Today will be a relatively short post of our explorations of Deira, or Old Town Dubai. And as you can see below, Deira does include the world-famous Gold Souk.
Only housekeeping of note is the latest installment of Sergey's Karibuni Tales, as he goes through Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Anyways, back to Deira. Before the construction of highway E11, pretty much the only non-nomadic settlement in Dubai was Deira, where the Dubai river met the Persian Gulf.
It was the center of government, center of religion, and perhaps most importantly, center of all Dubai commerce. When we arrived in Deira from the subway (which finally went underground right before downtown), we were immediately struck by cars honking, people pulling carts, shops close together, and crowds going every which way. In other words, what we expected for a city in Asia.
When we got out, we immediately realized that, also like other cities in Asia, the roads made no sense, and so we would have no idea where we were going, even if the signs were in English. On the subway, we had made a tentative plan to visit the Souks (markets) and some museums, so we hoped in a cab, and away we went to the Gold Souk. After a drive past many shops and several hotels along the river, the cab driver dropped us off before this monstrosity of a building filled with gold shops having tacky window. To be truthful, it was kind of intimidating. I mean, we had found a (Lost) City of Gold for pete's sake! Just look at the gate!
Okay, so it wasn't any more intimidating than South Gate Market in Korea, but after being in fabricated-for-tourist-land at the Dubai Marina, it was a bit of a shock. Now, you will recall in a previous installment, that I spoke about Tanzanite, and William buying a stone for his girlfriend (now wife). Well, the reason we chose the Gold Souk (over others such as the Spike Souk) was that William wanted to find a (white) gold chain to go with the stone. Pretty cool present aye! Well, once we got to there, we had so many choices that we didn't know where to start. So, we just wandered around a bit at first. Erica from Ahadi Lodge had said that she had been to Dubai, but that she didn't particularly feel there were any super-bargains at the Gold Souk.
After wandering around for an hour trying to discern what store markings could possibly distinguish one store as being more reputable (and cheaper) than the others, we actually stumbled on a street of diamond sellers. Interesting. Our logic went, "well, if they are primarily selling diamonds, perhaps they aren't as knowledgeable about gold?" Probably doesn't hold any water, but it was something, so we ducked into a store with some white gold chains hanging in the window... and a store that didn't have someone trying to accost us. I guess logically, the aggressive sellers may have a better product because they try harder, but there is just something off-putting that made us shy away from them. Probably a used-car salesman aversion thing.
The guy working the counter was a well-dressed late 20s/early 30s South Asian man (most of these stores were run by Indians - dot, not feather). He looked a little bored, but definitely perked up when we entered. William went about chatting him up, explaining his situation, what he was looking for, etc. William had actually brought the set stone with him to make sure the chain matched with it. The guy was reasonably but not overly friendly, and called a younger man in the store, probably related to him, to get the chains hanging in the window. He didn't have the largest selection of chains, since he was primarily a diamond seller, but he did have around a hundred or so, and had a reasonable selection of white gold chains, so they tried out a variety against the set stone. After awhile, William and the seller found one they agreed matched the best, and so they began negotiating a price. The list price wasn't that unreasonable to begin with (but what do I know about gold) so after a conversation concerning hesitation, weight of the gold, price of the gold, workmanship, and believable exhortations from the seller that he couldn't really discount something like chains that much, whereas he could do better with diamonds, William asked for an extra $30 off, and he accepted.
And wah-lah! William (or more accurately, his wife) has his chain! Couldn't be happier.
Our mission for the day (and trip, really) completed, we decided to wander on over to the Dubai Museum to get some "history." We had considered several other options for the day, such as the Spice Souk and the Jumeirah Mosque, with the mosque being particularly intriguing because of these cultural lunch talks they offer, but unfortunately our schedules didn't match up. So the Dubai Museum it was.
