Desert Safari

800m tall building

Through yet another set of uninteresting events I found myself in Dubai with an afternoon and evening to spare. My local associate recommended a ‘desert safari’. I wasn’t sure how that worked, given my only experiences of Safaris were in Windsor Safari Park. Still I agreed to go along fairly sure they wouldn’t turn the desert of the UAE into a big Lego Land. (You can never trust those Lego guys though).

A camel, in the back of a car!

Still half expecting monkeys to clamber over the car and steal the windscreen wipers I got into the car that was due to take me on this safari. The first thing I noticed after looking at the other tourists on board and the driver was that I was seriously overdressed in my (semi) respectable business suit and tie. There was no opportunity to change so I had to run with it.

We drove out on a motorway out of Dubai for about 45 minutes. Dubai is a seriously impressive place. The people I met there described it as ‘a developing country’. I was having none of it, travelling there from London felt like going from a Charles Dickens novel to Blade Runner. It is simply breath taking, the tallest building in the world (as of November 2009) is there, some 800m tall. Anyway we soon left the city and signs of the desert were soon apparent (e.g. a camel being transported in the back of a pickup truck). We eventually found ourselves at a petrol station in the desert. Unsurprisingly petrol is stupidly cheap there.

Desert, not to be confused with dessert

Belly dancer

They also had quad bikes, which I am guessing is another un-Bedouin style feature. After paying an extra £3 to have a go I was tearing around in the sand making a mess of my suit and shoes. The evening was rounded off by a belly dancer’s performance and a barbecue. Quality evening out, you should try it sometime…