Al Bidyah Mosque

Al Bidyah Mosque is a really old little place of worship with unique architecture

Tourists are welcomed inside but of course you have to take of your shoes and if you're a woman cover your hair

The imam

The view from the watch towers

Wadi Wurayah

A wadi is a huge dry river bed

The canyons were formed thousands of years ago before Arabia became a desert

This particular one has a small waterfall

It's quite rare so it's pretty crowded in the weekend

There is a paved road along the wadi ending on a cliff above the waterfall, people scale the cliff or just drive along the bottom of the wadi if they have a 3WD

The Hotel

That's more like it! The Gulf of Oman :)

The towel pavilion and daily weather data display

The foyer

Bliss!!

The Road Trip

On driving through the emirates you find the most creative round abouts

They certainly love their roundabouts preferring them to traffic lights

They're usually huge

And show the local love of arabic culture and history

This even extends to a few petrol stations

On leaving any town there is always a sign like this

And then you drive along a motorway lined for miles and miles with palm trees, sometimes you see farms through the trees

But at some point the trees stop and all you see is the desert - and sometimes a few camels!

The super cool panorama function on dad's camera - spot the camels :)

Soon the landscape changes and the flat desert becomes a sea of dunes

A popular sport is to go dune driving

But we got hungry..

That fish wash actually pretty good

...

Continuing on it got pretty sandy

That's a natural speed bump right there!

Another thing to watch out for...

And there they are!

Awww

Awwwwww

But soon the police came to herd them along off the road

toot! toot

toot! toot! toot!

haha! so cute!

Later the landscape changes again

And we drive through the mountains

We stop at a roadside commercial centre, there's dad talking to an Afghan carpet merchant

An antique store

with more carpets

But eventually we cross the mountains and reach the sea!

Despite the heat, nobody is swimming. We have to drive on to the hotel :)

Al Ain Oasis and National Museum

Al Ain Oasis is an old date palm plantation

individual orchards are separated by mud brick walls

they make up a labyrinth of walkways

but you can walk into the plots and check how the trees are grown

the dates grow in bunches

and in a crown at the top of the palm

they are irrigated using an anciet falaj system

 

there's a scarecrow here and there

and a contraption to catch pests?

workers take care of the trees

and some actually live within the oasis itself it seems

each gate has information about the palms grown there

and there is the occasional fruit tree too, there's dad checking out the mangoes

it's a nice place to get away from the heat and noise of the city

Just outside the oasis is the national museum and a small fort

various structures imitate the sheiks grounds in the old days

there's more about the Bedouin lifestyle in the museum

mother and baby

education

water

and hospitality