National Day

It was the 36th National Day of UAE this week which meant a holiday from work. Woohoo! I made the most of the time off by getting out of Abu Dhabi with its crowds of boy racers trying to hoot their horns the loudest and do the most impressive donuts in their cars. Instead I went to Al Ain.
The original plan was to camp, but as the temperature there is quite a bit lower than Abu Dhabi and the fact that we didn't have the proper camping equipment, we decided to rough it in a hotel ;)
Al Ain is quite different to the capital. You can tell that it has been looked after (mainly because it was the original home town of the late Sheikh Zayed) and the wide, tree-lined streets make a nice change. It has a much more sleepy feel to it and the expanses of green also make it feel like you could be in a different country.
We visited the zoo, which was interesting. I think we arrived at just the right time as by the time we were leaving it was starting to get packed with gangs of labourers on their day off. I almost felt like I should have been in one of the cages what with the amount of staring that was going on!