The next day we headed out into the desert to see something a bit more natural. However, if you are just passing by and cannot afford the helicopter trip from your 7-star hotel, you are obliged to go on a desert-dinner combo trip for a bedouin barbecue, with camel riding, falcon holding, belly dancing entertainment. Spoon-fed tourism cannot be avoided here.
The trip involved travelling in a convoy of dune-bashing 4x4 vehicles and, while the child within enjoyed the adrenalin rush of sliding sideways down the face of dune or the sudden change of view from sky to sand as the car crested a dune and nosed down the other side, the environmentalist without couldn't help wondering what I was doing here. Still, we made a brief stop, where we could disappear behind the back of a dune and quietly take in the vastness of the desert beyond. For 15 minutes, we got a feeling for the emptiness of the world beyond Dubai - a brief, but worthwhile encounter. In the end, this was really what we came to see.