The Dubai Diaries
My life as a flight attendant in the Middle East!

Hanoi, Vietnam: A Street Food Tour & Trang An Grottoes

For my first trip to Hanoi I was eager to see as much of the city, and surrounding countryside, as possible. After a lovely quiet flight, we arrived at the hotel just after lunchtime, and agreed to meet in a couple of hours to tick off our first item on the itinerary – a street food tour!

There are plenty of companies that come up if you google “Hanoi street food tour”, and one of the girls on the flight had already contacted one to arrange our tour. We took an uber into the city (our crew hotel is around a 40 minute drive away) to meet with our local guide, Hannah.

We started at Hoan Kiem Lake, which is a central point of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Since it was a weekend, all of the surrounding roads were blocked off for cars and were pedestrian-only, which was great.

Our first stop on the tour was a little bit of a walk from the lake, but this was the perfect chance to get a feel for the city. It was very busy and it felt like everyone was out enjoying the evening!

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A trip to Accra, Ghana

It was my first time to visit Accra, and I was excited to be heading to a new destination. After a nice and quiet flight we landed into Accra around lunchtime, and were greeted with fresh coconuts in the hotel. What a welcome!

After heading up to the room and freshening up, I popped on down to the pool to soak up some sunshine. I met up with a couple of the other crew and we sat by the pool having some cocktails and chatting. Since it was a Saturday, there was a DJ and everyone was in a party mood!

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Portugal: Cycling the Alentejo Coastline

If you’ve ever thought about visiting Portugal, don’t hesitate any longer – go and book your flight right now! My parents kindly invited us on holiday to cycle along the Portuguese coast with them for a week, and it was some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen.

Joe and I touched down in Lisbon after an 8 hour flight from Dubai, and soon met up with Mum and Dad, who’d flown in from the UK, and my brother Matt and his girlfriend Miriam, who’d come from Munich. From Lisbon airport it was around a 40 minute drive to our first stop, Sesimbra.

Day 1: Sesimbra – Setúbal

We started our days early, as we had around 35 – 40kms on average to cover each day.

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November Roster

It’s time for another roster post and next month I’ll be working in business class again! It’s been a year since I upgraded to first class, but due to rostering requirements a number of us will we working in business class, as well as a number of business class crew who will be back in economy.

So of course I had to embrace the opportunity and bid for flights that I wouldn’t normally be able to fly on (due to a lack of first class) and I’m happy to say I got a few of my bids!

Next month I’ll be heading off to:

  • KHI – Karachi, Pakistan (turnaround)
  • JED – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (turnaround)
  • HAN – Hanoi, Vietnam
  • JED – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (turnaround)
  • HAN – Hanoi, Vietnam
  • SGN – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
  • SGN – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
  • TPE – Taipei, Taiwan

As you can see I’ll be spending most of the month in Vietnam! No complaints there as it was my highest bid, and I won’t be able to get the flights once I’m back to working in first class again.

Unfortunately rostering have thrown in a few turnarounds as well, but that always seems to be the case when you get what you bid for!

Lastly I’ll be flying to Taipei, which I’ve visited once before – you can read about that trip here.

Although I’m not particularly excited to be working in business class I’m really happy I’ll be seeing some new places next month! 🙂

P.s. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

Blissful Borneo: Exploring Kota Kinabalu

Back from our amazing couple of days in Sandakan, it was time to explore Kota Kinabalu some more.

Kota Kinabalu, formerly known as Jesselton, is the capital of the state of Sabah, Malaysia. The city is located on the northwest coast of Borneo and Mount Kinabalu, which gave the city its name, is located to the east.

We decided to do a day trip to one of the five islands which make up the nearby Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park – Gaya, Manukan, Sapi, Sulug and Mamutik.

Our hotel had a tour desk however the only tours on offer didn’t appeal to us, so we made our way down to the jetty where there are plenty of stands selling tickets to the islands. Not having any preference or idea of which island we wanted to visit, we picked out a stand at random and the boat ticket was a reasonable price, so we booked it!

We had a little bit of time to wander along the jetty checking out some of the stalls, and to grab a fresh pineapple juice, before heading off to our boat.

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