March 10, 2011 | 
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Thursday 10th March – This is our first morning in Dubai, and after the very dubious experiences in the Hotel in Singapore we are very pleasantly surprised by the great breakfast in the hotel, free wi-fi in the lobby [and dining room] so we had a nice relaxed start to the day enjoying breakfast and catching up on e-mail etc.
We have the Dubai city tour booked in the afternoon, but being us we decide to head out in the morning as well, we are on the local train service to go to Dubai Mall, the train service is awesome, we follow the advice of the steward on the plane and we go for the upgrade to a gold ticket, not that the train is busy but it is only a few extra dirhams [Dhs], so we go to the Mall, this is how you get into the Burj Khalifa and after some searching find the entrance.
However we soon discover this is something we should have booked, we are told they can only allow 300 people up at a time, and one group per hour, the tour 100dhs [about $37 NZD] is fully booked. In fact is fully booked until Sunday, by which time we will be in the UK. You can do the “on-demand” tour 400 dhs [about $147nzd each] but that is to rich for our blood, so we wont be getting to have a look from the top.
So we content ourselves with taking some pictures from outside and have a look around the mall, we thought the Mall of the emirates was large, okay this just takes it up to a whole new level. We do walk around the Mall both inside and out, well we scratch the surface.
While we are in the Gold Souk Michelle bought me a very cool watch, a MotoGP Tissot I have wanted one of these for years, its the 2009 one, and was a real bargain but still a very cool watch.
We spend the morning here and decide to head back to the hotel so we can catch our afternoon tour. we get picked up at the hotel and the tour is a real treat.
We visit a spot where we can get a good view of the Burj Al Arab Hotel. The shots we have are from about as close as you can get to the hotel without a reservation, the cheapest way to get in is to book for afternoon tea, we are told that’s about 450dhs each! so we decide not to do that 
They also tell us that the most expensive drink on the menu is 36,000 dhs for a cocktail served in a gold glass you get to keep, anyway its all way to expensive for us.
We go a mosque for a look around the outside, and the Dubai Museum which is very interesting and we could have spent at least a couple of hours at.
From here we go for a ride across the river on an Abra which is a traditional water taxi, not a Dhow but cool all the same.
Want to se more pics? as always the full deluge of photos are here on Flickr
Posted in Travel Log | 
Tags: Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, Gold Souk, Spice Souk, Worlds Tallest Building | 
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Wednesday 9th March – The next morning was an early start as we were off to the airport again, the airport was pretty seamless and we got checked in no problems. We had a little anxiety as the shuttle appeared to be cutting in tight, and we all know how Michelle hates to be late, but the time was fine in the end and we got on the plane no problems.
Dubai is a different place to go, getting off the plane it is very apparent you are somewhere that is not very English centric. But the process of customs and baggage collection turned out to be all very simple and we quickly cleared customs and go to meet our transit driver.
Although a lot hotter than Singapore it is so dry that the heat is easier to deal with. We get our van to our hotel and after our ¼ star experience we are worried about the hotel, but the Ibis – Mall of the Emirates is GREAT, this is a good solid 3 stars ++ in my book.
The room is lovely with a nice bathroom. We have a brochure from the orient tours guy that dropped us off and we decided to book a couple of tours.
Not being ones to want to waste any time we grab a quick shower and head over the road to the “Mall of the Emirates” which is the one with the ski slope in it. We go and have a lovely Lebanese diner at a table looking over the ski slope, this is just weird in a mall, and the food is awesome.
Now If you know us you know that a mall is kinda wasted on us, but for a couple of Kiwi’s, this is one hell of a mall, WOW, Westfield Albany eat your heart out!
We walk around until we are dead tired and our feet hurt and we decide to head back to the Hotel for some sleep.
Tuesday 8th March – We started the day with breakfast from the hotel, YUK YUK YUK .. what a terrible breakfast, did I say the hotel was ½ a star, okay should have been a ¼ star.
So we hit the road and despite a light drizzle we decided to walk to the train station, not a bad walk, and we were off on the train again, this time we went across town and then got on a bus. Public transport in Singapore is very good, easy to use and super clean. The bus ride from the train station to the zoo is not too long and pretty simple to navigate so for the zoo it really isn’t necessary to go on a tour, not so sure about using the bus for the night safari, you should check the hours of running but for the day zoo, it easy.
So the Zoo, well Michelle is the Zoo junkie but it is a pretty cool zoo. I think they have put a lot of work into conditioning the animals to eat and spend most of their time close to the paths. The moneys are very close, so close that you have to think that if you were to tease them and piss one of they could actually get out and have a go at you.
This must be an illusion though as I am sure if that was the case by now they would have done so.
The rainforest enclosure is amazing with the Lima’s just loose amongst the visitors; one actually licked Michelle’s hand then walked across her to get along the rail. I must confess I found this a little disconcerting as of course although they are obviously pretty tame, they could always get pissed off and have a go..
We walked our feet off here and then went back to the ¼ star cupboard [hotel] to catch a shower and change.
