Ras Al Khaimah

To the main hotel from our suite

It was Chloe's spring break, and we didn't have the time (too early for Jim to take holidays) or the cash (hello, recession), for a trip away, so I booked us into the Hilton Resort and Spa in Ras Al Khaimah, about 70km north of Dubai. I spent hours on the internet, as you do, researching the options, reading gazillions of reviews, and comparing prices and deals, and it all paid off...except for a few clouds on Saturday, we had a glorious time. And the clouds probably saved us from worse sunburns. We sat by the pool, we sat on the beach, we swam and sunned, we read our books, Jim and Chloe jet-skied (while I read my book by the pool), total heaven. And I love that getting away from home for 2 nights can still feel like an entire vacation. We've all vowed to go on nearby mini-breaks several times a year. That's the good thing about living in an area with several small cities, lots of different types of terrain, and beaches on different bodies of water, you can get a good variety of mini-break!

Balcony view

The Hilton was lovely; we had a "beach villa junior suite", which turned out to be a one-bedroom decorated in lovely Arabian style (lots of heavy moorish wood and metal light fixtures) in a small building with 2 suites on the ground floor and 2 on the second. We were on the second floor, with a nice big balcony and a view of the private cove. The resort is quite new, and parts are still under construction, but it didn't bother us...the only construction you could hear was some rocks being dumped in the next bay where they were making a breakwater. There were several different restaurants and bars, extortionately priced of course, but we still liked the swim-up bar and the beachside cafe. This morning's buffet breakfast was nearly ruined by some very loud Italians, who seemed to all know each other but sat at different tables and shouted back and forth. I even knew enough Italian to know their conversation was totally inane. But then we soothed our souls on the beach for another couple of hours before checking out and all was fine. Ahhh.

We snagged a cabana by the pool

On the way back to Dubai we drove around in the desert some, and the area around Ras Al Khaimah is actually surprisingly green. There were lots of irrigated farms, and TONS of livestock; goats, cows, donkeys, sheep, and my favorite, camels. I get a total kick seeing camels by the side of the road. We even saw a camel racetrack, but sadly no races. Chloe drove in the sand some, she's quite good. I don't have much interest in actually driving off the roads, the whole 4-wheeling thing, except to take photos and enjoy the view. That's fun enough, I don't have to drive too.

Camel crossing