Life in a year full of Saturdays: Qasr al Sarab

QASR AL SARAB DESERT RESORT by ANANTARA (United Arab Emirates)
06 August - 09 August 2017

This stop I had already marked as my own personal highlight of the region even before we completed our stay in the area.

My own discovery of the Qasr al Sarab had occurred online some 3 years earlier. I'm not sure if it was a link or an online article that lead me there but my, wasn't I impressed when I got to discovering what it was about. I was so impressed that before my Mum & Dad returned from Europe, on my Dad's final holiday, I had paid for them to spend a couple of nights there. For my dad, I can comfortably say that he went out on a good one.

A three hour drive from Dubai and some 220kms south of down town Abu Dhabi, the Qasr al Sarab Desert resort is located in Abu Dhabi's section of the Empty Quarter, in the Rub' Al Khali Desert, occupying a space on the edge of the mighty Arabian desert, The Rub' Al Khali is one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. Meaning, that if you're going to build anything out there, it better be damn self sufficient, impressive and to be able to cope with the types of temperatures that will have you easily pushing 55+ degrees on a normal day.

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

For the hour out of Abu Dhabi the landscape is monotonous, the road is as straight as an arrow and you can imagine how something like this could break you if you were required to do it frequently. Occasional trees punctuate the landscape and the odd, errant camel is an ever present danger, but for the most part you feel as though you're on auto-pilot.

Arriving to Qasr al Sarab is nothing like I've experienced before, and I thank my parents for imparting to me the little hint I needed to actually find the road to the resort. They told me to look out for the petrol station that would come up just before the turn to the resort, which seemed an odd thing to tell me at the time but now I thank them for it as I'm certain I would have driven straight past.

Welcome dates and 24hr dates as you desire

View from our room

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

Our room at Qasr Al Sarab

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

The entrance gates to Qasr al Sarab have a miniature Jurassic Park type of feel, there;s something a little bit Disneyland fantasy ride about it, but this of course is just the teaser. After passing through the initial gates, unbeknown to the first timer, you still have a 14km drive, or a (15-20 min) run before you get to the resort itself.

A few kms from the resort, after you've driven through flame orange coloured sand dunes, the resort starts to reveal itself slowly. It unfolds gently but epically, like an elaborate mirage set amongst the might of the imperious sand dunes in the vast expanse of emptiness. Then when you arrive at the formal entrance to the resort you're greeted with an Arabian style fortress that draws you to its inner sanctum via the grand entrance bridge, lined with oversized lantern style lights. It's a scene conjured up from pure fantasy.

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

This surreal resort built in the middle of the desert to the tune of $5 billion dollars is a gold coloured fortress whose magnetism and aura is more than enough to be able to mentally transform you to the stories of 1001 Arabian nights where you feel that you could easily encounter Sinbad, Aladdin, Scheheradze or Jafar. With moody lanterns lighting the buildings, gorgeous Persian rugs running through the interior, turrets, date palms, faux mud-brick, shaded courtyards and sparkling fountains, the immediate impression is purely magical. A sense of both grandeur and wonder catches you from the start.

For our stay I had booked us into a Deluxe Terrace Room, a large corner room that overlooked the massive mirage style pool, with expansive views out to the desert. It provided out with an outlook was simply beyond words. Altogether other worldly is the best way to describe the views over sand with the setting sun playing its role as an artist on the vast sand canvas presented in front of us.

The resort itself is formed on a crescent shaped dune and stretches around a distance of what must be 1km. To support its ongoing operational needs there's also a town of 5000 workers required to make things run, maintain and service guests, which makes for a mighty grand business a long way from any other place of real significance. Admittedly it's not like the place is built on the moon but hey, if you needed to test what challenges the moon would bring in terms of a base, then you could do a lot worse than starting in location such as this.

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

The real trap to being a guest out here is the concept of time and what you do to occupy yourself during its passing. Breakfast is always a great place to start and in the Emirates, from what I've discovered, do buffets in such an absurdly outlandish fashion that you just don't know where to commence. Omelette stations, waffle stations, pancake stations, Asian food, European food, Indian.The choice is overwhelming and makes me think of Pareto optimality in the concept of choice, the theory being that when there's too much choice and thus too many factors to consider in making a decision then the optimal choice is rarely the one taken. A situation such as this typifies the dilemma.

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

Most of our days had us occupying a spot at the insanely large oasis style pool. A perfectly normal past time had we have had a normal situation, but let me tell you, a normal situation would more than likely not have you being outside, baking in the Arabian sun, when the temperature was over 50 degrees. But of course, I have a Northern European wife whose fear of missing the sunlight means that she'll take it at every single opportunity available, because you know, it may not come back for months! Considering her love of the sun and her tolerance of heat, I was still amazed that she was able to bare being out in the sun baking her body whilst being in a furnace. She did that as I took refuge in the pool, and at the bar mostly. How in the world she was able to endure those temperatures and feel normal was beyond my realm of understanding.

Qasr al Sarab Desert Resort - Rub' Al Khali Desert - Empty Quarter - United Arab Emirates

Shisha was also a go to move for us in the time when cocktails and sunshine were not occupying our time. We did also manage to get out on a desert camel ride one day which was impressive and not the diabolical, painful experience that my parents described to me from a few years earlier. Of course, being 30 years younger than them meant there wasn't the same sort of stress and awkwardness placed on ageing muscles.

What stood out for me, outside of the wondrous decor of the resort was just the scale and vastness of the setting. An environment where the sound of silence is beautiful, where the vast emptiness is astonishingly attractive and the ever changing mood of the sun is played out on its own personal canvas, shifting, changing but ever enduring and ever eternal.

Sydney (Australia)
23 December 2014

Yesterday I saw your car parked outside of the house and for a split second, before my brain allowed me to truly remember, I got excited because I thought you were home, and then when I realised what I'd done, I tried to hold onto that feeling of you still being with us for a few seconds longer. I took those few seconds for all they were worth.

I still have the 2014 World Cup chart pinned up on the wall next to my desk, it gives me a chance to assign a day, time and place to the games that we watched. That was our thing. Waking up at 3am, making coffee, watching Australia play or watching any world cup match that we thought might be interesting. Sometimes I'd dose through the second half of games but I'd try and hide it from you, I'm sure that you knew I was sleeping, even when you would ask 'Henry, are you watching?'.

I hated hearing the racing channel blaring at anytime. I couldn't stand the sound of live race calls, but now I wish there was a reason for me to hear it again other than it allowing for me to remember you in my mind. I watch games of football and I know I lack the insight and intuition that you had to be able to analyse a game and see events before they happened. I never quite understood how you were able to do that, but you could do it, just as in the same manner you were able to read the character of a person so much faster than anyone else.

Now I look at photos and can't seem to reconcile the images of you smiling as you sailed on past Notre Dame, or the surprise on your face when I met you in Paris, with the memory of you. For now you exist for me in memory and in spirit, and whilst I'm thankful for all the great memories I have of you I would much rather be talking to you about them rather than thinking of them in order to give context to such a great person that was you, my dad.

So now, I leave this. Times that we shared whilst travelling. I was lucky enough to have had some fabulous moments with you in the last few years and they will stay with me for the rest of my life. This last journey however is one that you must do on your own and I hope that wherever your destination is that you have a chance to sit back, watch a game or two and back a winner. Let me just say that for right here and now, the space that you left is enormous and I miss you being in it, maybe we'll meet somewhere and sometime else, maybe not, but for the last 39yrs you were fantastic person and I feel more than lucky to have had a father like you.