We decided to go into china town for diner on our last night in Singapore, Michelle was a little worried about this so we went in early, however it is a pretty amazing place full of street markets and food places, crowded but I felt safe enough.
We decided to go to a restaurant here for diner, we chose a restaurant rather than a street vendor mainly as we were starting to run short on Singapore dollars so wanted to put it on the plastic.
I had the speciality of the house, Chilli Crab and Michelle had Duck Breast with plum sauce, they were both delicious.
From here we jumped back on the train and headed across town to check out the largest fountain, which is pretty impressive, we had a bit of a look around the mall and then headed back to the hotel.
Monday 7th March – Despite the room being a musty closet and the walls being so thin you can hear every other noise in the place we both fully K.O. when we get to bed and sleep in until 10:00 am and miss breakfast, so in the absence of tea or coffee we decide to get out of the closet and see some of Singapore.
We ask at reception and the metro is a ten minute walk up the road so decide despite the heat to walk there. It is not a bad walk and over the coming days we will do this a few times, and the Singapore metro is awesome.
The tickets are cheap and the service is clean and efficient, I highly recommend this as a way to get around in Singapore. This is the first time Michelle has ever used such a foreign public transport system and there is some trepidation but she soon gets confidence we will not be lost forever in the maze of Singapore and starts to relax and enjoy the experience.
We are however here again in a place using a map with virtually no detail and trying to find Raffle’s Hotel so we can have a nice cup of tea. Of course Raffle’s hotel is nowhere near the Raffle’s station, and after much up and down and across and under the road we get to what we think is the right direction, of course by now we are both getting pretty overheated and decide the best plan is to grab a taxi.
This transport combination is a winner in Singapore, get the metro close to where you want to be, walk to the right side of the road and hail a taxi.
Anyway we get to the hotel which is very impressive, and enjoy a leisurely walk around its gardens.
We check out the restaurants and decide on the café which serves local food and go for a mixture of Dim Sums which are delicious, service is great and the price is quite reasonable. Then we head to another part of the café for some deserts Michelle spied on the way in, a lovely little chocolate cake with gold leaf, also a very high end cup of tea with a cotton tea bag.
From here we decided to go and check out the Singapore flyer, get a really good view of the city, so jump in a taxi and head across. The Flyer is quite an impressive piece of engineering and the view is really quite stunning. The price is not too bad so I would put it on any “things to do in Singapore” list.
On the way in Michelle spotted a “Fish Spa” so on the way out we dropped in and she had some fish nibble on her feet. They are a specific species of fish that likes to eat dead skin so you clean your feet and put them in the water and its feeding time, the all swarm in and nibble all the dead skin off. There are two different sizes and you work up from one to the other. I didn’t have a go but Michelle thoroughly enjoyed it.
From here we headed back to the hotel to catch our tour for the night safari. A quick shower and change and back on the minibus, quite ironically we went back to the Singapore flyer to get the coach to the Night Safari.
The Singapore Night Safari is the first Night zoo in the world, just next door to the Singapore Zoo and they do move some animals between the exhibits. Would I recommend the tour? Well the Zoo is good but I don’t think the tour bought much to the deal and the meal was nothing to special. So go to the night safari, but I can’t see the need to be on a tour. I would go for the ride on the little tram it gets you to some places you can’t walk to. Of course f you don’t go on the tour I am not sure how you get to and from the night zoo, we did go to the day zoo the next day on a bus and train but not sure how late at night that runs.
So after this rather full on first day in Singapore we got back to our “cupboard” and really didn’t care about the room again we just hit the sack and crashed
Sunday 6th March – Sunday morning we decided to do a little sightseeing in Melbourne city before our flight on to Singapore, We picked up Rhian and headed into the city for breakfast together and then off on a walk along the waterfront, around federation square and then a tram ride ending up at the marina where there was a show a shine on for an American car club.
We headed out to the Airport and got our flight to Singapore, this is the first long flight for Michelle but I think the 7 hours went by pretty quick and we were getting of the plane in Singapore.
The temperature in Melbourne is of course fairly similar to Auckland but Singapore is hot hot hot .. and so humid it’s like walking into a Sauna.
We clear customs and immigration with no hassles and we are met by Brad from Orient Tours who are doing the transfers for us, Brad has a crash helmet on the seat beside, Is a keen supermotard competitor, national champion no less, so we spend the journey to the hotel talking motorcycles and swap contacts so we can catch up if gets to Europe to ride as he hopes to.
The Hotel, Value Hotel Thomson has a pretty flash lobby, but the room is a closet, no window, yes no external window at all, it is very modern but the walls have some light mould patches and the room has a damp musty feel, the bathroom is tiny and a completely wet area for the shower, this is at best a ½ star Hotel if it looks flash from the outside.
It does however make us add a new question to booking a hotel; Does the room have a window? I know you can’t open the window but there is something about a completely internal room that feels kind of claustrophobic.
There is no fridge to keep anything cool and no Tea or Coffee facilities, but we are totally beat so we crash and decide to consider the options the next day.