Today we went to the Gold Souk. The Gold Souk is a open air mall that is surrounded by jewellery shops. There is so much gold in the windows that you start to think that it can't all possibly be real but it is! It was steaming hot outside and as the area is outside and not airconditioned we were grateful when we entered the shop and they offered us cold soft drinks while we browsed. We liked a few things and when we asked the price and thought it was a bit m...

Today we have booked ourselves onto the Desert Safari. We met our 4WD driver and the 3 girls in our 'group' in the lobby of the hotel. During the drive the girls tell us they are from Essex and on a girls week away. Our driver barely talks to us at all. When we arrive at the quad bike place he says to Tony "You want to ride quad bike - over there - your have 45 mins" and then walks off. Catherine decides that open-faced helmets on quad bikes sp...

This morning we had our first buffet breakfast at the hotel. There was a hot buffet, a cereal buffet fruit & yoghurt buffet, and a cold buffet which included salmon, cheese platters and lots of other yummy things. It has to be the best buffet breakfast we have ever had. It was so hot today that we didn't leave our hotel room again until after lunch - walking out on the balcony of our room the heat is just like standing with the oven door open! By mid-aftern...

Today we flew from Hong Kong to Dubai. Hong Kong was extremely muggy but when we got to Dubai and walked out of the airport at 8.30 pm at night we were hit with a really dry 36 degree heat! I couldn't believe it was that hot that late it night! On our drive from the airport to our hotel at Jumeriah Beach (the Harboor Grand - see picture) our driver took us for a bit of a tour to some of the most impressive hotels. One he took us to had gold statues of arabian s...