{"id":2703,"date":"2013-10-24T11:34:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T10:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2026-05-24T06:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:10:26","slug":"back-in-abu-dhabi-and-a-desert-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/10\/24\/back-in-abu-dhabi-and-a-desert-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Back In Abu Dhabi And A Desert Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Desert
Desert contemplation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Washing, blogging, sorting photos and generally relaxing, was how we spent Saturday back in Abu Dhabi.\u00a0 In the afternoon Rodney and Ramsay settled down to a feast of live English Premier League soccer, one match after another, after another…..\u00a0 Dinner was a yummy barbecue, non-Aussie style; we ate indoors!\u00a0 Oh, and Alison won the second round of Scrabble, hmmmph.\u00a0 We continued in catch-up and relaxation mode again on Sunday morning and then in the afternoon Alison took us to a variety of malls and souks for lunch and a general mooch around the gold and jewellery shops.\u00a0 Keeping to the now established Arabian style of meals, Alison whipped up a\u00a0Sunday roast; beef, roast potatoes and veggies, and then she beat us all for a third time at Scrabble.\u00a0 Three of us have now resigned from the game and will pick videos for future nights in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rodney
Rodney swimming at The Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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On Monday Alison took us to ‘The (British) Club’, as a member she could check us in for the day and we happily settled ourselves on sunbeds, under an umbrella, on the adult-only beach.\u00a0 Abu Dhabi doesn’t feel like anywhere else we have ever visited.\u00a0 It’s different in so many ways. The water was warm and a lovely turquoise blue, the people are friendly, we ate prawn & avocado sandwiches with long, refreshing mint & lime drinks, the sand under our toes was soft and white and I could have written that about <\/span>so many places we have been to before, but this one is none of those and\u00a0the whole place isn’t finished yet.\u00a0 Two massive pylons carried numerous power lines above the water in front of us and behind them was more reclaimed land being covered in skyscrapers of every shape and height.\u00a0 Twenty-two cranes, or more, were filling the skyline and there wasn’t a tree, or hardly a patch of green in sight.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In trying to describe Abu Dhabi, I keep thinking of the game ‘join the dots’.\u00a0 Everywhere there are groups of buildings, but nothing to join them together apart from long stretches of highways.\u00a0 Even in the centre of the city, there doesn’t seem to be a hub or a heart.\u00a0 You need a car to travel across the dusty dry wastelands beside each mall, mosque, or souk; walking is not an option, apart from inside the shopping malls.\u00a0 Weeds don’t grow in the sand, only half-finished buildings sprout, and I’m finding that a glimpse of bougainvillea, or a frangipani tree are a delight to see.\u00a0 I’m starting to crave for a walk in Sydney with its fill of greenery and oxygen, but it would be amazing to see Abu Dhabi again in ten, or twenty years’ time to see\u00a0how many dots have been joined and how many more impressive\u00a0places they can create from the desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Dhow
Dhow passing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Tuesday was a day of contrasts for me. In the morning Alison and I went to a beauty salon for manicures and pedicures, always a\u00a0favourite treat and\u00a0my feet felt lovely afterwards.\u00a0 Well, they felt lovely for approximately four hours.\u00a0 After lunch we had a wander around the Shangri La Hotel while waiting for a pick-up from Sunshine Tours and then Alison left us in the hands of Zahood.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"The
The view from the Shangri La Hotel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Along with Zahood, there were six of us aboard the very comfy, seven-seater, V6 Land Cruiser; Rodney and I, two French Canadians who worked for Etihad Airline and had lived in Abu Dhabi for ten years, and their cousin and her partner from Montreal.\u00a0 Zahood asked the Canadians if they had deserts in Canada and receiving an answer, obviously to the negative, he then advised them that he would find a bottle and put some sand in it for them to take home and grow their own desert; I bet he uses that line on every trip, but he made us all laugh.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The first stop on the tour was about an hour inland from the coast, at a camel farm.\u00a0 None of the animals looked like pedigree specimens and one was severely foaming at the mouth; maybe they had just cleaned his teeth to look nice for our arrival.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Camel
Camels conversing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Camel
Camel Colgate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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While we were playing with camels, Zahood let a lot of air out of the car tyres and, with all of us back on board, he turned off the road and headed along a sand track out towards some large dunes.\u00a0 He had already told us that he had been doing this job for many years and had also been a truck driver and a driving instructor, which helped ease my worries about what was coming next……\u00a0 With all of us, and him, shouting \u201cno, no, no, no, no, aaaarghhh!!!!\u201d, he proceeded to hurl us up and down dunes, sometimes sliding sideways and sometimes, half covered by sand.\u00a0 I was glad I was in the back row and couldn’t see too clearly and the roll bars inside the car were pretty well padded, so we didn’t get too many bruises.\u00a0 Mind you, looking out of the back window and watching the other three cars do what we had just done, was quite incredible and scary.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Up
