The name of the game today was relaxing. We had a leisurely start to the day – and boy did we need it!

We sloped off to the Wafi centre and poked around some of the shops in the souk there. Stopped for the best coffee on tour so far – it tasted as good as it looked…

The afternoon was spent relaxing by the pool, then we headed off to the Dubai Mall again – this time to see the fountains

Fountain at Dubai Mall

– which are spectacular. There is a different show every 20-30 minutes, and they’ve really done a good job. When some of the water jets go up high, they sound like thunder – and it’s all done to music too. There was some sea fog rolling in tonight – and it looked amazing as it swirled around the Burj Khalifah (the tallest building that we’ve mentioned before).

After that, we did a quick investment in the gold souk, via Abra at night.

NandS at Jumeriah

Day 14 involved a trip to Jumeriah beach. We lazed on the deck chairs on the beach, had a bite to eat and headed back to the hotel.

Neil and Karla went off on a desert safari in the afternoon, while Sandra headed back to the Dubai mall for some uninterrupted and unpressured shopping.

Whilst the safari driver seemed like he had the mute button pressed, Neil and Karla enjoyed the trip along with our Angolan and Portuguese companions. It involved a quick stop at a place where you can hire quad bikes (we didn’t) and there was a little monkey that liked to grab things from people’s pockets – very entertaining! After a mad ride across the desert, we hit the blacktop only to find camels ambling in the middle of the road!

Camels on the road

At least the driver let us stop for photos. When we got to the camp, Karla finally had a camel ride,

Karla on a camel

 and we wandered around the various stalls – trying on some traditional garb (Neil piked), smoking some hubbly-bubbly, and looking at the henna tattoos (no – we didn’t do that either). The camp was quite well organised – they catered for about 200 people + (BBQ feed was fantastic) and they had a pretty good quality show with some amazing dancing. Then it was time to head back to the hotel so we have a chance to catch up on the blog!

Once again, thanks for all the awesome comments everyone has been leaving – it is really neat to hear from each and every one of you (and special thanks for being well Jan – we love your commentary!).

Nikki – Poppa enjoyed talking English with the Jordanian children.

Tomorrow we are heading off for a traditional Dubai Friday brunch – can’t wait!!!

Over and out from the sheikess…