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Travelling 2020

July - November 2020
  • Gemma Craig H
Our travelling plans collide with the global pandemic Covid 19 and take some unexpected turns. Quite literally making it up as we go and travelling to any countries that will take us! Read more
  • Gemma Craig H

List of countries

  • Tanzania Tanzania
  • United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates
  • Maldives Maldives
  • Qatar Qatar
  • Greece Greece
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  • 26.9kkilometers traveled
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  • 84footprints
  • 103days
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  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Maldives Day 11

    August 21, 2020 on the Maldives ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    It was our last night in our beach villa - can't believe 11 days had passed so quickly (when we were practically doing nothing every day)!

    Our lovely cleaner Ahmed left us a beautiful surprise for our last night with flowers all over the bed. It must have taken him ages to arrange ❤️Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Maldives Day 12

    August 22, 2020 on the Maldives ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Water Villa 💙

    We decided to treat ourselves on the last two days to one of the water villas and it was amazing! A shaded decking with a day bed, sun loungers, hot tub and steps down into the ocean!

    We checked in just after 10 and spent a few hours relaxing and cooling off in the ocean before heading to the gym. We grabbed lunch at the Italian restaurant again and returned to our villa with left over pizza and a bottle of sparkling wine. We enjoyed the booze and the rest of the afternoon on our terrace whilst playing a few games of cards.

    Lucky for Craig, the evening was a back to back sporting delight with Tottenham playing followed by the boxing. We had a lovely dinner at the lagoon restaurant again and even ventured out to the bar for Karaoke.

    Craig's addition to the post - Under strict instructions from Gemma that if at any point she feels forced into doing Karaoke she would leave immediately haha    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Maldives Day 13

    August 23, 2020 on the Maldives ⋅ ⛅ 40 °C

    We woke up on our last full day and headed straight down for our breakfast. I am going to miss the 3 course breakfast of cereal, omelette beans and toast then pancakes with syrup (although I am pretty sure my body won't)....

    After breakfast I had the strange idea of riding our rubber ring from our water villa into the shore. The thought was, I would end up somewhere close to the watersports place and could book paddle boarding up for that afternoon. Turned out after close to an hour of drifting in that general direction, and with sunburn starting to kick in, that I wasn't going to make it!! It ended with Gemma walking into the sea and calling me back in from playing like an angry mum!

    With the boxing not finishing until 330am local time I took full advantage of our lovely new villas daybed by laying in it for most of the day! We livened up for our paddle boarding at 3pm which was so much harder than the last time because of the choppier waters, we made if back to our water villa for some pictures and swam over plenty of stingrays on our way!

    We had a drink at the beach bar afterwards and then headed back to our villa to sit on the terrace until sunset - it was a perfect end to the trip!

    Our waitor Shiaan set up a lovely table for our last dinner and we said our goodbyes and got an early night, ready for a 530am start in the morning!    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 1

    August 24, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 40 °C

    We got a wake up call at 530am and we're told to head to the restaurant as they were laying us on a special early breakfast, was unexpected and a final nice touch from a lovely resort! They even came down to the boat port to wave us off!

    The flight was very quiet and comfortable again, still yet to fly with anyone sitting next to us on this trip!

    Dubai Airport transition was the smoothest I've ever had and we were onto a metro to our hotel about 20 minutes after landing! We got straight to our hotel and dropped bags before heading out to the huge mall and for the Burj Khalifa!

    Walking to the metro from the hotel was fine and nowhere near as unbearably hot as I was expecting, even in trousers. Although the air-conditioning from the station was welcome after a 15 minute walk! The mall and burj khalifa are linked with the metro via walkways with aircon and airport style walking escalators so all good.

    The view from the top was brilliant and it was unreal to see the changes in skyline in only the last 10/15 years... Money eh!

    We settled on a Lebanese restaurant in the mall, Karam Bierut for dinner as we both fancied a change after 2 weeks of pretty similar foods in maldives and it was very nice, they had an outside space which backed on to the dubai fountain show which was great to watch after dinner.

    We took a picture from the top of the Burj of a Marina Bay Sands Singapore style building which had a rooftop pool - nobody we asked in the restaurant knew it but our taxi driver did and took a detour to show us. It was 'Address Skyline' and it seems to be on the plan for our last night...

    We got back to the hotel early and crashed out after a very long day!    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 2

    August 25, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 38 °C

    After a long catch up on sleep for us both I set off to find a golf course and a haircut whilst Gem exercised and waited for our laundry collection....

    We ventured out that evening to Jebel Ali Village where my friends sister Alysha lives, she cooked and told us some things to see/do and it was great to get an insight into regular Dubai life... (also Ibn Buttata Mall which they lived next to was as close to a must visit as any mall can be)Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 3

    August 26, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ⛅ 38 °C

    After a cooked family meal and an early night we both woke up pre 7am feeling fresh!!

