The intrepid couple has had two sleeps now in Dubai. We arrived here from Mauritius late Tuesday night after the 6-hour flight up across the equator and over Oman. I will be revising my airline awards just slightly because the service on the return Emirates flight was outstanding. I also wish to pass on what great airports they have both in Mauritius and here in Dubai. Of course Mauritius has a great, small airport and Dubai has a fantastic, large airport. We passed through both with minimal fuss.
In Dubai, we were glad to see some blue sky finally but as luck would have it, the sky is blue in Mauritius today too. We are staying in the Dar Al Masyaf in the Jumeirah district of Dubai. If you look at it on a map we are in between the famous Barj Al Arab Jumeirah Hotel and the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah Island. Here is what we see from our beach:
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Standing on the beach in front of our hotel we see the Barj
Al Arab on the right side |
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Looking out to the left we see the iconic Palm Atlantis
in the background at the top of the Jumeirah Palm Island.
In the foreground to the left is the Anantara Palm Dubai and
on the right is the Waldorf Astoria Palm Dubai. |
Mauritius was full of tourists that were mainly from England and France. Dubai has tourists from all over Europe and Asia. There are Scandinavians, Germans, Russians, English, French, as well as many Asians from former soviet socialist republics and oriental Asians too. The interesting thing though is that English is the language everyone has in common and English is the service language of Dubai. The Germans will be speaking German to each other at breakfast but when conversing with the waitress they will switch to English. We are pretty lucky in that respect. However, when I hear a German or a Russian switching effortlessly to English from their native tongue, I envy them.
Our hotel complex is massive. It has two main hotel buildings with the upscale Souk(mall) in between them. We visited this Souk when we were in Dubai the last time. It is the Souk Madinat Jumeirah and you don't go there for bargains. There are also 29 villas spread out around the property and we are in Villa No. 1. Our room has a patio that is across the walkway from the beach. But the coolest thing about the whole property is that all of the buildings are lined up along canals like in Venice. Motorized water taxis ply the canals taking people to the spa, a restaurant or the front desk. It isn't a copy of Venice though, the architecture it is distinctly arabic.
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| The yard to our villa which faces the beach |
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| Our room |
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| a nice sitting area |
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| canal scene |
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| water taxi station |
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| arabic design |
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| villas in the background |
We have a 4pm checkout today and then Mrs. Gym and I will store our luggage for a few hours because our plane doesn't leave until after midnight. We can leave our stuff in a locker at the front desk while we go to have a workout and then undo all benefits of the workout with a nice dinner at a BBQ place in the Souk. We will try to linger over our last meal and discuss our next trip. Early tomorrow morning we board a big British Airways 747 and fly to Heathrow. Then tomorrow after a bit of a layover we will get on the now familiar Air Canada direct flight to Calgary. We are flying in the same direction as the sun this time so we will be home for dinner on Friday.
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