Dubai Diary 13 - Random Scenes

The Gold Souk is a bazaar of gold and ornaments. Dubai's Gold Souk lies along its Creek, where perhaps the world landed with its goodies once upon a time in ships and dhows. A souk is a traditional market and unlike the malls, the souks are redolent of Dubai's indigenous trading culture. There are textile souks, and vegetable souks and dates souks and fish souk, but the most fascinating are the perfume souk, the spice souk and the gold souk. Step into spice souk and the heady fragrance of spices and herbs A walk down the streets of the souk covered by wooden awnings and fringed by shops, all of which sell jewels, is a visual treat. All the styles of jewellery in the world are represented here: from the elaborate, intricate and body covering opulence of middle eastern jewellery to the lighter, intricate Indian styles and the more straight-lined, delicate and subtle European styles. 

One of the shops in the gold souk had this prominently displayed:

                                                    
A view of the gold souk:

A stroll down the esplanade in the evening is fun. You could even opt for a dinner cruise aboard one of the well-lit 'floating restaurants, which are two-tier dhows or big boats converted into restaurants. They serve dinner while they give you a ringside view of Dubai at night along the creek. 

This is Dubai preparing to celebrate UAE National Day on December 2. All the government building were gorgeously lit.

The Apple International School is right across the road from our apartments. One day, on hearing more squeaks and squeals on usual, I peeped out of my windows to see a fire drill in progress and kids making full use of the rare opportunity to exercise their lungs and limbs, as only kids can!! Loved it, kids!

Back to the creek side. An evening at creekside watching the water taxis and abra - local boats like this one - transporting tourists and commuters from one water station to another - is actually good fun. You could walk down the pier, or sit on one of the heavy and comfortable wooden benches or even sip a milkshake at one or the other of the little restaurants along the creek that serve you outdoors under a shamiana. Besides food and beverages, these little eat-outs will also helpfully supply you with seesha and live coal to puff away on as you watch the rippling waters. [Seesha is an ornate metallic hookah with a long tube-like connection leading from it which people use to snort in local tobacco - adventurous smokers hell-bent on smoking themselves to death might want to try out this toxin too!]

The camel house in the Heritage Village. The Heritage and Diving Villages are nice places to walk through.

The Al Mamzar Park is what they like to call a beach park: a thin-line of sandy beach has been converted into a beautifully landscaped park with restaurant, barbeque spots, walking paths, video game parlours and even an auditorium and some odds-and-ends shopping. A nice picnic spot.

Sudhakar and I tried the pedal cars and found ourselves out of breath in a jiffy!