By: bound2explore                          August, 2016

Have you ever imagined about desert safari and dreamed about the sand dunes bashing, camel ride, belly dancing, staying at Bedouin camp and sand boarding? If you have, then a desert safari adventure is a must do when you are visiting United Arab Emirate. Whether you stay in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, you can easily book a tour for a desert safari adventure. I was in Abu Dhabi during my long stop over when I booked a desert safari tour. If you don’t have a long lay over, you still can do the desert safari if you have at least 10 hours lay over. 

The desert safari adventure took approximately 6 hours including pick up and drop off time. The tour operator will pick you up from the hotel/pick up point and drive you all the way to the desert. The Al Khatim desert where I did the desert safari is located about an hour away drive from the city of Abu Dhabi. The first stop was the camel farm. Here was my chance to be up close and personal with camels and met with the owner of the farm.

camel farm

The next one was a forty five minutes sand dunes bashing. This stomach churning activity made me screamed on the top of my lung and held on to the handle of the truck. Imagine being in a truck that ran 50 miles per hours riding the sand dunes up and down. At every turn, when the driver made a sudden stop, I thought the car would just slip away and flip over. But the driver surely had a mad driving skill because none of those thing happened. To tell you the truth, sand dunes bashing with 4 x4 trucks certainly is not for a fainted stomach. If you are not keen on roller coaster and prone to seasick, you might want to think twice before participating in this activity. Needless to say, I did bump my head a bit during the ride.

Sand dunes bashing

The next activity was my favorite one, riding a camel in desert. The feeling of riding a camel took me back all the way to the old days of Abu Dhabi before the oil boom. The adventure didn’t end there because the sand dunes was still awaiting me to try a sand boarding. So I picked up a sand board (it looked like a snow board). I climbed to the top of the sand dunes and slid down. Since there weren’t many people in the tour, everyone did it as many as they wanted.

The day started to get dark when I arrived at Bedouin camp. I could see the sunset over the desert. It was time for dinner. The dinner was served in buffet style featuring Arabic food.  There were kebab, Arabic bread, dates, lamb and Indian famous dish-tandoori chicken.  Afterward, the shisha was served for anyone who wanted to smoke ala Emirati. The henna tattoo was also available for free if you want a little souvenir on your skin.

Bedouin Camp

Please remember, there is a certain restriction during the month of Ramadan. There won’t be any belly dancing performance at the Bedouin camp. Also, you can not eat in the public during the day. So if you do a desert safari in Abu Dhabi during Ramadan, keep that in mind. Ramadan is a fasting/holy month in Muslim calendar. Out of respect for Muslim who are observing Ramadan, the show will be postponed until after Ramadan. But the good thing about doing the desert safari during Ramadan, you will see less tourists and the desert will not be packed by so many 4 X 4 trucks bashing the sand dunes.