Souqing It Up

We decided to hit the souqs in the old part of Dubai on Saturday. Souqs are marketplaces. The ones in the old part of Dubai are functional markets not just there for the tourists. They are bustling, crowded and, in general, a little crazy. To get there we take a taxi to the docks and then an abra (water taxi) across the creek to the entrance of the first of a string of souqs.


Now if you've been to Venice (or anywhere else with water) you probably have a vision of what a water taxi is. Believe me this is not it. Here, there's a guy who sits in a hole in the middle of the boat and steers. Everyone else sits on a big block that sits in the middle of the boat. There is very little clearance room between the block and the edge. I'm not that tall and sitting back on the block my feet could touch the outside edge of the boat. Everyone is crammed on until there are no seats left. The ride across the creek is actually quite nice and I took some lovely pics which blogspot is not letting me upload ... Oh well.


The souqs are not laid out the way you would think. They are made up of a series of winding narrow streets that are full of tiny itty bitty stores. As you walk through the narrow streets the vendors are constantly calling to you. My favourite sales tactic is the one where they hold up some weird item and ask you if you know what it is. It's alot of fun to chat with the vendors - they like to guess where you're from. Oddly enough Germany was a common guess even though they had heard us talking. Odd. We were never asked if we were American. Dubai may be tolerant of other ways but they really don't like Americans. I am saving cartoons from the local paper. I will share on my return!

When we first arrived the souqs were having their afternoon siesta. They completely shut down. So it was like a ghost town. We found a little cafe that made fresh pomegranate juice and waited.

There are a number of souqs that run one into the other. The first one that we reached was the spice souq. This is booth after booths of spices, herbs and all kinds of other good stuff. It smelled fantastic. Someone really should come up with a type of camera that lets you capture smells. Not that blogspot would let me post them! The next we hit was the gold souq. Dubai is pretty well known for it's gold souq. It's just what it sounds like. Store after store of gold jewellery. Most of the stores have displays in their windows showing large gold necklaces and bracelets meant for Indian weddings. It's quite overwhelming but the deals are great. My mom will be very happy with her Christmas present I'm sure!

The next souq is textiles and housewares. We tried to find the elusive Birka Barbie but the best we could do was to find a child's knapsack with a picture. Birka Barbie is a Barbie that's dressed in the national Emirati dress. There's also a Ken doll in a dishdasha. It's will be awesome if we find them!

The last souq we hit carries perfume. In Dubai you can get perfume made with essential oils. This is awesome for me because I'm allergic to roses and thus rose water which most perfumes contain. I didn't actually purchase any but the smells were awesome and I got to sample for a change!

After we wandered around for a while we set off for home. Exhausted but happy!

Dubai temp: 37 (on Saturday