Our guide was quite good, rolling out information on the buildings we were passing as well as telling us about the country. Our first stop was a museum built under an old fort. It showed the history of Dubai and was done quite nicely. It was smart to put it underground when the heat can be horrible in Dubai. They even have air conditioned bus stops! We next stopped at a beautiful mosque. It is only open to the public for an hour a day and not when we were there so it was just a photo stop. We had a few of those.
Next stop was the Gold Souk. We had found a store in 2009 where everything was $10 but looked just like the abundance of real gold in every store. It was called City Gold. We were unable to find it but did find a shop with a more expensive gold plate jewelry. We only had 30 min to look around so did not really shop as we planned to come back in the afternoon.
We were next taken to an arts and crafts store. They had beautiful things. I loved the pieces that were embroidered onto black velvet using gold thread. They were very heavy and intricate. I especially liked a piece that had a camel standing under a palm tree. It was about 18" x 24" and they would give me a very good price of $750! Can't imagine what the larger pieces cost. Upstairs they had beautiful embroidered bags made of camel leather. They were more affordable.
We were driving along the beach road, we could see the Arabian Sea in a few breaks between houses. We stopped at the Al Arab beach which is a public beach right next to the Burj Al Arab Hotel. That is the large sail shaped hotel built on a small man made island. We had tea there when we were here in 2009. We had a chance to touch the water, pick up a couple of shells then back to the vehicle. The beach road continued passing by a couple of palaces, hidden behind tall fences and a lot of trees. We eventually reached The Palms, a large island built in the shape of a palm tree. We drove down the stem of the tree passing by a lot of high rise apartment buildings. At the top of the Palm is the Atlantis Hotel. It looks very much like the one in the Bahamas but it has no gambling. Gambling is not allowed in the Emerites. After the Palms we were driven back to the ship. It was about 1:00.
We had lunch on the ship, took a short rest then headed out again. We took a taxi to the Gold Souk. This time we looked in all the windows and went into a few stores, more to look than anything. There is more gold there than I have seen anywhere else but it is certainly not discounted. It was fun to look at though. We continued on our quest for City Gold. We finally found a shop with gold plate jewelry and I recognized the City Gold boxes in their cases. City Gold the store had closed down in the souk, but they still existed. I bought a few pieces for friends on the ship. We then asked for directions to the Spice Souk. We were told to go to the left. We walked several blocks passing store after store filled with soap!!! I dubbed it the Soap Souk. Not sure if it was wholesale for soap or what, it seemed very strange. They also had a lot of lotion in huge jars and toothpaste. But it was mainly soap from Palmolive to Tide.
We asked for directions again and were sent back the way we came. Very strange. Back in the Gold Souk, we asked for directions again and were told in back of the Gold Souk. Went there, nothing. We finally asked one more person before we gave up and were finally pointed in the right direction. We knew we would know it when we found it by the smell and we were right. It smelled wonderful. Every small shop had bags of various spices outside, nuts and smaller packages inside. I had to ask what everything was. One store had a lot of saffron. They had bags of lavender colored rose buds. They smelled like old, dried flowers, don't know what they did with those. They had bags of some black round things. They were dried, rotten lemons! They said they use them for soup. One bag had blue balls in it that felt like chalk. It was indigo! I also found camel milk chocolate. We had had a sample of it in the mall the day before, not that great. But the rock candy made with camel milk chocolate was colorful and good so I bought some of that. I also bought masala, the same spice mixture used in my food in India that was delicious. There were also bags of ceramic loofahs. I thought that was interesting and for less than $2 worth buying. There were hawkers at every store trying to get us to go in, some were more aggressive than others. I am glad that we finally found the Spice Souk, it was a great experience.
We finally got back to the main road where the taxi had dropped us. There were a few people waiting for cabs. We saw another couple who looked like they would be going to the port so we asked if they wanted to share our cab. They were German, from the other ship in port next to ours. They were on a 7 day cruise just to the Emerites. We chatted on the ride then they ended up paying for the taxi! That was nice. It was about 7:00. I was so glad that our departure from Dubai had been extended so we had as much time as we wanted in the souks. We had dinner then went back into the terminal to use the wifi and make phone calls. With T Mobile we have free calls using wifi. We found out that it is not as good as just making a call though. Mel had to talk to the bank and finally just called at the .20/min rate. I was able to update everything and download some books and puzzles. The wifi was very good. We didn't get back to our cabin until after 10. Dubai was a good stop, even better with 2 full days to enjoy it.
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