An Englishman in Dubai

After a couple of pleasant weeks of vacation I came back to a short working week and immediately headed out to spend a lazy Ramadan weekend over in Fujairah.

I always like to get out of the hustle and bustle of Dubai and a couple of days by the beach in the peaceful surroundings of mountains and beaches of the Indian ocean are a real treat. I went over last year and as we liked the place we saw plenty of reason to go back not least of all the two for one offer the Royal Beach was offering on their large villas.

Like last time we headed via a super bouncy road to Wadi Wurrayah to have a splosh around the rock pools and douse ourselves in the waterfall. It really is a rugged sight to behold – however it was really sad to see a huge increase in the amount of graffiti:

There were quite a few other people enjoying the cool refreshing waters of the Wadi when we got down there. A couple of chaps had decided to take the rather unusual idea of improvised flotation aids and had stuffed plastic bottles down their pants or tied plastic bottles to their waists. Turns out that they couldn’t swim very well and a two litre empty bottle of Pepsi gave them all the confidence one might need.

While I can’t see this catching on any time soon the chap and his friend below certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves:

Later on once it was passed Iftar time we settled in for some BBQ, refreshments and even a cheeky Sheesha. One of our party came particularly well prepared not only bringing special coals, a pipe, tobacco but share-friendly tips to insert into the end of the Sheesha pipe. On closer inspection these were no ordinary tips. They proclaimed proudly to have the following essential features:

1. Ergonomic Design

2. Easy to use

3. Lip Comforting

4. Wrinkle preventer

and to sum it all up “The Tips That Preserve The Lips” – amazing what a tiny piece of plastic can now do.

Sadly, as a non-smoker I passed on the sheesha but lip maintenance is on high on my priority list and I will be sure to use these if I do ever indulge.

Aside from this, it was a relaxing weekend but the weather right now is really is too hot and humid to spend any length of time outside without being immersed in cool water. It seemed we got the good dry weather as we left heavy showers came which is very out of season. This type of heavy rainfall also makes the Wadi’s a very dangerous place to be due to flash floods.