While in Dubai……why not go on a Desert Safari...

I thought it would be great to go into the desert and see a sunset……….

 ...have dinner in an encampment and watch belly dancing and…. ride over some sand dunes to get there. I found a company which looked promising Dubai Private tours, sent the info to our friends and they went ahead and booked….. I should have noticed the company's description of the Sand bashing…..they say 'This adventure sport is almost like a skilled controlled roller-coaster ride'.

En route to our evening in the desert, making conversation, I happened to ask the driver how long he had been doing this……. response '2 weeks Ma'm'…….OK…….!! confidence level now not too high!
We arrived at the staging point and I noticed him going over details with other drivers, and looking a little worried….. at least, so I thought.

So we started out…….I could never have imagined what it would be like……miles and miles and nothing but sand hills!  No road, no directional signs, no GPS!!

at times the car was at a 45 degree angle….. but it did have roll bars!!

We had 3 other land cruisers following us and I thought our driver was being macho as he was leading the pack!

At one point I said…'OK, you can turn around now, we don't need to go any further'!  This he perceived as egging him on!

After a stop to enable people to snowboard……we still carried on…..

and did indeed get to where we needed to be to catch the sunset……

where we enjoyed a meal…..

watched a Tanoura Dervish  dance… he twirled around for 6 whole minutes….amazing!

and a Bellydancer…..

On the drive back to the hotel the driver admitted he had been doing this for 13 years……and that it would have been more adventuresome had we been younger!!
Would I do this again: No…..
Am I glad I did it: Yes………

It was an experience……..just not to be repeated! And I would absolutely recommend using this company!

Dubai, UAE

We have gone through Dubai before and stayed in the airport hotel, within the airport. This time , en route back from Vietnam, we decided we should check  out the actual city…..particularly as some friends would also be there at the same time.

Going from the Mekong Delta one day to the very affluent Dubai the following day was a little surreal! In Vietnam people were eeking out an existence by their own endeavors, fishing, working in rice paddies and have very few good roads or highways.  Or many cars for that matter, the preferred transport seems to be the motorbike, presumably a cost factor involved!

On arrival in Dubai one is astounded by the multi lane highways, the smooth but busy traffic. Everyone has a car because gas/petrol is way cheaper than water!

The Ruler and the Royal families have many, many palaces. We went fairly close to the Ruler's palace, until turned around by security….nicely! There were lots of his peacocks wandering around on the road….

and we could see the individual air conditioned houses for his racehorses, of which he apparently has around 3000…….not all in Dubai!

The buildings, of course, were spectacular……each one trying to outdo the other…….

There were mosques approximately every  250m…….
this is the Jumeirah Mosque…. one of the most visited…...

Then there was the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa ….828m high and 164 floors…
going up to the observation deck on level 124 did not appeal…...

Then on to the most expensive hotel in the world……the Burj Al Arab…which, with its sail shape, has become the iconic emblem of Dubai….

When told that the cup at the top housed a tennis court I wondered aloud as to who might use it (doubting it!!) and was told that Federer had! I thought afterwards that I had probably heard incorrectly….but no….its the world's highest tennis court..

….there is a beautiful beach right beside it….. with a WiFi hotspot!

….then on to the iconic Atlantis hotel….

We also crossed the DubaiCreek in an Abra …….. a small ferry which seems to be well used by locals….  it only costs 1 dirham, equivalent to about 25 cents!

then a trip around the spice souk ..….

and the gold souk….

We thought that the air conditioned bus stop was a little OTT …..until we heard that temperatures during the summer can be almost 50 degrees C !!

The Mekong Delta, Vietnam

We decided we needed to go to the Mekong Delta as we were so close to it in Saigon….
So we arranged a private trip through the Saigon Continental Hotel…..they told us that their Mekong travel agency was one of the best in Saigon……and indeed everything went very smoothly!

We arrived in Cai Be and were boated around in our sampan to see the floating market…...

Each vendor puts up a bamboo pole displaying what they have for sale.  There didn't seem to be too much choice…… or we were a little late in arriving!

We then crossed the Mekong to transfer into a smaller boat to go through some of the adjacent canals. The transfer into the much smaller boat was an interesting experience!!

 But the muddy water made us very reluctant to fall in!!

We were told that in this area during the Vietnam war the women took these boats, filled with food, by night to the Viet Cong… and during the day the boats were overturned in the canals to avoid detection by the US……

our oarswoman would certainly have been capable of doing so!

Then on to see some rice paper being made……

then some popcorn……

…..we then toured around a little …...watching people fishing

....and unloading goods…….

…en route to going to an old wooden house, Ba Kiet Ancient House (built in 1838), for lunch…

…we were intrigued by the washbasin in the middle of the outdoor tables…….

……and we were presented with a fish from their tank for lunch….

…..hopefully not this one's mate…..