Just deserts

The run out to Hatta went very well. After the usual complaining from the kids about an early start we hit the road in our Lancer mean machine, loaded with the essentials of a 3 litre bottle of water, the passports, Jacks PSP and two Nintendo DS Lites. Its about 100km from Dubai across to the Oman border with the UAE, and the features of note from the guidebook are "The Big Red Dune", carpet and pot buying opportunities, mountains and the Hatta Fort Hotel, built at the site of a pass through the mountains to Oman where the British once set up a fort, presumably in the days of Lawrence of Arabia.

Once out in the sticks any signs of lifebecame "road towns", a linear row of scruffy looking shantys selling things at roadside, mostly wheels and oil. We reached the big dunes, where the main dual carriageway road has sleeping policemen across which I wasn't expecting, all the traffic went from 120 kmh to a crawl and a queue which took me by surprise. Tents and compounds next to the road are filled with quad bikes for hire to let you go "dune bashing" and chelsea tractors were to be seen ploughing up and over the sand. I think the aim with the biggest dune is to tank your way straight to the top and with enough momentum to get there, as we saw one vehicle stuck about 50 feet from the summit and the occupant walking the last stretch.

Close to Hatta we pulled over at a carpets and pots market roadside and haggled three indian guys down on a carpet for the lounge. We got a 2m x 3m persian style rug at about 1/3 of the starting price, but I still think we'll see it cheaper next time we go to Carrefour. The main guy had a massive black beard and a crookedy eye and did all his offering with a big old Casio desktop calculator, and absolute classic patter "How much you pay? How much you pay?" and chasing after us when I kept saying it was far too much and we'd have to leave and come back another time. I don't think there was any way he was going to let us leave without a carpet and a pot, we could have been his only sale that day, as the road to Hatta was lined with more markets all with what looked like exactly the same gear.

After a bureaucratic 60 minutes getting visas to enter Oman at the border checkpoint, we drove back through "no mans land" to the Dubai checkpoint, renewed our UAE visas including my residency Visa- hurrah! First step towards a full residency permit, next is a medical I think.

We turned into Hatta Fort Hotel, had a nice lunch overlooking the pool then went to the Rock Pool where the kids all swam for a couple of hours. The waterfall was off for maintenance which was a pity, especially as it came back on as we were leaving- Madeleine and Amelia were gutted.

We got back after dark and all the other children in the compound were playing out, wearing their Halloween costumes from the night before, so ours joined in. Met the neighbours from No 2 and No 4- Arturo is a Mexican guy working for a Mexican cement company here, Stephen is Chinese from Nanking and works for a big communications firm Hua Hui? Sounded like Wowee anyway. So the weekend ahead, we are going to sort out registering with a GP clinic and linking Jack with a Hozzy, probably the American Hospital as from its website it has a big specialist diabetes centre.