Qasr al Sarab

I mentioned that other people did not seem to have a problem with driving off the road. This picture Craig took of the road shows this a little more clearly. I didn't manage to get a picture of the signs advising against driving in the sand, but obviously people don't take those signs very seriously.

We did stop (on the road, we didn't risk driving off into the sand) at one point driving into the resort. Craig took a picture of me standing on the side of the road with the setting sun in the background.

And he took a selfie of us at our first sunset at Qasr al Sarab:

He also took a picture of the sunset that first night.

After watching the sunset and completing our check in, we were taken to our room. Craig took a video of our room (I appear in this one!), which is cut into two parts so that I could post it here.

For dinner our first night, Craig had made a reservation to eat at Al Falaj, an outdoor restaurant at Qasr al Sarab that serves an Arabic BBQ. They've got rugs spread out on the sand, with tables and benches for people to eat at. They served a wide range of foods, buffet style. But before we got our food, we took a minute to visit the animals. We didn't take a picture with the camel, but we did take some photos with the falcon.

The next morning, I woke up fairly early. I had a text from my little brother, so I got on Skype to talk to him for a bit. It's very strange to talk to someone who is going to bed just as you are waking up, and this is even more obvious on video chat.

Craig and I eventually managed to get ourselves to the breakfast buffet. The food was really good and there were so many things to try! We had decided to eat inside, because of the heat. When we saw the flocks of birds descend upon even briefly abandoned tables, we knew we had made the right decision!

After breakfast, we made our way out to the pool. The only shady spots left were near the children's area of the pool - which was also the only area of the pool that had a shade structure over it. We read our books and relaxed by the pool for awhile. Then it was time to head over to the spa for a couple's massage.

We had decided to try the "Arabian Ritual". Like all massages, this experience started with a dressing room. But in addition to the usual robes, they provided us both with paper underwear. One size fits most, I suppose, but we found it rather humorous that one size and style was expected to fit both of us. We had both left our phones in our room, or we would have had some rather indecent pictures. But we we both giggling when our massage started.

This two hour experience included a foot bath, a date/coffee scrub, a massage, and a scalp massage. Craig was asleep just seconds into the scalp massage. I had far too much oil poured into my hair to fall asleep. In fact, after our massage, I believe I washed my hair four times...and never got all the oil out. I'm not sure what hair type that oil was intended for, but I'm sure that my hair did not appreciate it.

After showers (several for me), we made our way outside to see the sunset again. We had considered walking up the dunes for a better view, but by the time we were ready to go out, we didn't think we'd have time to walk that far. Instead, we walked down on the sand. Of course, Craig took a selfie of us with the sunset.

We had our final dinner at the steakhouse. We were not impressed. The next morning, we returned to the buffet. Knowing what we wanted meant that we tried fewer things, which made it not quite as much fun. We returned to the room, where I washed my hair yet again and packed up our things. Then we set off on our drive back "home" to our apartment.

It's odd, when I compare this resort experience to the one we visited when we were staying in Dubai. I'm sure that this was a nicer resort than the other one. But my experience in Abu Dhabi has been so much better, that the escape wasn't as much of a treat. We had a really good time, but it was nice to return to our apartment.

Weekend Adventure

Before we left Los Angeles, Craig told me he had planned a surprise weekend trip. I asked him if we were going to the Empty Quarter. When he said yes, I asked if we were going to the resort he'd wanted to take me to when we were in Dubai. I couldn't remember the name of the place, but I knew he had gone on a previous business trip and been disappointed that I hadn't been along to enjoy it with him. He came home from work as early as he could on Thursday, and we headed out for our weekend.

We did manage to leave town before the traffic got too bad. I helped navigate until we escaped the city. We had a long drive through the desert on a wide, two lane road. The shoulders are very wide, allowing slower vehicles to move over to allow faster vehicles to pass. As we drove, we noticed that many of the trucks drove with only one set of tires within the road lines, with the other tires and the majority of the vehicle traveling on the shoulder. I'm not sure if this is for convenience, or if it's a habit, or if there's some legal reason. We merely moved over when another vehicle was willing to fly past the speed monitoring cameras.

