January 31st - Dubai Day 2

Today we only had half a day in Dubai so we briefly went ashore to see what was going on in the cruise terminal and came back.  There wasn’t enough time to really do any exploration of the city and still guarantee coming back to the ship on time.  The shuttle only takes you to the mall and we had already seen that.

Today I’ll talk about Old Dubai.  We spent about half the tour yesterday in the old section of the city.  The map below shows you where we were in Dubai and its proximity to many of the famous sites of ‘new’ Dubai.

Dubai was a reasonably successful trading post for many years.  In the mid 1800’s it got a boost when the Persian Empire (Iran) imposed a tax on merchants and trading.  This caused many traders to cross the sea to Dubai and set up shop here.  Another boost came with the discovery of vast pearl beds offshore.  This was a thriving business for many decades, until the early 20^th century when Japan perfected the cultured pearl and the bottom fell out of the natural pearl market.  As I noted yesterday, oil was on the horizon so they didn’t suffer too long.

The Dubai Creek is a major feature of the city.  It really isn’t a creek anymore; it’s been dredged and widened over the years to its present size.  We took a traditional water taxi from one side to the other.  This is a very cheap commuter boat for locals, about 30 cents one way, and a fun thing for tourists to do.  The boats are very stable and we felt perfectly safe on it.   It was certainly an interesting way to get around.

The larger ships on the creek are trading boats still in use today. They come from Iran and other nearby locations like Qatar and Bahrain.  The UAE does trade with Iran although you are not allowed to transfer money to Iran’s banks.  They (UAE) pretty much get along with everyone in the area.  They don’t fear terrorism and as I mentioned yesterday there is very little crime.

Once across the creek we were able to explore the many Souks (markets) located here including the spice and textile markets.  Saffron is a spice that supposedly is more expensive per ounce then gold.  We couldn’t test that yesterday but in one window a shop had quite a display of the spice.

The Gold Souk is a major attraction here.  Lucky for us, I’m more of a silver person myself.

The more elaborate items are traditionally worn at weddings including the full breast plate ones.  Tags on the gold indicate its weight in troy ounces.  Inside each shop they list the current price for gold. You do the multiplication and that’s the starting point for the price.  Then the merchant adds on the cost of the workmanship.  This is where you can haggle and negotiate a lower price.  I wouldn’t think this is a good business model for most western buyers since we’re not used to haggling and we like to be able to pick up a piece and know the full price.  There were dozens of shops so business must be good.  The quality of the gold is supposed to be very good here as are the prices because of the competition.  We didn’t test that out.

Throughout the old area of the city you will see towers like the one below.  These are for natural air conditioning.  The breeze is forced down through the tower and into the home to keep it cool.  Our guide told us it works but since electricity is so cheap, most people just use mechanical air conditioners.  Electricity is cheap because of the presence of natural gas, abundance of solar power and nuclear power (we were surprised by that).  Also, if you wondered where all the fresh water comes from…it’s from desalination plants in the area.

As we went around the city we were once again reminded how lucky we are to natively speak the default language of the world.  English is everywhere.  All the signs in Dubai were in Arabic and English and both languages are taught in school.  This comes in handy when you’re looking for gelato…

Tomorrow we are in Muscat, Oman.  We’ve been there before so we will be on our own to explore the city.