Christmas 2021 – The UAE Way

Our Christmas present this year was to have my big brother and his lovely partner, who is also my friend, visit us in Al Ain. Although a Muslim country, the UAE schools and universities do close for this time as it coincides with the end of the fall semester. So, it is convenient for us that Christmas is at the end of the year!

They arrived the day before my holidays actually started, so they went off to a local hotel to enjoy the pool and poolside service! The next day, we started touring around. Since we had only been in Al Ain ourselves for a few months, we had not seen many of the local attractions. So, our first stop was the Al Ain oasis. This is a bona fide oasis, but has now been swallowed up by the city. It has been farmed for millennia.

Lights along the ways

We spent some time driving around to the various cool spots in Al Ain. Al Ain has a rich history because of its oasis. It actually has several oases that spread out from the base of Jebel Hafit for several kilometers. As you drive around Al Ain, you can still see large areas that are sectioned off and dedicated to cultivating date palms. These oases made Al Ain a wealthy town and so it needed to be defended.

Al Ain Oasis Palace Museum and Fort

This fort doubled as the palace for many years and Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the country lived here for a few years way back in the day. Inside, there are some great displays of how they lived. The grounds themselves are quite lovely as well.

Near the residence areas

Fresh coffee – a true Arabic tradition

We also ventured out along the UAE border with Oman to see an old fort that in its day, must have been a dusty and very lonely place indeed.

Segia Fort

View from Segia Fort

View from Segia Fort toward Jebel Hafit

However, the most impressive fort, at least in my mind was Al Jahili Fort. It has been restored to its full potential, and has a beautiful and extensive park attached to it.

Jahili at dusk

Jahili from the park.

And of course, as you might notice from previous posts, no trip to the UAE is complete without a trip to the local camel racetrack. Al Ain has several, so we went to one on the road to Abu Dhabi, just behind the Al Ain airport.

Blue skies and sandy sand

Camels in their pen

Jebel Hafit way off in the distance

On another day before Christmas, we took a day trip to Dubai to visit the Dubai Expo 2020. I won’t say much about it, but you can watch a short video I put together.

For Christmas, our excellent friends Kym and Morris Tull invited all of us to stay with them in Dubai. That was a great Christmas gift as well! We drove down on Christmas eve and stayed until Boxing Day.

The first day an evening were spent in good cheer, sitting around the table, enjoying some outdoor weather and having a great chat!

Hanging around

At the table for Christmas cheer!

Christmas morning, Chris, Anneke and I jumped in our car and took off to go exploring around Dubai. Our first stop was to see the beach where Chris and Anneke tied the knot all those years ago. This is not the exact same spot, but we were very close! There have been a lot of changes but I think we were within 50 feet of the same spot.

Wedding day – 2007

Christmas Day 2021

We then did a drive along Beach road, stopping at Kite beach for a walk …

Dubai from Kite beach

… and out on to the Palm Jumeirah for a look back at the Dubai Marina skyline.

Dubai Marina and Cruise Ship terminal

After an amazing dinner and evening, we left Boxing day morning and went off to the Dubai mall and the Burj Khalifa.

The Burj Khalifa

Chris and Anneke did the tour, and then off we went back to Al Ain. By then we were running out of days! We did squeeze in a few more activities however. One was a drive around Al Ain and a sundowner trip to Jebel Hafit. Being a Muslim country, we didn’t actually have any sundowners up there, and because it was actually quite chilly, we stayed long enough to get some cool photos and then headed on back to the garden for those sundowners.

Sun going down over Al Ain

Setting into the desert dust

Chris and Anneke’s flight home was at 8:00 AM on January 1st. So, they felt it would be best if they stayed at the airport hotel and avoided a 2 hour drive from our villa to the airport at 3:00 AM. It was a great idea for a couple reasons, one of which there was a big rain and lightening storm over Abu Dhabi and the roads were a mess that night.

So, we went to Abu Dhabi on the 31st and spent the day driving around looking at the sights. One essential stop is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

Prayer grounds.

Detail of marble inlay

They are very particular about how you are dressed. They don’t want anyone offending anyone else. Men need to cover their legs and shoulders. Women …

Covered

As a final closing comment, I would like to share a photo of a present I bought for the two of us, but maybe really for me! I have always wanted a beautiful inlaid backgammon board form Iran. So, before we drove to the airport to pick Chris and Anneke up, we went to the Sharjah Blue Souq and picked out this board.