Winter UAE : Dune bashing & belly dancing
25.1.2012 Cultures, Personal, Photojournalism, Places & LandscapesThe moment i’m writing this, Nadal just advanced himself to semi-final Australian Open 2012 after beating Tomas Berdych in four sets battle of quarter final. Meaning that, he will meet Roger Federer in semi-final match and i bet it’s gonna be such a mouth-watering match. Yeaayy!! Two of my favorite tennis players will play against each other and if i may recall, it was three years back since the last set up. I don’t have any preferences, in fact i don’t even care who’s gonna win because i just fancy both of them. Ok, enough said about tennis. Let’s just stick to the real topic, about continuing my Emirates venture. And this time, it’s Dune Bashing and ‘tarian gelek’ a.k.a belly dancing episode! The desert safari adventure started at 3.30pm and ended roughly around 9.30pm on the very same day. It’s an Evening Desert Safari and the driver picked us up at the pickup point near Mariah’s apartment. Then, the driver drove us to Al-Ain which located about 1 hour away from the central of Abu Dhabi. There was only 3 of us in the jeep,excluding the driver – me, Lyn and another Indian guest (i could not remember his name). And i also remember, that the driver is also an Indian, from Kerala to be specific who already worked in Abu Dhabi for the past 13 years and he can speak Arabic fluently. One thing that i noticed about the Arab culture, that all Arab mens will wear ‘jubah’ to work. That’s one thing that you can actually distinguish between the true local Arab mens and the foreigners. So, our driver just wore a collared- tshirt and blue jeans – my presumption was right! Once reached Al-Ain area, the driver stopped for a while at the camel farm. That was my first time seeing so many camels in front of my eyes at one time, like bunch of them. People were right when they say camels has a thick and wavy eyelashes. Having seeing that in real life, well i could not agree more on that. Very tall, humphy and stink! Masya Allah, the smell..i just could not stand it. Busuk nak mampus!! With all the urine and the poo-poo all over the places, i need to watch out my every steps.
Tumpuk- tumpuk…tahi unta (Pendekar Bujang Lapok).
Mat saleh is always a mat saleh!
Silly me, i forgot to bring my shades from KL. I know, i know! I thought i did packed the shades into my luggage and not that i realize i just brought the shades box with no shades in it. * slaps forehead* Even though it’s winter but the sun was so bright. Had such a hard time to capture good pictures with my eyes widely opened. Well, this is the best one we got!
One of the stupid pose with the camel (credits to Lyn for the pic)
Some of the drivers were performing Asar prayer in between the jeeps.
Here we go, the dune bashing adventure started. All the jeeps lining up and ours was leading the group. Wicked!
The dune bashing itself took about 45 minutes with one stop. Basically, the stop is just to cool down the engine as you may realize by now, that the driving method was very rough exploring the dunes. From the beginning, my friend Lyn was a bit nervous as she kept on telling me how scared she was, but for me..i didn’t even feel a thing! I don’t know what’s wrong with me cos throughout the journey, i just feel so sleepy and very much giggling all the way until these two Mat Saleh mens who joined our ride later on called us the ‘ Giggling Group’! No, no..i ain’t being so stuck up about it or anything. Well, the rides were bumpy but i ain’t scared or anything. Am i heartless? Truly speaking, i don’t know! You tell me! Maybe it was because i’ve done much scarier attempt last time when i traveled to New Zealand- bungy jumping. So, that has countered it all, i guess!
(credits to Lyn for below pic)
The dune bashing continues…
And 20 minutes later, we reached our final stop – the desert camp. The camel ride begin, sand boarding, BBQ dinner and belly dancing yo!
This is obviously not a belly dancing. Just a bunch of Pak Arabs dancing to Arab songs, the routine is very much slow moving in circle formation with tossing up the stick to the air.
Right, this is it- the belly dancing! The dancer just gelek gelek on the stage and then later invited some of the guests to join her ‘joget lambak’. Haha!
No, she does not have a flat tummy like Megan Fox. According to some source, the Arabians prefer the one with the belly cos apparently, they found all the ‘spare tyres’ are very much appealing to their eyes and sexy! Yes, pleasing for them but not for me cos i do find it’s distracting. Hehe! The belly dance formation also not so erotic and nothing like ‘Goyang Gerudi Inul‘. In this case, Inul took the throne with no exceptional! Hahaha!
We reached Mariah’s crib around 9.30pm later that night. Had shower, napped and packed our stuffs for the Turkey trip and off we to Istanbul on the same night via Turkish Airlines at 4.30am . We supposed to be flying an hour earlier but our flight got delayed. So, stay tune for the next episode which is the main highlight of the trip – Istanbul a.k.a Isketambola , Turkey !
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