Our friends Jag and Roops picked us up in Dubai and drove us off to join in their holiday in Ras Al-Kahmai. There are 7 Emirates and we passed through 5 of the 7 on our way, which I think you'll agree is a reasonable effort at sight-seeing. To be honest, the photo above is Jag and Roops' Hilton Resort - we stayed at a cheaper Hilton up the road and hung out at the more expensive one all day. Pretty good place - it has a ridiculous number of pools, or you can wander down to the imported beach for a swim in a rather pleasant sea.* All brand new and not at all busy until our last day. Excellent buffet too.
* I didn't do this, obviously, but I did manage a few lengths of the longest pool I've been in for at least 20 years without drowning. Hopefully Dubbs will be proud of me.
One of my (fortunately) abandoned ideas was to use my GPS watch to track a 10k run in every country we go to. A quick workout on a treadmill - no a/c but cooler than outside in the sun - convinced me that that was an idiot idea from the start so I'm glad I abandoned it before we set off and left the watch at home.
Lilly and Jag were thrilled to get their photo taken with legendary lounge singer Fadel. What do you mean you've never heard of him? His rendition of It's A Wonderful World is surely in the charts back home by now...
We were rather amused in Ras Al Kaimah to see a lot of official banners everywhere proudly celebrating the 38th birthday of the "United Arab Emirtes" (sic).
All in all a very pleasant and relaxing start to our trip. I suspect we might have to put in a bit more effort in future destinations...