    So to take advantage we decided to beat the heat and headed straight for Jumeirah Mosque...

    Afterwards we taxied to Zabeel Park and had a short walk around whilst we waited for the frame to open.. The Dubai Frame was a bargain for £10 each and turned out to be a fascinating insight between the old and new Dubai. The top had a clear glass walkway showcasing the sheer drop below, my legs weren't steady on the first few steps!

    We had to head back to the hotel to collect our laundry and ended up relaxing for a while..

    By evening we taxied to The Penthouse at Five for the sunset/city views... And they definitely did not disappoint! As we left Gem heard the staff talking about a certain Sheikh? And as we approached the lift, said Sheikh plus bodyguards were also waiting... He let Gem in first and said 'ladies first...' times are changing! And on the way down he welcomed us to dubai and joked about us also being rich as we're from London.

    From here we headed to Barasti Beach Bar to watch my friend play volleyball and to take in the city views from poolside!    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 4

    August 27, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 36 °C

    We were picked up at 6.45am for our desert Safari by our driver Faisal from Arabian Adventures, (a local from Dubai). We could already tell he was a character when he started laying into his UK cousins' thick Brummie accents!

    After a 40 minute drive we had arrived at the Dubai desert conservation reserve (a desert privately owned by Emirates). We spent the first hour spotting wildlife (gazelles, onyx, lizards and birds).

    Once the safari was over we were taken on a thrilling dune ride which felt a bit like a roller coaster. Next we tried sand boarding which was brilliant. After this was the dreaded camel ride. Craig's whole body was shaking with nerves but he did it in the end - horses next 😉

    The final part of our day was a lovely breakfast in the desert - it was so calm and peaceful. Again we had the whole experience to ourselves, another COVID bonus!    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 5

    August 28, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ⛅ 40 °C

    Friday is the first day of the weekend in the UAE and we were told by Craig's friend Aleysha that we had to try a Friday Brunch - they were all bottomless booze and great value for Dubai. After a bit of research we settled on Cargo in Pier 7 on Dubai marina which was meant to have great views over the marina.

    We weren't disappointed - we had a 4 course Asian meal of sushi, dumplings, noodles and katsu curry with unlimited beers & passion fruit margaritas for an equivalent of £40 each. We only managed about a quarter of the food but took the leftovers away with us 🙂

    The music was great and the restaurant was lively so it was the perfect afternoon. We were back at the hotel by around 4.30 and Craig was asleep by 6 🤣    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 6

    August 29, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 37 °C

    We were both up early again so decided to head to Deria which is Dubai's old town. We went straight to the spice Souk where the first vendor pounced and showed us around his shop, offering us tasters and smells of the teas spices and chocolates. After paying probably over the odds for some tea and dried fruits we decided we'd had enough of the spice Souk.

    Next we took the Dhow boat over Dubai creek which was great! With the temperature already 35+ we stopped to cool down in The Arabian Tea House which was beautifully decorated inside with lovely staff!

    We spent the rest of the morning wondering around the traditional Al Fahadi streets. Once we'd worked up an appetite we stopped for £1 Vada Pavs (spiced potato burgers) for lunch in Veg World - a traditional Indian restaurant with amazing reasonably priced food!

    The afternoon's activity was the world's longest zip line (a compromise on my end to a sky dive). It was equally terrifying and amazing. The terrifying part was lying on the edge of the building whilst being strapped to the zip line. The staff said 'don't look down if you're nervous' but there's no where else to look!! As soon as the zip line started it was brilliant and we both loved every minute!

    We made the most of our adrenaline high and got a taxi to the Burj Al Arab beach and took a 5km stroll all the way down to kite beach for the sunset. Exhausted after this, we went back to the hotel and slept well!!    Read more

  • Gemma Craig HGemma Craig HTravelling 2020

    Dubai Day 7

    September 1, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ⛅ 36 °C

    We started our day with a trip to the Tanzanian Embassy of Dubai, we naively thought they would be able to offer us some help/advice on our visa application but with the generic 'just look on our website' answers we might as well have been talking to robots!

    From there we headed to Atlantis Aquaventure Waterpark, and with the local kids going back to school today it was perfectly quiet around the whole park!

    Theres little to no pictures from the day as Gemma, Phones and that much water are a recipe for disaster! But we did have the best time, without a single queue for anything we got to ride everything, most twice, and still managed to relax on their beach for the afternoon as well.

    The best (scariest) two rides were the 'leap of faith' an almost vertical straight drop and 'Poseidon's revenge' where you start standing on a platform which is pulled away and you free fall for a few seconds before continuing the rest of the slide.

    We got a taxi home and stayed local for our dinner. We found an Indian restaurant called Raju Omlet which had a cool interior designed to look like a local Indian street that served the nicest egg based Indian Dishes - we ate loads and payed £16 for the privilege, we'll definitely be going back!    Read more

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