My wife and I took a two week trip in December 2006 to visit the UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Oman.

We booked our tickets relatively late, and as such, didn’t have much luck finding reasonable fares online. We ended up using a discount Asian travel agent/consolidator called Dada Tours, based in Los Angeles. The San Francisco to Dubai route is often used by Pakastanis trying to get home. The travel agent beat any price I was able to get online by $500, and the tickets were delivered to our door exactly as promised. We flew Virgin Atlantic to London (excellent flight, great in flight entertainment with over 50 movies on demand (i.e. That can be paused)). Emirates Airline took us the rest of the way to Dubai, although we didn’t finally reach Dubai until 1:30 AM, an hour later than expected .

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

We had arranged through Expedia.com our first night at Le Meridien Baniyas Square. Le Meridien is a fairly high end chain. They have several expensive hotels in Dubai, but they also have one cheap location (”Baniyas Square”) in the Deira district (close to a lot of Dubai’s top tourist attractions). The rate was only $70 US per (more...)

The next morning we headed out to explore Deira. We started out wandering through the electronics market. Nothing very exciting - prices were similar to or worse than what we can get in the US.

It wasn’t long before we moved on to the Gold Market. There are more than 700 shops here, crammed with all manner of jewelery - from Western to traditional Indian. Lots of good people watching, and prices that were the lowest we’d ever seen - including our trip to India a year before. We also wandered through the Old Souk, which was unfortunately mostly closed since it was lunch time. We wandered along the port (wharfage), took lots of photos of the dhows unloading and loading all kinds of goods, and then headed back to our hotel.

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

From our hotel in Deira, we picked up our bags, crossed the Dubai Creek by dhow (10 cents), and from there it was about a 15 minute walk to the bus station. The bus station was easy to figure out (everyone speaks English, and everything is clearly labelled) and we were soon on the next bus to Abu Dhabi, which seem to leave all the time.

Arriving in Abu Dhabi, we were dropped off at a bus station about 30 minutes out of town. We decided to take a taxi to our hotel, since it was late and we didn’t want to deal with a local bus. Besides, taxis are quite affordable. However, finding a taxi driver that knew his way to our hotel proved very difficult. They obviously were not used to tourists. After about 5 taxis, we finally found one who knew where our hotel was.

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

It was surprising to us that we had such a hard time, given that we were staying at a major hotel right downtown - the International Rotana Inn. The hotel was very well located - about a 10 minute walk from the corniche. The hotel had mixed reviews on the internet, but it far exceeded our expectations. The room was very clean, the bathroom was all tile, and the front desk staff was very friendly. At the time this was the cheapest option in Abu Dhabi. We were obviously not on the backpacker path!

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

We only had one evening in Abu Dhabi, so we headed out to find some food.

There were 2 restaurants nearby that both sounded good. The first, a Chinese place called Royal Orchid, turned out to be closed, but looked quite good. Our second choice, just a little further up As Salem St., was an Indian restaurant called India Palace. The ambience was great, although the food was only average. They had lots of great vegetarian choices for Wendy, though.

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

Afterwards we headed to the Corniche. This is a recently redeveloped waterfront area, and the subject of some controversy, as they had to demolish an older area of town to make room for it. From what we saw, it was a very pleasant area to stroll, next to the sea. It was night time, and we got some beautiful city views. The area seemed very safe, as we saw local women walking alone. There were no stalls or anything. It was located next to a fairly major road - but the beautiful landscaping and fountains made it a nice quiet place to stroll.

To see the rest of our photos and videos from our trip, please click here.

The next morning, we started our safari with Arabian Adventures. The first tour we took, A Day in the Dunes (http://www.arabian-adventures.com/ToursSafaris/AbuDhabi/Safaris/DayDunes/DayDunes.Asp?nav=2⊂=2)
, started at 9am, allowing us to enjoy a wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant (included in the price of the room).

We were the only ones in the vehicle, and I believe this is fairly typical, as there aren’t many tours running out (more...)

On the way back from the dunes, we stopped at the Rainbow Sheikh’s Car Museum. Though not officially open to the public yet, a security guard offered to let us in. It’s a huge warehouse with the Sheikh’s car collection, complete with what is probably he largest truck in the world. His personal (more...)