Rainy Rak

Just an hour and a half from Dubai is Ras Al Khaimah, the most northerly of the 7 emirates.  To get there from Dubai, you actually drive through 3 of the other emirates - Sharjah, Ajman and Um Al Quwain - which makes the drive a tourist experience in and of itself.

After hearing several positive testimonials about Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), we decided to take a weekend trip up there to see the sights and enjoy the emirate's highly regarded beaches.

As soon as you get out of Dubai proper, the surroundings change quite dramatically.  The other emirates also have skyscrapers but they are much more modest and seem a fair bit older than those in Dubai. And the landscape has much more desert influence.

We arrived in RAK a little saddened to find our hotel located in the heart of the city (we thought it was on a beach!) and right next to an industrial plant.   Could this really be the second best rated hotel on Tripadvisor??

We were ecstatic to realize that our GPS had led us to the wrong Doubletree and were surprisingly undisturbed by the fact that we would have to backtrack for half an hour to get there. Conveniently, the wrong hotel was just a few minutes away from the city's museum so we decided to head there first to explore.

The museum's entry fee was a mere $1.50 and we learned quickly why that might be.  To say the museum is small would be an understatement. Although housed in a large former palace, the museum itself was only a few small rooms with the remainder of the building being used for government offices and a surprising number of toilets.  If you are a fan of geology, you may have enjoyed the very extensive collection of rocks and artifacts there but, as we are not experts, we were pretty must useless without accompanying explanations.

We were lucky to have been flagged by a Tripadvisor post to a hidden tower climb on the property that offered a nice view of the city.  This also helped us to stumble upon the best room in the museum which explored RAK's history of pearl diving.   In the end, although it was a very quick visit, the museum was quite charming and the property lovely.

Having explored the key cultural exhibit in the city, we enjoyed an authentic Hakka-Indian lunch in town, complete with owners overly-enthusiastic to have western guests, and then headed back to our actual hotel.

As we readied ourselves for an afternoon by the beach, we were confronted by something completely unexpected:  a violent rainstorm!   

This was the first rainstorm in the region in an incredible 7 months.

Not equipped for rain, the town flooded easily and quickly and made the drive fairly slow-going and very wet. 

Unfortunately, the rain did not stop all day, making the beautiful beaches and outdoor area of our much nicer and newer hotel a little less important than planned.  Even our intended "dinner on the beach" could not be salvaged.  

The rain finally subsided the next morning and, although still very grey, we took the opportunity to sit outside and swim in the sea.  As we checked out of the hotel, we realized that it was not quite the beach getaway we had planned.  And as luck would have it, the drive back presented us a surprise and something we had not seen all weekend -  sun!