Today we leave Dubai. But first, let’s go take a look around “our neighbourhood”. We will go back to what we saw last night, walk around a bit, and then leave. We checked online and we can leave whenever we want because there isn’t any restrictive schedule. Let’s cross our fingers that that’s true!

So we head back out in the direction we were last night thinking it would be a quick visit and then maybe cross the river, maybe not. Who knows. My partner was so wrong.

Turns out that we were in the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood last night. Not entirely sure how “historic” it actually is since everything in Dubai seems brand new, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s enjoy it all the same. And, we just got lucky that we even noticed it. We were about to walk right by when we noticed some people going into this alley, thankfully we followed the people. It was nice, there were a lot of small, tiny museums. Some paid, some free. We didn’t have much time in the grand scheme of things, so we went to as many as we could on our way. We will immediately break hearts and tell you that we didn’t go to the coffee museum. We’re not really coffee people, and the museum ends with a sampling of coffees. This was also the end of our day in the neighbourhood… so we had to get going. But now onto what we actually did do…

As soon as you walk in to the historic neighbourhood you start seeing the little houses that are museums. The museums show things like stamps, coins, architecture, seafaring, architecture, and art. And there’s a mosque as well, of course.

The coolest museum was by far the coin museum. It had a looooot of coins. Lots of rare ones. They had coins from all over the world like India, UK, and all of the countries of the region. One of the regions were Andalusia, the region in Spain. Why? Because the Islamic Empire reached all the way into Spain at one time. So big. Reminds us of the map we saw of the Mongol Empire while we were in Mongolia. But even more interesting coins were these.

These are coins from the Umayyad Caliphate, and they are supposed to be the coins of revolutionaries. What makes them revolutionary coins? Well, during the Umayyad Caliphate there were revolutionaries that issued their own identical dirhams than those in official circulation, but added quotes to the coins to differentiate them. Abdullah Bin Moaweyah added “No reward do I ask of you for this except to be kind to me for kinship with you”. Al-Dhahhak Ibn Qais Al-Kharj added “There is no judgement except for Allah” on his coins. Crazy to think that there were coins being made everywhere like this!

And then we walked around the rest of the area just looking around.

And then we went to the art gallery where some of the artists were working on their creations. But, for us, the “real” art gallery was in the area around the art gallery. Some of these were amazing.

Well, that’s enough of the historical district proper. We leave and walk along the creek one last time before heading through the souk. We didn’t have time on our trip to take any of the ferries that are part of the Dubai public transport system, but that’s okay. Looking from the shore is enough for this trip.

Well, back to the hotel, one last look at our “view” and then we were gone from our hotel!

Well… now we can fill you in. All we’re doing now is going back to yesterday’s bus station because we have decided to continue the trip to the next Emirate to the West, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Online it said that the bus leaves every 15 minutes, and you won’t have to wait more than 15 minutes because the busses are never that full. Well… do you think we will make the next bus in 15 minutes…? Keep in mind that the bus in on the otherrrrr side of the building, and that’s the line for it.

Well… it took us over an hour. Just standing in line, waiting, waiting, waiting. We asked around and they told us that this isn’t normal, it’s just because of the holidays around New Year’s Eve. Just our luck. But that’s okay. We at least got on our bus!

We were almost devastated though. We waited and waited… and then a bus showed up and we got sooooo close, one person away from the bus, and then it was full. Nooooo. Another 30 minutes… But for some reason another bus pulled in right at that moment. So, by the time we left we had been at the station for 1.5 hours. Who knows how long these other people will be waiting.

It was a pretty uneventful ride. We saw a few of the buildings of Dubai.

And then? Nothiiiiiing. It was incredible. We had seen it from the airplane, but it’s different when it is on either side of you as you’re cruising along on the bus. Nothing. Just flat sand.

Unfortunately for us, it was already dark when we pulled into Abu Dhabi. We had gone to the bus station in Dubai at 3 pm so that we could arrive with daylight in Abu Dhabi, but that didn’t quite work out for us. No problem though. We will just have to start looking around in the daylight tomorrow. So we get off the bus and go into the station.

We went inside and asked a security guard if he knew how to get to our hotel. We knew that a bunch of city busses passed by here, but we weren’t quite sure about which to take. After some help from them, we knew where to go, ish. We got our new public transport card in the station (the Nol Card is only for Dubai, here we need the Hafilat Card), and went out to the street. Wrong side of the street. The bus driver told us to cross the street to wait for the bus going in our direction. Luckily on the other side of the street there were two bus inspectors and they helped us get on the right bus in the right direction. Easy.

Just a little side note that we found interesting; on all of the busses and metros we have been on there has been preferred seating for women, children, pregnant women, and seniors, but on the busses in Abu Dhabi the front of the bus is for women and the back for men. All of the men get on the back of the bus through the middle or back door, and the women through the front door. On this particular bus the back was paaaacked with people while the front was fine. Very interesting.

On the bus a Filipino man asked us if we knew where we were going. We told him the name of our hotel and he said he was getting off at the same stop and he would show us the way. Perfect. So we just rode the bus, got off, and he showed us where our hotel was. Great.

It is now 8 pm, but when has that stopped my partner before? In yesterday’s post we told you we got back to Dubai at 10 pm, and still managed to explore. He should probably just sit and rest, but when has he ever done what he should do? Off we go.

Our hotel is very close to the Corniche, so of course that’s where we head to first. Definitely worth it. As we’re approaching even the pedestrian underpasses are beautiful. We hope that this is a good sign that this will be a good stay in Abu Dhabi.

And then we saw a HUGE fountain. The fountain is in the colours of the flag of the UAE and has 7 arms for the 7 Emirates that make up the union. Especially important when Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE. Very beautiful.

And the beauty just keeps going. They really care about making their urban landscape beautiful.

Now, there are just too many nice views to stop and explain all of them to you, so instead here are a few of us walking around the Corniche area in Abu Dhabi. Enjoy them.

And then, the final thing we did tonight was… a maze. We did actually do it, and we did actually go the wrong way. Even though my partner is taller than the walls of the maze, we could still not make it out. So we had some fun at the end of our night and felt a little like Alice in Wonderland in the Queen’s mazes.

But, of course, we were successful in the end. This is our proof from the central tower looking over the maze.

And then it was time to go back to our hotel for the night. As we were leaving others were getting turned around in the maze. At least we weren’t the only ones! Good night from Abu Dhabi!