Travelling from Fujairah to Dubai

Today is Thursday and we have sadly left the Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort in Fujairah and headed to Dubai for 2 nights.

I say “sadly” for two reasons. One is that we have enjoyed our stay here so much. The hotel and staff have been great. It’s been a lovely, chilled beach stop. And a break between India and Home.

But also, we got the news yesterday that we had lost a very dear member of our extended family. Our lovely Harriet, a second mother to me and a dear, dear friend and loved one of all our family. It would take too long and be too…. private.. to detail the many ways this woman was important to me for 54 years.. but what is relevant is that she helped ignite in me a love of travel. Or maybe it was there – we did meet through a big overseas trip…. and that love was recognised and helped cement a relationship that spanned great happiness and great tragedy and loss…. Our families became entwined through travel, and have remained so…

And so…. our last day in Fujairah was memorable in a sad way. I don’t want to trivialise how I feel by writing about it too much here.

Today, we checked out and cabbed back across the mountains that separate that Emirati from Dubai. Our taxi driver this time was fully conscious and got us to our destination on the Creek in Dubai, The Sheraton, by about 1115. We checked in, yep another upgrade to the Club Level, free breakfast, free lounge access, creek view.

Normally we stay in the Marina area in Dubai or around the Palm, Jumairah Beach. But we are only here 2 nights this time and we have things to do around the Deira (Old Town) area that makes this hotel a great choice. When we first came to Dubai on a stopover for 3 days on the way back from Thailand, in 1995, this area, Deira, WAS Dubai. This was it. Then there was a big gap of desert and a single hotel, the Jumeirah Beach hotel, which was seemingly miles away from Dubai… We stayed in Deira for 3 nights and visited the gold souk, had a boat trip on the creek, visited the national history museum, all with two small girls. Our next visit, in about 2003 saw great changes and we stayed in an apartment in a new area – the Dubai Marina – which was a bit of a building site to be honest. It was miles out of where we had stayed before, the growth was exponential!! Since then of course we have visited multiple times and have grown to love Dubai, and its extraordinary confident culture.

We have a lovely room overlooking the creek and the Royal Palace just across. We dumped our bags and taxied to the old Gold Souk. An amazing place where modern jewellers collide with shops selling extraordinary gold head dresses and breast plates designed to allow a bride to wear her bride price (dowry) in gold. We had a secret errand to undertake, which was successful and very enjoyable. Then we took the metro – so so so clean and tidy and cheap – to the Mall of the Emirates – about 45 mins and £2.

We had tickets for Dune 2 in the IMax It was just incredible. Amazing cinematography.