Dubai city grew on both sides of the Creek river in what forms nowadays two neighborhoods: Old Dubai and Deira. I spent two half days walking around this area, one on each side of the river.
The destination of the ferry ride from the Marina was Old Dubai. In the touristic part of this area, there is no bridge to go to Deira so the only way to cross the river is to take a traditional boat, called an abra – or as an alternative to take the metro! Taking the boat appeared to be a pure touristic attraction, with many Chinese bus groups waiting to cross… so I avoided it!
Old Dubai is a nice area to stroll around, although it doesn’t look very authentic. It feels like it has been reconstructed recently to have an old-looking touristic attraction…! It reminded me a bit of the Old Town of Shanghai which was destroyed under the Mao regime and rebuilt in the 1980s/90s for tourism. But no matter whether authentic or fake, the neighborhood has a nice vibe. One of the main features of traditional Arabic gulf architecture are the so-called wind towers which were built to cool down the buildings by letting air in.
The center of Old Dubai is a fort – Fort al-Fahidi. It is the oldest building in Dubai (from the end of the 18th century) and has been transformed into a quite informative city museum. That’s where I learned a lot from the UAE history. I was also surprised to read that Dubai got rich through pearl trading! It was quite impressive to see old black and white pictures of the city. Until the 1960s – and the discovery of oil! – it was really a small settlement around the river!
Around these touristic places, there is of course a bazar selling everything a tourist needs (or better said does not need!).
The famous souks are on the other side of the river, in Deira, which I visited another day and reached by metro. There, the markets are a bit more authentic, with a gold bazar and a spice bazar. As usual in Arabic countries, it is hard to walk through a market without being stopped every minute by a merchant. But thanks to my travel experience, I have quite a good technique to get rid off them – basically just saying no and smiling like an idiot! – so they give up quite quickly and try to find another target. The main products they sell are spices and so many weird things I have never seen before!… No idea what it is…! What I was happy to find is oud. The last perfume I bought some years ago mainly contained oud, and I had no idea how it looks like. It is basically wood, and is very expensive!
Come and have a little tour with me on the souks!
Walking around…
…enjoying the Gold souk with its very shiny jewelry… (Middle Eastern bling bling!)
…being amazed by the colorful spice market…
…admiring the precious safran and oud stores…
I also made a little detour to see the Deira clocktower, depicted on the city maps… Not really worth the detour but I got the picture 😉
On a funnier note, I also solved a mystery! I was wondering why there is no man with grey beard or moustache hair in Dubai… The best examples are the sheikhs themselves…! Even 100 year old looking men have crow-black beards. One hint: it has nothing to do with their great genetics…! haha!
Free like a bear 