Dubai Day Ten

Today's Saturday, my last weekend here in Dubai.

Bathed and still feeling VERY sandy.

Well, coz... Eugene, Irwan and I went for the desert safari! I must say, this is the highlight of the trip. Must join any agency for the desert safari if you ever come to Dubai. It's fantabulous I tell you.

As desert safari only starts at 3.30pm, we spent our morning indoors. We were picked up by the landcruiser 4X4 WD (wheel drive) at 3.30pm sharp, joining our jeep was a German couple. Journey from Jebel Ali to the desert was around 45 minutes or so. Eugene and I fell asleep on our way there. Pigs we are. Tired pigs that is.

First, we were brought to the sand dune along Al Alwir Road where individual dune bashing took place. You gotta pay to ride that lil' vehicle on the sand for half hour. Not cheap, so we just stood around, take pictures, see animals - donkey (my eeyore, Eugene says... and he made me pose with the donkey. -.-), camels, an undernourished monkey, dogs, horses etc... We watched the others engaging in their dune driving and realised that some vehicles are tortoise slow... Wonder why.

Then came the exciting part! We were brought into the depths of the desert where the real dune bashing took place! As the 4X4 went through the mountains of sand where it seems to be borderless, our hearts race as the vehicle brought us through 30 minutes of roller coaster ride. Sometimes my arse was just not on the seat and I find myself flying off the seat along with my heart. Wah lau... but it's really enjoyable. Where can you drive through the sand like

Next, we headed towards the desert for sunset photography. (though there isn't much a sunset, since it's summer, sun sets much later...) I really had a hard time posing for pictures, Eugene laughs at me, saying that I had a sour face throughout... :X And he felt that I didn't enjoy myself. Truth be told, I enjoyed myself, I am just not a very vocal person, I don't wow and wah but I do feel the fun inside. Just that, the sand was TOO much la, even with shades, my eyes were badly tortured by the pain the sand caused, especially with contact lenses on, the sand keeps rubbing against your lenses and eyes, it's simply TORTURE that was killing my eyes. Oh well. We saw others do the sand ski and it's funny IMO 'coz you gotta climb up to the top where you came from with the ski after you've skied down larh...

We passed by the camel farm but didn't stopover. After all, as the vehicle drives through the desert, all we wanted was to grab on to the handles for our lives, it was seriously hard to take pictures anyway...

Headed for the campsite where there were loads of 'stations' you could visit. We took the camel ride! Was great fun and my heart skipped a beat as the camel stood up and 'sat' down at the beginning and the end of the ride. One thing that's pretty gross is... the camels shit and pee on their way. Ewww...

There were souvenir stores (expensive), shisha stations (we didn't try), arabian costume station (Eugene looked pretty hilarious in the costume... haha...), freeflow drinks station, henna painting station (which I had henna painting done on my right hand and left foot. Whee, nice. But I think the Indians in Sg do a better job.) and obviously the spread of buffet + bbq food.

Like what the boys said, the desert is actually rather romantic at night! Incredible. Eating in the middle of nowhere, the skies are just above you, light music playing... very wonderful indeed + "got mood, got feel".

And to end off our night, there's the belly dancer who did a really good dance for us. Several dances to be exact. First two were solo dances then two with male / female audience respectively and the final one which was a solo dance. Very sexy dancer indeed.

It ended at around 9.30pm and the 6-hour experience is simply amazing. It's money well-spent!
(diff agencies have diff rates, we spent AED190 for ours, roughly 70+ SGD.)

You'll also truly understand the true meaning behind Dubai and the Emirates countries being famous for its sand...