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Apart from regular clean up, organizing and tidy up your house, car, PC, phone, camera, what unusual stuff you have done during this stay at home period, which "you have never done before"? I dance with my 5 YO son and wife like I have never danced before. Started with kiddo's dance - as usual Then he picked up our moves and we dance on regular music for an hour with good volume and bass. Surprisingly we never think/expect that kid at such an age will like / adapt to our music or moves but when given been a chance they really surprise us beyond our expectations.

I was helping my friend renovate his house and it was a long drawn out month long process. Everything from the roof to the walls in the 7 bedroom Villa. His elder brother as a thank you took all us for a desert Safari since he would freelance as a guide on the weekend. And that was pretty much it. I told myself this is what I want to do as well. To cut a long story short after years of trials and tribulations and help from another friend I managed to get my foot into that world. I didn't give up never for a second thought I will stop persuing this line of work. Got ridiculed by friends and family as to what stupid line of work I'm trying to get into 2 years I worked for free or very basic pay like 50-100dhs per trip and started from the very bottom as helper then moving up to camp driver cum helper than mean driving as well as helping in loading and off loading the pickup. It was very very tough work but I enjoyed it througly which gained me a lot of respect later on as everybody had seen how I had struggled from the very bottom to the top and they knew I know every aspect of this field so one one could fuck me too. Made some great money and had the time of life because I was lucky the company I got attached too ( I say attached because I never officially joined them because that ways I getting paid freelance per trip money which was as high as 1200dhs per day to the lowest of 650 per day as opposed to a fix salary ) they got a lot of interesting projects like vehicle testings and events. I worked on projects from Toyota,Nissan, peugout, jeep, land rover, Mercedes, hummer, GM just to name a few. So most of my work was this rather than regular desert Safari you see and hear about. Did that mostly during summer and in between such projects and other events, which including a huge secret proper concert with huge stage, lights, pyro, screens fireworkd for Shaggy, UB40, lot of Bollywood stuff so on and so forth. But close to the economic downturn such things got less and less and I started to get bored with just the regular Safari day in and day out. Is when I quit. Then became a weekend warrior just like the rest of you. Then thought it would be a good idea to go out with more people so searching online I came across dubai4x4 one of the few off-road clubs at the time. Then emarat 4x4 which I stayed with till life decided otherwise and I stopped going all toghether. Now maybe when things take a change for the better might get myself another desert ride and start going out again. Maybe.

Back in Belgium I’ve always been a bit of an outdoors person. Grew up in a small town so we only had few friends and spent days fixing our bikes and playing in the woods. I’ve always had this dream of exploring the wild but only after arriving in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and seeing the magnificent deserted areas I became more hungry to explore more and find unspoiled places, seeing farms and meeting locals, but my 4x2 FJ Cruiser forced me to stay on the hard farmer tracks. I’ve left Saudi and went back to Belgium for a while and was happy to be able to get a job in Dubai. I bought a 3 series beemer but after meeting few new friends in the community that went camping often, I realized the fun in Dubai only started off-road so tried to find a 4x4 commuter car which was big enough to take the kids to school but small enough to enjoy in the dunes. Fell in love with my little blue Pajero and found Carnity from searching info about my car and that’s how I ended up here. Wifey later sold our Beemer and bought a LWB Pajero as family / adventure car. And now both addicted off-roaders 🤣

I'm sure everyone will have different stories to share on how did they become an off-roader? I'll start with mine. I was happy being spoil with luxury sports car back in those days. One day my girl friend whose my wife now, got a free desert safari passes from her office and "forced" me to join. I was not at all interested based on my previous desert safari experience of being cramped with several strangers in one car and eating sand through out the trip. But she managed to convince me and during that trip she had an awesome time as she was sitting in front and kept of screaming on every dune and ridge. This made me inspire to sell off my Lexus GS430 and buy the king of off-road (myth) - Toyota Land Cruiser. She joined me for 3 drives and then she got bored thereafter, but I got the sand addiction for rest of my life. Time to hear your original story now, whether you wanted a "freedom", "explore nature", "beat the traffic" or "impress your girl"

