.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

So after a gruelling trek through the desert and some pounding sand duning in the jeep we headed to camp for some dinner and entertainment, all inclusive in the package of course.

We were pretty starving by the time we got there as it's not recommended to eat before the sand duning as you'll most likely get naseous..so none of us had eaten since breakfast.

Out of 5 cars I think we saw someone sick in all of em..including ours

When we arrived we got to have a quick ride on a camel, only for 10-15 metres or so just to get a taste of the experience, it's really not very comfortable and seems quite high..much higher than a horse and a lot bumpier! The worse part is when the camel kneels down for you to get off...beware men you might lose your chance to have kids if you aren't prepared at this point.

Yes indeed, it's a bit of a ball crusher.

After that we all sat around the huge rug in the middle and munched on something like naan bread whilst smelling the BBQ we would be eating later.

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Ah finally back from Dubai, my sleeping pattern is a bit screwed though because of the 4 hour time difference and the 7 hour overnight flight..

It'll get back to normal soon enough I guess..

Well yes, finally I'm back! Dubai was...hot and sandy and it makes me fat as you can order everything under the sun there without moving your ass off the sofa...Pizza, fried chicken, chinese food, arabic food, indian food, iranian food, lebanese food, groceries..basically whatever you want. And the portions are all huge!

We managed to grab a couple of days off towards the end and relax, we planned our trip out and went for a Dubai Desert Safari the day before we came back.

I recommend the Desert Safari to everyone, it's an amazing experience, if you are ever flying with Emirates, just stop over in Dubai for a couple of days, check out Jumeirah, perhaps the Mall of Emirates and do the Desert Safari, that's enough

The Desert Safari includes sand duning (driving fast up and down sand dunes in a massive jeep which feels like it's about to turn over!), a camel ride, belly dancing and a bbq in the middle of the desert, oh yah and some shishas!

It costs between Dhs 150 and 280 depending which company you go with (that's equivalent to the same amount in RM as the exchange rate is 0.99 = 1) and is worth every cent!

You leave for the safari about 3-4pm as it's too hot before that, and it's a good time to head out and catch the sunset on the dunes.

After quite a long journey and a quick stop at a buggy place (you can take a buggy on the dunes for Dhs100 for about 20 minutes and get sunburnt for free), which none of us took up, we hit the dunes.

The driving is crazy, it's fun, it's like a rollercoaster, up and down, sliding sideways down sandunes in a heavy 4.5 litre Toyota Landcruiser GXR.

You stop off a couple of times to admire the view and take some pictures of the dunes, it's a beautiful peaceful place and is suprisingly windy.

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I'm going out of my mind really, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take..

I have nothing to do, the hotel had no Internet (unless I paid a ridiculous RM100), the appartment I'm staying in now has no Internet and has 3 TV channels.

I've spent the last 3 days doing absolutely nothing apart from watching the same shitty movies over and over on TV...there were a few good ones thankfully, Road to Perdition, Ali is on tonight, the rest were pretty crap tho (Far & Away etc..).

I'm going to use my own precious bandwidth to host some pictures here..

I'll have to post the rest of my UK trip when I get back as that would take too much bandwidth.

When I first came here I was staying in a 'Chalet' room, some cheap ass shit, it wasn't even in the hotel, it was a concrete 2 floor building out the back behind the swimming pool..the shower didn't work...I got out of there..

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Argh, how are office workers supposed to be unproductive with these two landmark sites blocked!

Apparently Flickr has nude pictures and can be considered a dating site which is against the principles of the country..

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Ah shit, noobed it.

Was doing some server migration yesterday, with quite a few things going wrong as usual..

So when I arrived in Dubai I came online to sort them out, knocked out a few blog posts too, surfed etc normal stuff.

I sat by my departure gate, waiting for the queue to get a bit smaller, when there was just 5-6 people left to enter the gate...I went to the desk.