Up and over……<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Desert
Desert strolling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Desert
Desert driving….like maniacs!!!!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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After one final ‘over the top, slide sideways and re-emerge from under the sand dune’ hoon, Zahood found a smoother track and drove out to their camp.\u00a0 Here there was a platform surrounded by beautiful carpets, cushions and low tables, all spread out on the sand within a fenced compound and we were greeted with dates, Arabic coffee, a plentiful array of soft drinks and bottles of water.\u00a0 One of us made a feeble attempt at sand surfing, but the foot straps were so far apart, I could hardly stretch that far and still stand up, well that’s my excuse….<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Sand
Sand surfing on the bunny slope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We struggled to the top of the dune, which was incredibly steep; sometimes you needed to resort to all-fours as you slid back down with every step.\u00a0 At the top, I really thought Rodney was having a heart attack!\u00a0 I wanted to sit up there for a while and enjoy the view over the dunes, but it was a bit too breezy for comfort, so after being sandblasted, and watching the sun slip lower in the sky for a while, it was brilliant to slide and bound back down to the camp.\u00a0 We threw ourselves into the whole Arab desert experience, riding a grumpy camel, which is a very wobbly experience when they stand up and sit back down, you really do have to hang on for dear life.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Camel
Camel riding at walking pace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"A
A camel with the hmmmph<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I got a henna tattoo on my leg, which is a very pretty flow of flowers.\u00a0 Trouble is, when I occasionally glance down I think I have a rather hairy leg, or I wonder what’s crawling up my leg!\u00a0 I wonder how long my ‘slag tag’ will last, hopefully it will wear off in a few weeks…..<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Henna
Henna tattoo time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Arabian
Arabian nights….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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When the sun had set, a belly dancer entertained us and, of course, dragged us all up on the stage for a bad attempt at wiggling.\u00a0 Having burnt a few calories, though not many, we then settled in to a feast of various Arabic dishes; curries, lamb, bread, kebabs, tabbouleh, houmous, and more.\u00a0 After dinner we were introduced to a beautiful, seven-month old falcon which can hunt by day or night and can see for 10kms.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The only experience we passed on was smoking a shisha, or hookah.\u00a0 I embarrassingly asked if you suck or blow and was kindly informed that that should be more of a third date question; good answer.\u00a0 But then on discovering that I would be smoking it, decided not to partake. Though I have to say, it did smell rather nice, sort of fruity and sweet.\u00a0 Before we all piled back in to our cars for the return trip to Abu Dhabi, all the lights were turned off in the camp and we could see a gazillion stars hanging in the black sky above us; beautiful.\u00a0 Back at the Shangri La Hotel, Alison was there to pick us up and listen to all our stories on the way home.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"A
A brave face….?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Despite showers before bed time, we still found sand everywhere the next morning; it was still coming out of my hair\u00a0three days later!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After a slow start that morning, we headed over to the\u00a0Yas Links Golf Club and sat on the veranda with cool drinks.\u00a0 The view from the clubhouse, out across the fairway to the water and the city beyond is lovely, so we\u00a0made the decision\u00a0to come back for dinner there on Friday.\u00a0\u00a0Next stop, a\u00a0trip to Ikea for Alison to return some frames and us to look at some sofas, had us feeling like we could have been in Milton Keynes.\u00a0 Yes, this Ikea is exactly the same as everywhere else in the world.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"The
The golf course where ball games are not allowed……<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The evening was spent enjoying a dinner and show with friends at The Club.\u00a0 The Abu Dhabi Dramatic Society were presenting Alan Ayckbourn’s play ‘Relatively Speaking’.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a wonderfully silly play full of misunderstandings and mistaken identities and it was very well presented.\u00a0 The three-course dinner was also really nice and beautifully presented, I’m stealing a couple of ideas on what to do with a cherry tomato.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Desert
Desert camp drinks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Washing, blogging, sorting photos and generally relaxing, was how we spent Saturday back in Abu Dhabi.\u00a0 In the afternoon Rodney and Ramsay settled down to a feast of live English Premier League soccer, one match after another, after another…..\u00a0 Dinner was a yummy barbecue, non-Aussie style; we ate indoors!\u00a0 Oh, and Alison […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8348,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions\/8348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}