Or do, don’t buy in Dubai in my case. I have arrived in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and am enjoying my very first day here.
My impressions of Dubai so far are:
- the people are friendly. So many people asking where I am from and what I am doing here. The hotel staff are very nice and went out of their way to get a room ready for me when I arrived 7 hours before check in.
- yes it is quite warm here. It was going to be 36-37 degrees celsius today but it was quite manageable and just a little more humid than what I am used to. Overall quite nice I think.
- it is a city of contrasts. Skyscrapers and modern architecture beside mosques and traditional buildings with wind towers.
- you need to take traffic and peak hours into account. I have just found out that tomorrow is the new year in the Islamic calendar and so it’s a kind of long weekend here even though it is Wednesday today. So tomorrow being New Year is a holiday and Friday (the next day) is usually a day off (like a Christian Sunday) for prayers at the mosque. I’m still trying to work out whether their weekend is Thursday/Friday or Friday/Saturday. Anyway the point is that everyone was rather keen to get home today for their ‘long weekend’ and so the peak hour traffic tonight was busy and impatient.
Bur Dubai
I spent this afternoon at Bur Dubai (the old section of town) which is near Dubai Creek. Dubai Creek, by the way, is more like a river than what I know as a creek. I visited Dubai Museum which is housed in old Fahidi Fort. It is a great building with some traditional architecture. They have displays of boats and armery in the courtyard but the main displays are housed inside the buildings and are actually underground and being underground means it is nice and cool there.
I wandered through the Bur Dubai souk and the vendors tried everything in the book to get me to look at their wares and hopefully make a sale but I was determined not to buy anything at this stage. There was one part that had a lot of textiles. Actually it was shop after shop of textiles – so many beautiful fabrics.
Dubai Creekside
I quite liked the creekside walk and looking at the abras and dhows that were transporting people to the other side of the creek or just up and down the creek for fun. I think a ride up and down the creek is well worth it and was lovely at dusk. It got dark at around 6pm so beware if you are in Dubai during October that you will lose light at that time and it doesn’t take long before it is ‘night’.
There are many activities happening in Dubai thoughout the year Visit Dubai is a wealth of information for this.
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