Dubai and Home

It was a four hour flight to Dubai followed by more than an hour standing in line in the immigration queue, then another wait for a bus to the hotel, which turned out to be not much further than round the corner. We had planned to spend the afternoon on the balcony of the hotel or even round the swimming pool. Sadly there were two Copthorne Hotels in Dubai and the one we had been looking at on the internet was the city centre one. The airport Copthorne, where we were staying, had neither balconies nor pools. However the receptionist directed us to a place where we could sit outside and have a drink. Tom thought he was hearing things as it sounded like 'The Irish Village' but that was indeed where we ended up. It was a huge Irish theme pub in a complex that included a grass sitting area around a pool, a shopping centre, and the Dubai Tennis Centre. We had arrived right in the middle of the big Dubai tennis tournament, so we rubbed shoulders with all the tennis fans who were there to see the semi-finals of the Ladies competition, and were given free hats sponsored by Jacob's Creek. The men will be playing next week. I don't suppose Andy Murray or Roger Federer will have to wait as long in the immigration queue at the airport as we did .

We took advantage of a 4 hour bus trip round Dubai in the evening. It took us to all the main sights, the Palm, the Burj-al-Arab, the dancing fountains (very impressive) under the Burj Khalifa which is the tallest building in the world as we were reminded several times, and finally the gold souk which shows the real religion round here. We may never be here again so it was a worthwhile tour. All that remained was to go to bed early, get up at 5 a.m. and take an 8 hour flight home. It was great to be met by Rona and Silvana at the airport and collect our car.

What a month we have had. India has certainly given us plenty to think about and we may well be back in the future. There's so much else to see and experience. In the next few hours we'll try to add a few photographs to the recent blogs, so don't forget to check back.