Unusual stuff while home isolation?? Well home isolation is not for me 😃 as I continue to work and provide my services for emergency cases as a Orthopedic surgeon specialising in Hand and Microsurgery @ a hospital in Dubai. At work the most unusual for me has been - to wear almost cover all with two to three layer apron and a N95 or N99 mask. This type is protection is good against the bugs but it literally suffocates you , even simple walking makes you feel breathless leave alone doing surgeries. But I am getting used to. - we are paractising social distancing among the staff , undergo tests as we come in high risk areas and we are always in for some changes happening almost every hour. - coming back home to undergo a complete disinfection before entering home and asking kid to wait who comes running to hug me , is quite a sad situation. With time even he is understanding the importance of it. - I am asked to be available on standby if need arises to help in this tough situation where some of the departments in our hospital are overwhelmed. I am a bit scared but I am willing to go , bring it on !! The same principle of desert drives and leap of faith working here too. If my colleagues are doing it , I will be able to do it too. There will be some stucks and refusals , but Hope and God being our marshals to pull out. Stay safe all of you

Though I am still one of the most Newbies with only 1 and a half rides, I have realized this is what I have been looking for since 2010, when I was 24 and I was living in Chile as an exchange student. A group of crazy friends and I decide that it would be great to buy an old VW Kombi and fix it to fit 9 of us to hit the roads of South America from Chile down to Tierra del Fuego, and up again until Rio. The truth is we only made half of the way, and the van broke in the middle of the Argentinian Pampa, but the previous unbeaten paths were amazing. So here I am, in Dubai with a small Pajero and my wife, who was one of those adventurous friends, joining (still not bored) to every weekend trip.

To be honest it's been pretty cool because I live in a gated 3 Villa compound. With only 3 families there. So us men gather in the forecourt in the evenings and chat the evening away. One of them is an old time Safari dude like me so we sit back with some tea and others with their drink and share tales of our exploits. I've actually been socializing more due to this than before! Since we all stuck at home and live in one isolated micro community if you will, so there is no risk of cross contamination or spread

For me it all started 11 years back when after my fourth desert safari I saw a bunch of Jeep Wranglers and realized people have clubs and can venture out on their own. I had a Toyota Echo at the time and with a greed of saving around 45 minutes by doing a little desert stretch. I almost made it once, but with a stuck situation I decoded to read, some clubs at the time had awesome posts and was good for 6 months read. But just reading was not going to be sufficient, I needed some hands on experience. My wife had a Mitsubishi Outlander AWD, I had my first mountain drive in that and soon realized how important a proper offroad vehicle was. At this point I sold my Toyota Echo and went for a Jeep Commander 5.7 Hemi. It was just to get some experience and save my 45 minutes on that Sharjah to Dubai stretch. With my holiday cancelled by my office and no family in the house, I used to do up to 4 desert drives a week for 4 weeks. By now unknowingly I had been addicted to offroading. Desert had become my best friend and with the measures put in place by Sharjah police my saving 45 minutes was short lived. It's been since that I have not looked back and been around the desert. Honestly my love of the desert has survived, but not to push my boundaries to discover what I can or cannot do. My passion is to make more like minded friends on the way I can teach and learn from to have a safe passage through our beloved terrain.

I don't think so, as I have never seen such low hanging bumpers on Prado before. Maybe @Nizam Deen can share his before and after pictures.

Alert received on my phone. We aren’t allowed outside from 20:00 to 06:00.

From childhood I have been more or less an indoor person. My first offroading experience was the GNFD 2012 in Liwa. It was a fantastic experience to see the vastness of the desert. After that I did the GNFD 2013 in Lisalli. It was a real struggle through some of the technical dunes and it turned me off from offroading. Then in Jan 2017 I received a notification from Carnity about an Absolute Newbie drive in Maliha. I had a rough week at home and office, and just wanted to get away. That's when I met Gaurav and Rahim Bhai for the first time. That drive showed me how beautiful nature is, if we are willing to step out of our comfort zone. The two of them not just became off-road friends but brothers for life. They were there for me when I had an incident on my second drive and ensured that I reached home safely. It's been 3 years and I have been out with the Carnity family every weekend. Drives for me these days are just to meet everyone, chat, have karak tea and ofcourse have Aloo Parathas

@Chirag S. @Gaurav below is the before and after pic

Thanks. @Gaurav regarding your comment " newly designed bumper skirt", is the same case applicable to Prado VXR V6 2018 too or Prado model onward 2020!!? Thanks for your feedback in advance!!

I hope we can still make next weekend! Stay safe all of you guys.

It is not a curfew but unnecessary movements outside not allowed . Please all to cooperate

In my case I wouldn’t think so but if you want to be sure you can easily unbolt the rear part with the 4 bolts you can see on the picture before you go into the dealership!

My phone started to blare like an air raid siren and whole screen lit up with his msg. Took me off guard

Any idea if this type of fix would impact the warranty from al habtoor ? My Paj still has some sort of warranty cover. thanks !

This is 2020 model.

Congrats fellow X owner 👍

Congratulations!!

Congrats. Jamy