A view of the two lane road. The shoulders are much
wider than they appear in the picture.

Along this road, we noticed a variety of sand mitigation methods varying from rows of vegetation to a variety of fences. Some of it was familiar, looking like the hedge rows between fields or the snow fences along the highway in the winter. But having no idea how sand behaves, the use of these methods provided us with plenty of discussion.

We were talking about something else entirely, when this suddenly appeared on my side of the road:

From here, we turned off the main road onto a private two lane road, without shoulders.

It turns out that I haven't completely conquered my fear of twisting roads. Though to some extent I blame the variety of signs warning about the danger of driving off the road into the sand. Something I don't understand, given the wheel tracks that crisscrossed the road - no one else seemed to have a problem driving right off the road! But we did stop to take a few pictures:

This panorama shows the sun, which was nearly setting
as we arrived.

When we arrived at the check in desk, we were escorted outside onto a terrace to watch the setting sun. We were also given cool wash clothes, dates, and a yogurt and date drink:

The next morning, I took this picture out of the window in our room. I think it looks like a painting; it's almost unreal.

But speaking of art, I took this picture of the sand on our second night when we walked out to watch the sunset. One hallway in the resort was decorated with 3D art that looked very similar to this.

Weekend Away (Craig's perspective)

[A guest post from Craig]

Like our month in Dubai, I’d planned for a few weekend getaways. After all, we’re in the Middle East! There’s a lot of fascinating places to explore that aren’t that far away. Eight years ago I spent a weekend in Abu Dhabi doing some research for a client, visiting a few resorts. One of those resorts was so amazing I made a note that I’d have to go back some day. That’s where we went!

I got off work early Thursday afternoon, got gas on my way home, and picked up Laura and our overnight bag, and we headed out for a 2 ½ hour drive to the Empty Quarter. The Empty Quarter is the largest contiguous sand desert in the world, located in the UAE, parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Yemen. You can read about it here.

We drove through the desert and watched the landscape change from typical Arabian desert to small sand dunes and then to larger and larger dunes that got progressively redder in color. We drove near the Liwa Oasis, a small town covering a large area in the state of Abu Dhabi that produces dates. Liwa is the start of the agricultural belt of the UAE, an area that runs through the interior desert through a belt of oases, to Al Ain, the second largest city in Abu Dhabi (and home of the local bottled water).

Once off the highway, we passed through a security gate and onto a two-lane road that went out into “no man’s land” into the dunes. The road was a little harrowing, but we stopped a couple times to take photos of the beautiful dunes. We finally arrived at the resort, literally out in the Empty Quarter and only a couple kilometers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The resort is called Qasr al Sarab, or Castle of Mirage. It’s designed to look like an ancient castle in the dunes. Driving across a “draw bridge” to the main entrance, we parked, registered, dropped off our bags, and valeted the car before being whisked to our room with a huge tub and a terrace larger than our room itself.

I’ll let Laura fill you in on her experiences at the resort, but for me it was a dream come true—being able to take her to a place I had experienced on my own (what a waste!) and then having a chance to bring her to experience it with me.

The dunes are beautiful and magical. It’s hard to imagine that “piles of sand” could be so gorgeous, but it is. It’s desolate and incredible. It’s hard to imagine people on foot (or even camel) navigating the Empty Quarter. It covers 650,000 sq./m. The daytime is hotter than the city of Abu Dhabi because it’s so far away from the water, but the nights are much, much cooler than the city. The stars and night sky were magical, too.

On Saturday (the end of our weekend) we packed up, checked out, and drove back “home” to Abu Dhabi, stopping at two grocery stores on the way (Waitrose, an expat grocery store from the UK, and Lulu, the hypermarket in our neighborhood mall).

It was a beautiful, relaxing, and amazing weekend.