OT - Dune bashing in a GMC Yukon

[Lippyp]

My wife and I arrived home yesterday after a short holiday in Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates. The main purpose of the trip apparently was quality time in the gold souk (Guys, if you really want to score some points with the woman in your life this is the place to go, about 200+ jewelery shops in one place, gold and diamonds galore!. My wife is a hardcore haggler so some bargains (alledgedly) were had, I guess being a corporate salesperson for IBM teaches you some useful skills!)

In between shopping and eating we managed to squeeze a day trip out into the desert and up into the mountains in guess what? a brand spanking new GMC Yukon, sadly I didn't get to drive it and I have to say that when you're 6'3" tall the third row of seats are a little cramped but that baby just ate up the dunes and rocky mountain tracks like they weren't there. At one point we were pointing almost straight down the side of a massive dune with just sand visible in the windscreen later on rock crawling up a river bed. Not sure what engine it had in it but as gas was about $1. a gallon for premium unleaded I guess size didn't really matter, put it this way, you very rarely see a diesel out there! It actually seemed to out perform the Toyota Land cruiser that was with us off road and certainly sounded better.

Didn't see any of our trucks but then nobody drives old cars out there. The police cars and some of the Taxis are Chevy Caprices and I did see two matching yellow Lamborghini Diablo's parked outside a restaurant. Great place, generally very friendly people, they even have a Harley dealership!

The only problem we encountered was British Airways cancelling all their direct flights in and out of the Gulf countries so we ended up coming home a day late via Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight.

[Eddie H.]

I really like my YUKON. In my opinion, It's one of the best vehicles I've ever owned. It just has a stock vortec 350 and 3:73 gears, but it has taken me down some roads and up some hills that I didn't think possible

[1971short4X4]

I have also been to dubai with my wife. Like you we bought some 18K and 24K gold for some good deals.

what did you think of their "world trade center" twin towers? and yes gas was actually less expensive then water per gallon!!!

The yukon should outperform a toyota landcruiser (at least in terms of power, becuase while the US landcruisers have 4.7 liter v-8s like their lexus lx470's in the rest of the world only the lx470 has the v-8 and the land cruiser has to make do with the 3.4 liter v-6.

what hotel did you stay in. We stayed at the jimera beach hotel (the one that looks like a wave!

great to hear about your trip.

Tom

[Pardue'sCustoms]

bash it and bash it more it a GM and can take it

[Lippyp]

We stayed at the Hilton Jumeira Beach, now surrounded by a building site as they are building a huge new marina complex. I thought that some of the architecture was amazing, especially the Burj al Arab hotel next to the Jumeira Beach. They have just announced plans to build the world tallest tower in Dubai, although in light of yesterdays announcment about the plans for the World Trade Centre site in NY I'm not sure if this'll now be the case.

Did you make it into the Wild Wadi Water park? That water powered roller coaster is some ride (for those of you who haven't been you sit in a rubber ring like an inner tube with grab handles and you fly around a network of tubes and channels and are propelled uphill by water jets under your butt) They also have the tallest waterslide outside the U.S, man that hurts when you hit the water at the bottom, you get out with shorts somewhere around your neck and walking like John Wayne, a real eye watering experience!

I also hired a jetski and scared the crap outta myself hitting 75 kmh great fun!