Jan 30 - Feb 01, 2013: Welcome to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Have had very bad internet connections until about now, not great but seems to be getting a bit better, will get up to date shortly... hopefully the first instalment uploads successfully. After a fortunate non eventful drive from Vancouver to Seatac Airport, well with the exception of course of explaining to the customs officer about what the heck we were doing in a rental car with Washington State plates on it - an interesting conversation, we boarded the direct Emirates Air flight to Dubai for the 14 and a half hour Emirates experience. Emirates is a wonderful airlines with excellent staff, food and inflight entertainment. We were very well taken care of and would choose this airline again given a choice of airline carriers. With little sleep we floated through the airport with our prearranged Marhaba guide - recommended if you have never been here before, the service escorts you through customs making sure that all the necessary details are attended to. The guide then releases you to a driver that to our surprise took us in a full size SUV vehicle to our hotel - our car was supposed to be just a standard size, so another pleasant surprise. Wow, we are now in Dubai, what an amazing city - and imagine only a few weeks ago we were just celebrating New Years with no plans of doing something like this. Skiing, Snowboarding, Ice Skating, Dune Safaris, Sand Boarding, well the skies the limit as far as what there is available to do here and for any of the shoppers our there you are also in shopping mecca here in Dubai. After a very pleasant night’s sleep at the Sheraton Four Points hotel we embarked the MS Rotterdam to unpack, have lunch and then take off to be picked up by the Arabian Adventures company for an evening of Dune 4X4ing, Camel riding, a traditional dinner in the desert and a fabulous belly dancing show with the finale of switching off all the lights for star gazing in this incredible desert landscape, a great remedy for jet lag. Day two in Dubai took us on the Big Bus, hop on hop off for a day of touring around this amazing city, this tour basically covers it all from the old markets (Souks) to the malls with the ski hills and ice skating rinks to the tallest building in the world to the huge Palm Development. Everything here is of huge scale, walking anywhere is next to impossible believe me we tried after a half hour you realize you really were not getting anywhere, taxis are relatively cheap so we just waved one down. A bit of history on Dubai, The earliest recorded mention of Dubai is in 1095 AD, in the Arabic book Mojam Ma Ostojam men Asmae Al belaad wal Mawadhea, which refers to “Dubai” as a vast place. Later, in 1587 AD, the Venetian pearl merchant Gaspero Balbi mentions the Dubai as one of the places where Venetians worked, diving for pearls. In the early 18th century the Al Abu Falasa lineage of the Bani Yas clan established itself in Dubai, which was a dependent of the settlement of Abu Dhabi until 1833. In 1833, the Al Maktoum dynasty of the Bani Yas tribe left the settlement of Abu Dhabi and took over the town of Dubai and was constantly at odds with the emirate of Abu Dhabi. In 1835, Dubai and the rest of the Trucial States signed a maritime truce with Britain and a “Perpetual Maritime Truce” about two decades later. Dubai came under the protection of the United Kingdom by the Exclusive Agreement of 1892. Its location made Dubai a chief port for trade and exports throughout the early and mid 20th century. On December 2, 1971, Dubai, together with Abu Dhabi and five other emirates formed the United Arab Emirates after the former protector Britain left the Persian Gulf. In 1973, Dubai joined the other emirates to adopt a single uniform currency: the United Arab Emirates dirham. Some pictures of our time here in Dubai.