More fun times in Dubai - September 2011

A busy month of September in Dubai, so thought we would share a few more photos of "home". Our friend Vanessa arrived for a week as part of her 6 month tour of the world, so we showed her the real Dubai, i.e. partytown. Starting off with an awesome pool party at Nasimi on the Palm, full of clubbers in bikinis and boardies. More photos of the tallest building in the world from the following day.A trip into "old Dubai" for a ride on the creek and through the spice market.One of the many nights on the town, this one at a cuban bar. Down to Abu Dhabi so we could get dressed up at the Grand Mosque.
More of the 5 star hotels we like to walk around and pretend we can afford to stay at.
Dubai has been going crazy with these "Cobone" deals, that you buy online in advance for all sorts of things like dinners, massages, hotel stays, etc. The previous trip down to Yas Island was a Cobone deal, and we had found one in August for a track day at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi where they have the F1 race in November.

So we booked it in for late September, and took the Lumina (i.e. left hand drive Holden Commodore) for a blast. We had 3 lots of half hour sessions, which Warren drove and Ange rode passenger.

This is us in white, about to overtake the red Astin Martin down the pit straight...

In the it garages that the F1 guys will be in next month

Pergamum, Ephesus and Kusadasi - 1st to 3rd of September 2011

Our issues with Troy two days ago meant we had to cram in a bit more touristing than originally planned on the way from Foca to Kusadasi. And having to replace our tire before getting going didnt help, although thankfully was easy enough.

We backtracked north for an hour or so to Pergamum, the pre-eminent medical centre of ancient Rome.Up the hill to the acropolis, thankfully able to drive up the hill, as it was a pretty warm morning!

Back almost past Foca to the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean, and certainly the best we saw in Turkey, Ephesus. A fairly long drive, and lonely for Warren with the girls passed out for most of the journey!

Ephesus is just around the corner from our destination: Kusadasi. On arrival we learnt that we were staying in an all inclusive package type holiday place, i.e. all the food and drink you can stomach. Arriving in time for a quick swim, the girls quickly drunk them out of white wine while Warren had a couple of beers waiting for the buffet dinner to start. The food wasnt the highlight, but was "free" so mustn't complain!

We had 2 nights in Kusadasi as well, planned to be our days of R&R at the end of our trip. So we slept in, spent the day by the pool, and worked on our tans.

At night we cabbed it back into the centre of town for some dinner and a few beverages, plus a spot of knock off t-shirt and handbag shopping.

Our final day on tour was far from the most exciting - we had an hour or so car ride back north to Izmir airport to drop off our hire car and catch a hour and half flight back to Istanbul. We'd given ourselves lots of time in case there were issues with the first internal flight, so had a pretty hefty wait in Istanbul before Nic flew back to London and us back to Dubai.

Foca - 30th August to 1st September 2011

The road south from Troy to Foca was a long one, but the closer and closer we got the more dramatic the scenery - plenty of stops along the way for photos!We arrived in Foca as the sun was setting, and so again dumped the bags and the car before walking back around the bay and into town. Foca seemed to be the place for local Turks to holiday, and all the little restaurants lining the harbour were overflowing. We'd planned two nights in Foca, with a day on a boat in between, so spent our first evening booking the boat tour and having a scrummy dinner harbourside.
Back into town the following day to jump onboard the Gulay for our day in the sun.It was an amazing day spent lying on the top deck catching some rays, jumping overboard and having a few cheeky beers. We departed around 11am and returned about 5pm, so a good solid day of sunshine and relaxing.
A relatively quiet night of cards and dinner at our hotel capped off arguably the best day on tour.