt like we were in England as it had all the high street shops. We didn't stay for too long as it was depressing not being able to buy all the nice clothes so then we found a nice field overlooking the Dubai skyline and we had a little nap!! Day one ended there, we went to bed at 6:30pm and slept for about 12 hours!!

Day two we took the shuttle to Jumeriah Beach Park - we were expecting this to be a beach but it was a park centre where you had to pay to enter so we decided we could find a free beach and ventured off. After a very long walk we found a really nice beach that was virtually empty (Dubai is suprisingly not very touristy in some areas) and we chilled there for most of the day. We tried to walk along the beach towards the Al Burj (the fancy 7 star hotel that all the celebs go to) we could see it in the distance but after an hours walk we weren't getting nearer so we gave up...but at least we can say we saw it and we have a photo to prove it!! The evening was a very tense occasion as we were watching Spurs vs Arsenal in the hotel bar, (I was happy with the result, Vicki not so much hehe). Whilst watching the game we started chatting to some Dubai men who were very friendly, many mojitos later we found ourselves playing Jenga with them...a very random experience but it was good fun and at the end of the evening after buying us many drinks we went to pay our food bill and they said 'you are guests in Dubia so we will pay' so all in all this was a very cushty evening!! :)

Day three was record breaking as we went to the top of the World's Tallest Building, 'Burj Kahlifa' . At 828m it is huge, you can see it from all over Dubai. It was an amazing view, you could see the whole of Dubai and the weather was clear so we enjoyed it alot!! The base of the Burj is connected to yet another, huge mall so after our climb we walked around the mall. We also went to the Aquariam and Underwater Zoo which is inside the mall, this was very cool we got to see Giant Water Rats (very unattractive), penguins and sharks etc. It was definatley worth the 15 pounds.

All in all Dubai was great, however I don;t feel we can say this is really travelling as we've been in a nice hotel and eating lots of food etc so the real fun will begin shortly when we arrive in Bangkok.

Photos will follow shortly and we will be in touch soon to fill you in on our experience of Thailand :)

Lots of Love

Sarah & Vicki

xxx