Found out it was good choice to take the alternative route to Heathrow as the road was still closed when we were already flying through the big blue yonder, or should that be black as it was night by this time. We took off at 10:15 and they were feeding us dinner at midnight, then the lights were dimmed to sleep mode. But then ... they came round at about three am to offer us breakfast! Flipping Nora!
Arrive, with a slight delay due to aeroplane overload in the skies above Dubai. It was a pleasant (?) temperature of about 28 degrees at 8:20 in the morning here. Eric's body clock is not too out of sync as Dubai is only three hours ahead of British Summer Time.
Decided to take the public transport route to our accommodation for the night. We bought an all day 'Gold' travel ticket for Dubai Transport and travelled to the hotel via the fairly new Metro line.
The Gold ticket allows you to access the front carriage with big windows and more seats, and you are fined 100 Dirhams if you are caught in that part of the carriage without the proper ticket.
Not only that but the inspectors came on the train - with the police as well.
After leaving the train It wasn't too long a walk before we were installed in the hotel, passing through the financial district on the way.
Eric thought the view from the bedroom window was rather good.
Here he is gazing at the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world ( that's the one in the background haze of course).
After a shower and a change of clothes we don our sun hats and set out to make the most of our all-day travel cards. There are two metro lines, a tram line, buses and waterboats, with rides on all included in the ticket. Leave the hotel and are hit by a wave of hot air, then hotter air, then 'cooking you' air. Luckily the Metro is air-conditioned. First is a trip to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa area. The 'link' from the Metro to the Mall is a series of moving walkways or corridors
Eric has a ride on one of the moving walkways on the way to the mall.
and it's enough of a distance to wonder when on earth you are going to reach it, virtually going around in a large circle until you are at the bottom of the Burj Khalifa attraction within the mall.
We think 'we are here, we might as well go up ( even though one person is terrified of heights)' - ask the price and are stunned into silence whilst backing away from the queuing area - turns out it was nearly £200 - so we gave that a miss ( the weather was very hazy so we probably wouldn't have had a good view anyway!). However on the way back Eric spotted this amazing ice-cream place - so we had to stop an have one of course, well a lemon and raspberry sorbet actually - delish.
There's also a large aquarium in the shopping centre, with a massive wall of plate glass and all sorts of marine animals swimming around.
Eric also spotted these creatures in The Rainforest Cafe ( looks like rather strange rainforest fauna to us)
And some swimming jellyfish lava lamps!
Going outside to view the fountains we braved the intense heat for long enough to watch (and listen) to the choreographed water display - quite impressive ( even if the music isn't quite to our tastes.
Not sure if a video will work so here's a snapshot from it
One thing that is very noticeable as you make your way around the city is the amount of building work and traffic there is - it's phenomenal.
