Today was the final day of our amazing trip, and we scampered back down to the gold souk to pick up our rings… As promised, they were ready, but sadly that is about as much as you could say about them. Smaller in every way than what we had discussed, the rings were spindley little things that were not what we had asked for. To say this was disappointing was an understatement and we simple could not compromise on something of this importance. Luckily the shop keeper even refunded our deposit and we left the shop with yet another disappointment in Dubai.

Quite upset by this, we headed on to the Hilton for some much needed drinks – and our spirits soon returned. The rest of the day was very quiet, little enthusiasm to trek to see anything and happy just to relax with a book.

Dubai was probably the only disappointing place on our trip, maybe it would be okay as a stopover when the Dubai World theme park is finished… but for now I would advise people to give it a miss. Maybe we just didn’t understand it, but it all seemed very fake – a flashy façade on a really rather dull spot.

So it was not with entirely heavy heart that we packed our bags in readiness for the return to Belfast the next morning – we were looking forward to getting home, and even vaguely not quite appalled by the thought of going back to work!

Our flight left Dubai at 1030am the next morning and after an uneventful change in London we eventually arrived into Belfast before 7pm, exhausted and wondering whether work the next day was such a good idea…

One of the main activities available in Dubai is dune bashing – hopping in a 4×4 and heading out to the desert to churn it up at high speed. We had been looking forward to it and booked with Knight Tours from the Ibis Hotel. We were the first people picked up in our car and quickly drove to another hotel where we picked up four really friendly Indian guys from Kerala who had been working in Dubai hospitality for a few months.

With everyone on board we sped out of the city and towards the desert. It was quite a long drive and we were glad to pull of the road and onto the sand. Unfortunately we then had to wait for all of the other tour cars to turn up as we were the very first. With 10 cars to wait for it was a looooong, dull half hour before we were told to head back to the cars.

The actual dune bashing itself was great fun – riding the crest of a dune before suddenly turning and dashing down the face of it – amazing what the cars could do. We were in the lead car which added the element of surprise and beautiful view of the desert ahead.

After maybe just 15 minutes we all pulled up together again and were left to wander the desert and take pictures. We noticed that a few of the drivers gathered in one car and actually sped off to enjoy some racing by themselves while we all stood around for half an hour. Once back in the cars we drove straight to the ‘bedouin’ camp (don’t expect any more bashing) where we hopped on a poor old camel for a short ride before hanging around the large tent area for a considerable amount of time. The number of guests greatly outweighed the facilities available – with just one henna tattoo artist the queue was getting quite grumpy at times.

The food was very good though, and the belly dancing was quite funny – with all of our comrades from Kerala joining in and obviously having a good time.

Overall it was a worthwhile experience, but there must be better providers out there – I would avoid Knight Tours as it is just too big. Too much hanging around and not enough actual dune bashing!

Today we checked out Dubai’s famous shopping by heading to the Mall Of The Emirates. We had been considering taking to the indoor snow slope in Ski Dubai, but were put of by high prices and our relative inexperience. We trailed round the mall for some time – the usual collection of shops and prices not discernibly better than at home – before heading to the cinema in the complex to see The Bucket List. A lovely film!

Our trip notes for Dubai were rather brief so unfortunately there is not much else to say!

Today we picked up a Dubai Lonely Planet and took to the streets on their recommended city walk. We started in the lovely old area of town and had a nice lunch at the Basta Art Cafe. Following the river North, we walked through the old market and past the Grand Mosque. Further round we went to a small cultural village that was a pretty peice of architecture adorned with wind towers.

We then headed into the Spice Souk where Laura had a great time sniffing through all the herbs and spices and coming away with a big bag of goodies to bring home. Bouyed by this we head on to the famous gold souk to see if we could back some bargain wedding rings for 2010…

The Gold Souk is a huge covered area filled with hundreds of small shops with no realy way to tell them apart. We headed into one to enquire about simple platinum bands and eventually described what we wanted and then became a long and awful haggling process that did eventually get to a good price. We walked away very happy, ready to collect our rings in a couple of days…

This evening we decided to dine in the Dubai Marina area, another long taxi ride from our hotel. This taxi journey was actually fairly nerve wracking, and demonstrated why Dubai is known for it’s atrocious driving conditions. The taxi sped along through traffic, weaving between lanes to the constant warning of ‘You are exceeding the speed limit, slow down’ from the taxi GPS. With every idiot on the road driving aggressively, there were a few near misses and on arrival at the marina I wished we could do more than refuse to tip!

The marina itself is nice enough – a newly constructed (where in Dubai isn’t?) leisure area with numerous restaurants. We went to a highly recommended Lebanase spot (I forget the name) which was pretty much a resounding disappointment – bland and overpriced food. Still, it was nice to sit outside and relax with a drink.

After a good night’s sleep, we spent our first day in Dubai at the Wild Wadi Water Park. In Dubai the only way to get anywhere is by taxi – thankfully they are fast and cheap and very plentiful. The water park was good fun, although a little smaller than I had expected and the queue for the long drop slide was very tiresome – why on Earth is there only one slide from the top of the tower?! Every other water park I have seen has had three or four in parallel.

We had a great time though and enjoyed the views of the iconic Burl Al Arab off the coast. The wave pool was great fun too, and it was nice to just be relaxing and enjoying ourselves for one last week.

The taxi drive back to the hotel took us close to the foot of the Burj Dubai, the insane 800m sky scraper that currently holds the title of tallest building in the world. It really is a spectacle – this hazy photograph at least shows how it compares to the other skyscrapers in the city.

We didn’t manage much else – winding down and relaxing during our final week of holiday!