When we started planning our trip, we knew that we wanted to see Africa and we knew that we wanted to go to Southeast Asia and ultimately end in Japan, but the question was how to get between the two continents. We had planned to make our way south through the African continent and knew we would likely be ending in South Africa. We figured it was safe to assume we would fly from Johannesburg, but with no direct flights to the countries we planned to visit, that meant we had to have a layover somewhere.

Luckily thanks to Fred’s clever travel researching skills and deals prowess, we stumbled upon an offer from Etihad Airlines that we couldn’t pass up. Two flights and free two nights stopover hotel in Abu Dhabi for an extremely reasonably price. Not only would we now get to see another new city we had not been originally planning, but it would help break up the long flight from South Africa to Thailand into an 8 hr flight and 6 hr flight 2 days later.

After an overnight flight we found ourselves landing in Abu Dhabi at 5:20 am and in the taxi to our hotel wondering what we were going to do for the next few hours. We had slept a little bit on the flight but not nearly enough to make it a full night of sleep. The drive to the hotel was quick, and at the end we were greeted with the magnificently lit up Grand Mosque, which was nearly across the street from the Ritz Carlton, where we were spending our two free nights. By some stretch of luck they had a room ready for us at 6:30 am and we were able to get into the room and have a nap. I am not sure what we would have done without the room being ready. We were both exhausted. We watched the sun rise behind the clouds and took a nap.

What wasn’t so cooperative over our two days was the weather. We wanted to see a little of the city, but we also wanted to use the two days to relax by the pool, catch up on some admin, and spend some time resting. Unfortunately we had to do so under cloudy skies both days, and also spent some time relaxing on our balcony of our room. The beach and pool lounging was limited with the rain and clouds.

During the later afternoon of the second day, after a cloudy lounge by the pool, we took a field trip to the Great Mosque for a cheap $4 taxi. The mosque lived up to its name, as it was made of beautiful marble and an impressive and large structure. The mosque took almost ten years to build and cost over $500 million when it was completed in 2009. It was a very impressive structure and we enjoyed walking around the marble courtyards and marble inside (…marble everything really). As we were getting ready to leave we even had some sun pop out from behind the clouds.

Later that night we had a delicious dinner of Lebanese cuisine of various cold and hot mezze. Although short and mostly cloudy, the stop in Abu Dhabi was certainly a nice way to break up the flights and refresh. The next morning we woke up to sunny skies as we headed off to Phuket, Thailand, hoping for the same on the other side of our flight. One more country down, 4 more to go.