our journey has fianlly begun!!
On sunday, we traveled by train to Frankfurt International Airport. After successfully finding the right check-in gate, we were relieved that we could drop off our heavy backpacks. (Mine only weighed a little more than 10kg, it doesn't seem much, but after walking around some time and especially after making the mistake to take the stairs instead of the escalator... I was super glad to finally take it down :D) Our flight was scheduled at 10:20pm. We flew with Emirates, an airline that I can now only recommend to everyoe!! We had a lot of space (I actually had enough room for my legs and even space to really move them, yayy!) and the entertainment on board was absolutely amazing! So many movies, TV-shows, differnet playlists, and even some games to play with other passengers. I was so excited about all, that I wasted a good 60 minutes going through everything and saying "Oh my god, i can't believe this" XD. The flight was about 6,5 hours long , but unfortunately, I wasn't really able to sleep -.-. We arrived around 6:30am in Dubai. After collecting our luggage, we drove with the metro to our hotel. During the 50min-drive, we saw a lot of very tall and modern buildings, super impressive! We finally found our hotel, the Jannah Marina Bay Suites, after a 15min-walk between high buildings and along a long, very nice boardwalk. Luckily, we could check in right away. Our room here was totally awesome! It was very big and even had a kitchen!
The first thing we did, was taking a power-nap and after that, we went to the supermarket across the street to get some groceries. The supermarket literally had everything, even some German cake! After the short shopping trip, we took the metro to Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa.The mall is the largest mall in the world and features a gigantic aquarium, a waterfall and an ice rink. You can find over 1200 different stores in there, it is HUGE!! After walking around for some time, we got some food (the food court is also gigantic and has all different kinds of food from all over the world.) At 4:30pm, we booked a tour to the top of Burj Khalifa. The elevator took us with amazing speed to the 124th floor of the tallest building of the world. We stepped out on the terrace and had an incredible view over the whole city. It was breathtaking! We could see all the other amazing buildings, the huge streets, and the beach. We waited until the sun set and all the lights turned on. By night, Dubai is even more fascinating. We spent some more time up there and then went down to go watch the famous lightshow of the Burj Khalifa fountain. It exceeded all of our expectations. the fontains were so pretty and with all the lights and the music, it was just amazing!!! If you ever find yourself in Dubai, go to the fountain, it is absolutely worth it! After that, we went back to our hotel and fell right asleep. The first day of our world trip was super amazing, but also very exhausting. :)
On the next morning (after sleeping in and catching up on our needed sleep), we decided to check out the rooftop pool of our hotel. It was so cool because you could see all of the huge skyscrrapers around and the Marina boardwalk which is really pretty. After cooling off in the pool (it is HOT here!!!), we walked to the Jumeirah Beach. The beach was amazing! The sand was super soft, the water was warm, and the view was incredible. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend there because we had previously booked a tour to the desert and the driver was supposed to pick us up between 3:15 and 3:45 at our hotel. We decided to take another way back and got a little lost, so we had like 10min to shower and get ready for the trip. Of course our driver was a little late, so we had to wait in the lobby. He picked us up with a big SUV, a British family was already inside the car. Together we drove about an hour long out of Dubai into the desert. After making a short stop during which our driver let some air out of the tires (to get a better grip on the sand I guess), we left the street and drove onto the sand. And then the fun started: we drove up and down the dunes, it was like a rollercoaster! Sometimes I was a little afraid that our car might roll upside down, but our driver was super relaxed. He drove one-handed the whole time!! :) We made a quick stop on one of the dunes to wath the sunset and take some pictures. After that, we continued to drive on the street to a "traditional beduine camp". The camp was not very traditional,a lot of tourists, souvenir shops, etc.(but that was pretty expectable). We sat down at a table (you sat on pillows, the tables were placed around a small stage in the middle of the camp) and got something to drink. I got a Henna tattoo and we watched a belly-dancer and a man who did a fire show. It was cool, but the music was so loud that I couldn't really enjoy it... After the show was over, the buffet opened, and we ate some "traditional Arabic food". At 8:30pm our driver came to pick us up, and we drove back to Dubai. Even though the whole tour was pretty touristy, it was definitely worth it!
On our third day here in Dubai, we went to the famous Atlantis Waterpark. It is located on the man-made Jumeirah Palm island, pretty cool!! After smuggling our food and drinks through the security (we hid them in our backpacks underneath our towels and put our bras on top. After the security men saw those, they let us pass very quickly, backpacking skills!!XD), we entered the park. It is very big and really nice! We found some chairs right next to the beach. From there we could overlook the skyline of Dubai and had a perfect view of Burj Al Arab, Dubai's most famous hotel. During the day we tried many different water slides and relaxed on the beach. The park has a big pool for tubing that basically goes through the whole park, so you can just grab a tube and float around for however long you want, that was awesome! :) We went back to our hotel after the park closed (and after waiting 45min for a taxi...).
On the last day in Dubai, we got up and decided to spent some more time at the roofop-pool of our hotel. After that, we took the metro to get to the Mall of the Emirates. It was not quite as big as te Dubai Mall, but still huge. And the special thing abu it: it has a ski lift inside! I had heard of that before, but actuallyseeing the ski slope was even more impressive and ridiculous. I mean, a ski lift in the desert?! That is such a waste of energy >:(.
After walking through the mall, we went back to the metro station and drove to the souks of Dubai. First, we got a little lost on the way to the Gold souk (in a kind of shady neighborhood...), but luckily we found it pretty quickly. I was very disappointed... I expected a souk like in Marrakech or Istanbul but this souk was only a few small streets under a roof, and we couldn't walk through it without being bothered by men who tried to sell us "really nice hand bags! Chanel, Gucci, Prada,..." After being glad to have left the Gold souk, we went on to the Souk of Spices. That one was a little better and more like an actual souk, but still not what I had expected...
Then, we wanted to visit the Old Dubai Heritage Center. We had to cross a river, so we took a small, old, wodden boot to get us to the other side. During the short ride, we had a fantastic view on some of the skyscrapers. On the other side of the river, we walked along some traditional old houses to the entrance of the Heritge Center, only to find out it wass closed due to construction... We were really disappointed because we had been looking forward to seeing some of Dubai's history. We decided to visit Dubai Mall again instead. There, we ate something and walked through the seemingly endless floors of shops. At the end of the day, we wentt to Burj Khalifa fountain one more time to see the beautiful lightshow.
Tomorrow morning, we will continue our journey and fly to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. After having spent 4 awesome days in Dubai, I have to say that it is a really fascinating city full of architectural highlights, modernity, and very nice people! However, the waste of energy (ski lift, air conditioning everwhere, watering the grass (it is a desert!!),etc) kind of bothered me... But other than that, we had an amazing time at out first destination!! ;)
Next, I will write from Bali =D
Love,
Annette :)
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