Middle East trip - Abu Dhabi, Dubai (UAE) & Muscat, Oman

I'm not long back from an incredible holiday in the Middle East and I am late in doing a blog post on it. 

 

I flew out from Dublin to Abu Dhabi with two of my sisters. Lydia who lives and works in Oman had been home in Dublin for her annual leave so the plan was that we would tag on to her last few days of leave and do some travelling and sightseeing in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and then on to Muscat to see where she has been living for the last 4 years of her life!

 

While we had about 10 days in total (including travel) we spent just 1.5 days in Abu, then on to Dubai for 2 days and then the majority of our time in Muscat.  This suited me fine to be honest - I would choose Abu Dhabi over Dubai if I was to go again and Oman over the UAE.  Dubai reminded me a lot of Las Vegas so I was well ready to leave after 2 days.  Muscat felt very authentic Middle East which was nice.

 

I had actually been in Abu Dhabi about a year ago for a work project so that was handy because when we arrived in late on the first evening I knew a great little Turkish restaurant to go to for something to eat.  I was more than delighted to go back to this place I sometimes dream about their shwarma hummus!!!!!

 

We went for the traditional(?!!) expats brunch on the Friday and then on Saturday before leaving Abu Dhabi we visited the beautiful Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque.

 

 

Although only 2 days in Dubai we did a great lot in that time - sunbathing in the morning, a trip across the river in an abra (local's water taxi), visit to the souk (pictured above), saw the Burj Kalifa and the foutains/water show out front.  We also went to some lovely restaurants and bars - we had a particularly nice evening with Lydia's boyfriend, Hussein's lovely group of friends.  Hello to the Lebanese folk if they are reading!

 

From Dubai we drove to Muscat which was a very interesting experience.  Arid, desert land with the occasional camel farm along the way.  And three military/Government checkpoints, which while I found a little intimidating,  and took a little bit of (nervewracking) time to go through, we had no issues.  I was glad we had an Arabic speaker (Hussein) with us and to be honest would not recommend going by land if this was not the case - Katie and I had admittedly wanted to fly initially but Lyd wanted to drive (for a combination of different reasons).  Anyway as I said, we got through with no issues.

 

In Oman we stayed in Lydia's apartment which she shares with the lovely Modesta.  Their apartment complex is owned by the airline they work for and it contains all (female only obviously!) cabin crew. It is a big 2 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment but as each of them travels so much (and so far/long haul) it is really just a base to live in some sense...

 

This part of the holiday was lovely and relaxing. A lot of sunbathing in a hotel complex beside her apartment that she is allowed use for a small fee, plus sunbathing in a beautiful expats compound which again she is allowed use for a small fee - and which had a restaurant and a bar that served alcohol!  Lydia was a wonderful tour guide and showed us all around Muscat, including the two mosques (one newly built which looks particularly nice lit up at night), showed us the Sultan's yachts, the beautiful old town of Muscat and brought us to the souk and malls for some shopping.  We also ate in some lovely restaurants every evening - in Muscat this was much cheaper than Dubai, but there was no alcohol served in a lot of them (unless you went to a hotel) which was different to Dubai.

 

Old Muscat town. 

 

On the day/night before we went home we treated ourselves to a stay in a beautiful resort about an hour away from Lydia. 

 

 

The Shangri-La is situated in the most beautiful landscape, surrounded by mountains, with a beach that looked more like Thailand than what I'd expect in Oman.  The room/food/staff were all fabulous and we had a great time - sunbathing, afternoon tea, cocktail hour in the courtyard and then some drinks & food in a cool bar that evening, and the next morning the most incredible breakfast ever.

 

This is me at the cocktail hour on our last night. 

I look pretty relaxed - and sure why wouldn't I, it was an incredible holiday! 

Trip to Abu Dhabi (and Dubai)

Back in January of this year I was lucky enough to be asked to be part of a project team that would be based in Abu Dhabi for two weeks.

It was an incredible experience from both a work and travel perspective and as you can see below I have lots of great photos which I would like to remember forever, and am long overdue posting/blogging about.

We stayed in the Courtyard by Mariott hotel, a newly opened hotel beside the Trade Centre in Abu Dhabi. Nice new modern decor and I could not say anything bad about the staff, they were excellent.  For a newly opened hotel it is obvious they invested a lot in the training of their staff.

As a work trip, but "reasonably hot", I had to plan a different work wardrobe compared to Ireland in January.  Here are some pics of clothes I wore to work, plus to evenings out.

The United Arab Emirates working week is Sunday to Thursday.

On Thursday, after work myself and a colleague hopped in a taxi and visited the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.  It was BREATHTAKING!  

In order for women to go inside and view it, you had to wear an abaya.  They rented them out to foreigners on production of ID. 

Here are some buildings and views in Abu Dhabi and Dubai (we were in Dubai for one day for meetings).

The building with the pink lights, at the top, is the hotel in Yas Island where the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is held.  The Grand Prix actually goes through the hotel at one point!!!

The views are taken from inside the buildings.  They were very tall - I think the views look like I took them from an airplane.

We partook in the famous expats tradition of Friday Brunch.  Because of the working week their Friday is equivalent of our Saturday.  A lot of hotels offer an all inclusive (including alcohol) high quality brunch.  

It was amazing!

The amazing buffet aside, I was very happy with all the other food I ate.  I really enjoy Eastern type food and one of the best places we ate in was in the souk beside us - a Lebanese or Turkish type of casual restaurant.  This was recommended to us by my friend Rory who lives in Abu Dhabi, hi Rory if you are reading this!  I met up with Rory twice which was really nice.  I wish I took some photos :-(

Finally here are some photos from the area I stayed in. The bottom left photograph is of the souk which we walked through every day to get to our office.  The two big buildings to the right of that are the World Trade Centre.  And the pic above that is the view from my hotel room at night.