We hopped in a cab, and a hop, skip, and a jump later, we were there. But not before we got a kabob for lunch. Very cliche, I know. So, one thing that didn't really occur to me was that museums are a very Western institution. It was admitted as much in the museum itself, who said that a lot of Dubai's history is un-preserved, both because it didn't occur to them to preserve them until the British came, but also because there wasn't much to preserve.
In a nutshell, for centuries, Dubai was a cross between nomadic camel herders and gatherers (dates, figs, palm oil, etc.) and pearl divers; some of the best in the world. These ships are a testament to that tradition.
Me doing my best to mildly desecrate that tradition...
... but tradition getting its revenge by deservedly blowing my stupid-idiot-tourist head off. The cannons are remnants from... well, I actually don't remember. Shows how much I have learned.
Keeping an eye on me.
More ships. The museum itself is very good and well done in the tradition of other museums I have seen throughout the world. It is fairly large, and the lack of pictures is because the light was not particularly good inside (mostly by design for the backlit exhibits). Suffice it to say though, it is well worth the dollar or two we spent to get in and learn for about two or three hours.
When we left the museum, there was a good bit of daylight left before our evening event, which I will cover in our next post, so we decided to both find the area where our next event would be, and also to walk along the river.
The moon over Dubai.
And ships! Lots of ships! It's like we never left the museum aye? We also stumbled into the British consulate, which was an impressively walled compound. I am very skeptical the level of security threats necessitated such a guarded presence, but what the heck do I know?
Okay, so our event was a dinner cruise on one of these ships. And what dinner cruise it was! But that is definitely for next week.
We finally wandered to the "end of the river," and still had about two hours to kill, so we did what any good tourist does - we went looking for a watering hole. Now, we didn't really have a good map, but we knew alcohol could only be served in hotels, so we looked for some hotels. After wandering inland away from the water a bit, and walking through what would be considered "shadier" neighborhoods in Dubai (nondescript block housing on random streets - presumably for immigrant workers), we stumbled into a hotel.
You see that William is holding a satisfyingly frothy beverage. Well, getting that frothy beverage was also (surprise, surprise) a bit of an adventure. We walked into the hotel and were greeted by a very friendly security guard. This was also a common theme in Dubai. Who has such happy security guards?
Anyways, he greeted us at the door and asked if he could be assistance. I asked if they had a pub, and he energetically replied "absolutely" and led us to some closed doors in the back that said "closed." We would normally have been a bit hesitant to enter since, well, the door said it was "closed," but he opened it as if the sign did not exist, and so we followed. We followed a short hallway to the room above that clearly was a pub, and so we excitedly entered. There were a couple European hanging out at a table with some food and drinks, so we took seats at the bar at the behest of the guard, who then left.
From the back, a mildly perturbed young female Middle Eastern (Palestinian?) bartender came out, paused, gave us an eye, and the following conversation ensued:
- Bartender: What do you want?
- Mike: (Little surprised at the aggressive tone) Um, we would like some drinks. What do you have?
- Bartender: You guys can't be in here.
- Mike: (Crickets) We just want some drinks.
- Bartender: We actually are closed and can't serve you until 6.
- Mike: Oh. Well, what about those guys sitting over there?
- Bartender: (Ignoring my comment) Can't you just come back in an hour.
- Mike: We have dinner in two hours, and we just want some drinks. We won't be difficult.
- Bartender: (Pauses to think, and then sighs) Okay, what do want?
We ordered our drinks, and she was actually very attentive for the rest of our stay. And unlike a lot of other places, the beer prices were not exorbitant. We found out later that actually, the hotels' alcohol license was time based, so she wasn't trying to be difficult - she just didn't want to break the law. Oops. For that reason, the hotel and our very nice bartender shall remain anonymous. Eventually, however, they did open the bar, so it was all good. It's always 6PM somewhere right (or whatever that mary-jane thing is)?
So anyways, we were very pubby and played some darts...
... had some laughs...
... and did some bonding. As if we hadn't done enough of that yet.
Hasta la proxima semana!
This is short but comprehensive post. Thanks for sharing.
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