I then realised the queue I'd been watching was for a New York flight....not a Birmingham flight.

Yes indeed, 100% oh shit moment.

I realised my flight wasn't in fact delayed, I was just watching the wrong gate.

It was one of those 11/13 gates with a peice on each side, my real gate was obscured behind the one I was watching.

Argh Internet is bad..bad.b.adddd

Work is bad!

Oh well at least I don't have to overnight here, the next Birmingham flight is in 7 hours..

I managed to get some free food aswell because of my 'delayed' flight..

I'm sitting on the floor now recharging my almost flat laptop battery.

They never put the powerpoints in convenient places, I always end up sitting on the floor leaning against a pillar.

Might try and get some sleep, without oversleeping and missing my flight AGAIN, which would be quite terrible.

Ah well, shit happens.

So I had a free day, what to do..

I asked around and it seems there isn't many attractions in Dubai, the Burg Al Arab area...Emirates Mall and its snow thing, some other shopping centres and that's about it.

I wanted to find a street market or Bazaar, so I got recommended Deira, about the nearest you can get in Dubai.

It's a bunch of streets and alleys with various shops, mostly selling Gold and Fabrics like Burquas and Pashminas.

There's also electrical shops and all the other normal stuff.

We headed to a Pakistan restaurant for lunch.

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So off I went travelling again, via Doha airport this time (Qatar).

I love airports..because? They are full of booze!

Touching down in Dubai I found it extremely hot and a rather depressing grey colour and yeah hot (if I didn't mention it already).

I asked a few people and they said the sky is grey/brown all year round, it is in the middle of a desert after all.

They have some amazing architecture though.

After my initial meetings we headed out to grab some food and stumbled into a decent looking Turkish joint.

Luckily the exchange rate is 1 to 1 with RM, so it's easy to calculate prices.

We looked through the menus, not knowing what anything was we asked the boss a few times, after a couple of minutes he grabbed our menus and stated

"Menu? No need menu ok? I give you some beef, some chicken, good yah?"

So we agreed of course, then the food started coming...and coming..and coming...we asked him to make sure there was no more, thankfully it did eventually end.

There were beef, chicken and lamb kebabs, salad, beef and lamb stews, some bread, lots of salad, some rice and some other stuff..

One thing I do like is in Dubai all food is served with salad, sometimes salted sometimes pickled, but there is always salad and fizzy drinks..

It cost us 112Dirhams, which is equivalent to 112RM.

After that we headed back to the hotel to take a rest, everything is pretty much closed in Dubai from 11am to around 3pm as it's too hot to do anything, so most shops just close, even some malls aren't open, but they do open till midnight to compensate.

I could use my Malaysian ATM card there too through the Cirrus network, which was useful, it did cost me RM8 to withdraw money though (I had USD but the money changer was closed..)

Later in the evening we headed to emirates mall, that's the famous one with the huge snow slope built on the side.

The shops are full of rows and rows of Bongs Shisha and other shiny things.

The snow slope thingy.

It was pretty expensive to go in so I didn't bother.

Grabbed a sandwich for dinner, something like Subway but a different brand, cost about RM25 with fries and a drink.

Everything is about double the price of Malaysia, so if you are spending RM it's a bit pricey, seems like not much to do or see either..

Continued with part 2 tommorow!

In a couple of hours, just surfing on the 20RM an hour Internet in the hotel lobby, things are incredibly expensive here..

The exchange rate is 1-1 pretty much (1RM = 0.994 Dirhams or something) but everything is double the price, no wonder people love taking holidays in Malaysia..

A KFC meal will cost you something like RM18.

The chicks here are smoking hawt though haha.

Here's my favourite pic I took today, will post the whole series later on flickr, when I can access it..

Flickr is banned here by the countrywide proxy, also banned are any URL's with FUCK in them.

Yeah, amazing eh?

Don't forget to check DigiSniper - there's been some great stuff posted there while I've been here.