Family Trip to the United Arab Emirates – Part 2

Like most visitors, we also visited their main tourist attraction, the Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the world. To make things a bit easier, we paid for the tickets and the aquarium tour in advance. We took the incredibly fast lift up to the 124th floor. It didn’t feel like we’d reached such a height in just a few seconds.

The view from the top of Burj Khalifa is truly unique. Many who have already visited the tower have pointed out that the view is especially magical in the evening. Every half hour, an unforgettable spectacle takes place there. Burj Khalifa changes its colours, fountains rise high into the air with various shades of light, and the whole scene is accompanied by pleasant music. On top of that, it’s free so you can relive this wonderful event several times.

We were immediately drawn to the city of Al Ain after seeing photos of it. We travelled from Dubai to Al Ain for about an hour and a half. The journey there was quite dull as we drove through the desert, which looked the same to us the entire time. Here and there, a lazy camel strolled along behind a fence by the road. A little bored, we hoped to experience something nice in the city of Al Ain, and it really was a big surprise. The city is home to several oases, lined with date palms, with water canals running between them. Since the oases are quite large, we decided to explore one of them by bike. We rented tricycles, which can fit two adults and a child. Renting one tricycle costs 20 euros. Riding through the date palms, where we stopped a few times to try the delicious dates, was truly an experience for us.

We then visited a few old buildings in the city, which, at first glance, looked quite similar to each other. The locals were happy to tell us that what makes these buildings special is their construction, as they were once built from mud and palm wood. To top off the day, we headed up to the famous mountain above Al Ain, Jebel Hafeet. Part of the mountain lies in neighbouring Oman. On one side, we looked out over the endless plains of the Emirates, and on the other, the endless plains of Oman.

While travelling through the countryside, we heard from the locals about a village in the desert known as the "Ghost Village". They say that only a few ever venture there, and we were among them. For a while, we drove through the desert on our own, but then a local passed by and offered to take us to the village. We sat in the back of his old, rickety vehicle, while only my husband’s grandmother sat in the front beside the driver. After ten minutes of driving, we spotted a village with a small mosque at its centre. The village, abandoned by the locals some time ago, is now partially buried in desert sand. The reason they left is that the village is said to be haunted. What’s interesting is that no one lives nearby either. It’s precisely because of the story and the partially buried buildings that the village is so interesting to visitors today.

The Emirates are a dream destination for those who love the desert. However, after a few kilometres of driving through the desert, it no longer seemed special to us. But the desert can be quite fun if you explore it on camels, with off-road vehicles, quad bikes, or buggies. As we noticed many vendors along the roads, we immediately knew it was worth trying our hand at bargaining. Since we managed to get a good price, we decided to explore the desert in two different ways: with camels and buggies. On the tour, a guide led the way on a quad bike. The ride was quite adrenaline-fuelled and a lot of fun.

We also wanted to explore the eastern coast. As you’d expect, this part of the coastline has endless sandy beaches, but with tall hills in the background. The hills were like a magnet for us, since we all wanted to get a view of the landscape from one of the lookout points.

We drove up to a beautiful viewpoint above the town of Khor Fakkan. We admired the interesting landscape from a café, and there was also a children’s playground. Although we expected to see some tourists or at least locals on the beautiful sandy beaches, our assumption was completely wrong. But we did spot something happening at Hawd al Bid’ah Lake, just a few kilometres inland. People were boating, paddleboarding, enjoying the greenery right by the lake, and hanging out at the cafés. As far as we could tell, they were mainly locals.

On the journey to the eastern coast of the Emirates, there’s the option to cross the Oman enclave. Of course, we went for that option, though we never imagined we’d be driving on such bad roads. The Oman enclave is a small part of the country that lies within the Emirates, and within the enclave, there’s another small part of Emirates territory. On the map, this looks rather unusual. If it hadn’t been for the signs, we wouldn’t have even known that after a few kilometres, we were back in the Emirates. In the enclave area, there are high mountains, poor gravel roads, falling rocks, a few streams, and even a cave. We stopped at the cave, as it was a great spot for photos. When we got back to the smooth roads of the Emirates, we realised we had spent at least five times longer crossing the enclave than we would have on the regular roads. Still, it was an interesting experience.

When travelling through the Emirates, it’s hard to tell who exactly is a local and who is an immigrant. When we were moving around major cities, we didn’t even feel like we were in the Arab world. Many dress in the latest fashion, with young girls wearing revealing clothes, which is even more at odds with the rules of the Arab world. We often came across real Arabs in the countryside, but even there, it wasn’t a guarantee that they weren’t immigrants. Locals make up just a quarter of the population.

Every day, we saw workers from poorer countries doing hard physical labour, working in hospitality, and even cleaning public toilets. Almost every public toilet has an employee dedicated to keeping it spotless. We’ve never seen public toilets as well-maintained as these anywhere else in the world. These people start working early in the morning when the worker buses take them to the sites, and then in the late afternoon or evening, they are driven back to their shared accommodation. Many also work at night. In the Emirates, there’s always something being built, so in some places, work goes on for 24 hours a day.

We had contact with real locals in the desert, where we met people wrapped in headscarves and wearing long robes. It’s hard to meet women there, as mostly only men are out in the open. Occasionally we also saw a child. People in the Emirates are friendly, polite, gladly follow strict rules, and are happy to help tourists.

We were positively surprised by our trip to the Emirates. First and foremost, it’s a highly developed country, which makes it very safe. With a bit of creativity, the trip can be quite affordable. Since this is a country that is in complete contrast to Slovenia, it was even more interesting for us to travel through.