Location: United Arab Emirates
Date: 2nd to 12 November, 2008
A different holiday this year with 10 days or so in the UAE. Abu Dhabi was our base but we did venture to Al Ain and north to Fujairah and Dubai for a couple of days away. There were numerous highlights, but for me it had to be the Burj Dubai and Dubai Mall Aquarium - two stunning feats of engineering that really do have to be seen to be believed. For the Tower itself, the stats are mindblowing. At the time we visited it had passed 700m (2300ft) comfortably breaking several records but was still not officially the tallest building in the world as it was not complete. (in fact, no one knows how tall it will eventually be as the constructors have not yet announced the figure). The Mall will have 1200 shops and the aquarium has the world's largest single-piece acrylic viewing panel (32.8m x 8.3m and 750mm thick; 245,600kg).
For the pictures from Al AIn zoo, I can only apologise for the poor captioning as I'm not an expert in wildlife.
Travelling out in style on an Etihad A340-600.
Sunset over northern Iraq.
Jebel Hafeet mountain in Al Ain.
The view from Jebel Hafeet.
Jebel Hafeet.
Jebel Hafeet.
Jebel Hafeet. Our destinataion was the Mercure hotel on the right of the picture.
Looking southwest with the changing colour of the desert sand.
Evidence of the work to make the mountain top car park.
Lunar landscape on desent from Jebel hafeet.
Flamingoes in Al Ain zoo.
Hornbills taking a drink.
Two of the zoo's rhinos having a stand-off.
Cheetahs.
Meerkat.
Meerkat sentry.
The tigers were fantastic and really got close to the crowd.
Tiger.
Tiger.
Lioness.
Moonshot taken in Fujairah.
Le Meridien hotel, Fujairah.
Sunrise and Snoopy Island.
Sunrise.
Through the mountains heading for Masafi and Dubai.
Having been challenged to photograph a couple of camels, I duly obliged.
A6-ERC Emirates A340-500.
Cathay Pacific Cargo 747-400 freighter B-HUH.
VT-AIE Air India Express 737-800.
Dubai old and new.
Emirates 777-300 A6-EBR.
A6-EMJ 777-200 of Emirates.
