I got a solid 4 hours of sleep which was awesome! We had forgotten to close the dark curtains so when the sun was up so was I! It was a beautiful sunrise this morning! Andrew was still sleeping so I puttered around in the living room, took some pictures of the sunrise and got organized for the day – needed to optimize my knapsack and purse for the Walking Tour today. I just realized what I have forgotten at home – my sunscreen! Will have to deal with that fairly soon as it is pretty hot and sunny here and I do not want to get burnt! I am not that worried though as I have built up a bit of a base from my travels earlier this year. I am hungry! Time to check out breakfast! More important – time for Andrew to get up!
The breakfast at the Sheraton Dubai Creek is free for all guests of the hotel. There is an AMAZING buffet provided that covers many different cultures and what they would want to eat for breakfast. There was a Middle Eastern, European, cereal bar, omelette bar, hot breakfast area and cold food plates provided. We sat outside as it was beginning to be a very nice and warm day! When inside looking at the various parts of the buffet, I must have looked lost or something as one of the waiters wanted to help me. I said that I was just looking and wanted to know what on the buffet was gluten free. WELL, did that put them into ACTION! I will call the chef right away madam! Sure enough the chef came very promptly and walked me through the buffet and told me various items were GF, including the corn flakes (they looked like Schar ones), the omelette bar and various items on the hot and cold areas. So I ordered an omelette and got myself a bowl of corn flakes and dressed it up with lots of goodies like nuts and seeds! Just then the chef appeared and said he was wrong and the corn flakes have barley and he took my bowl away! Instead he said he would prepare me French Toast! I was all for that!
We enjoyed a lovely breakfast on the patio of the restaurant, which is next to the pool. There are some free range cats in the area that come to visit, however the servers tell them to get lost! Andrew had finished breakfast and his IV of coffee and I was still waiting on my French Toast. The waiter was very apologetic and told me that it had to come from a special kitchen. After about 20 minutes it arrived and it was SO GOOD! That made my day!
I then looked up on Google Maps where the closest drug and grocery store would be. We needed sun screen and I needed a couple of things that I had now realized I had also forgotten, along with my standard need of Coke Zero. We found one that looked not too far away so off we went to check it out. First, there are large roads in Dubai and the hotel was on one of them. They either have overpasses or traffic lights that are spaced quite a distance apart. So we had to walk to the left a distance to only cross the street and walk to the right, back to basically a road perpendicular to the hotel on the other side of the street. We were told that jay walking was illegal and we did not see that many people doing it. The first grocery type store that we found did not look appropriate for what we were looking for so we kept going. The temperature at this point was just over 30 degrees Celsius. We found what I would call an Arabic Dollar store, although the items were not in dollar increments, which seemed to fit the bill! I was able to purchase my hair ties, suntan lotion and Coke Zero all in the one store. It definitely was a cultural experience as my mother would say – very narrow aisles and dollar store type quality for many of the goods. Some people were buying a TON of stuff there! We sure stuck out like sore thumbs – me with my walker and blonde/grey hair and Andrew just in general. I do not think they normally see many visitors.
We then walked back to the hotel and had a snappy nap before taking a taxi to the meeting point of our tour which was across Dubai Creek from where we were staying. I had picked this particular tour as it ends up back on the Sheraton side of the creek.
We met our tour guide “Mouse” and the other 10 people on our tour – it was a small tour group on purpose, and we started walking through the “old Dubai” neighbourhood. It looked very authentic as you can see below however it is less than 10 years old! It was just build to look like the buildings originally did on Dubai Creek. The buildings are actually part of a Hilton hotel and house different rooms throughout them on the 2nd level. Then we crossed a large street and in that area the houses are actually older and have the original “features” of the Emirate homes such as the two doors – men going in the front one which is quite large and women going in the back door (which we did not see an example of). Also, these homes were build with what looks to be a bell tower type structure on top and the houses are actually quite close together. The “bell tower” is their form of air conditioning – it forces the air downwards and therefore out of the home below and the close proximity of the houses are to create wind tunnel type features to keep the air moving.
We were then invited into a house to have some Arabic coffee – this was a strange experience for me – I had to lift my walker up and then down 2 stairs to get in and then down 3 stairs to the sunken living rooms where we all gathered. Leaving, up the 3 stairs out of the living room and around the corner we went and down a ramp to exit! Why they could not have brought us in that way is beyond me….
Now we walked to the Now we walked to the nearby textile souk area and we had a break to do whatever we wanted. This was our first day in Dubai so I was not into shopping so instead I decided to have my favourite drink (Coke Zero) and watch the abra traffic on Dubai Creek. An abra is a flat-bottomed boat that is used to transport people around the creek – sort of like the Granville Island Ferries but not as cute! They do have a top on them though!
Once the group re-convened, we walked to an abra so that we could cross Dubai Creek ourselves and go to the Spice and Gold Souks before the end of the tour. Crossing the Dubai Creek was fun – we passed by some very interesting ornately carved boats – we were not sure at that point if they were sea going ships however they seemed to be carrying a lot of goods and offloading them on the shore. The crossing took about 5 minutes and we were back on the side of Dubai Creek where our hotel was now. Slight problem though. To cross the street, you have to go down about 30 stairs, along a corridor and then up 30 stairs again! That was not in the plan when I selected this walking tour! The tour guide will not let me cross the road (there are barriers where we are preventing it) farther down as he says it is against the law and there are no lights with cross walks to walk to either! Well, down and back up I went! The stairs were not that high and I took it slowly. What was a bit of extra pain when my body was already REALLY confused as to what day and time it was? Well it was worth it – the Spice Souk was very interesting! The smells were fascinating!
We were first taken into a small store (you know how these tours work – a friend of a friend’s store) where they talked about different teas. We sampled or smelled several which were lovely – except for the one that was like Halls Menthol! Then we moved onto saffron. I was not aware that saffron, which is very expensive, sometimes is “extended” by mixing it with sunflower stamens and obviously reduce the quality. How do you tell? The sunflower saffron mix when dropped in a glass of water will sink to the bottom of the glass where real saffron will float on the top of the water and start dying the water yellow/orange from the top.
After the stop at the store, we were given “shopping time” where we walked around the Grand Souk which contains several souks starting with the herb and spice souk. Wow are the vendors in the souk aggressive! They will say anything to try and get your attention! I found that the best way to walk around was to wear sunglasses so they could not see where I was looking… The spice souk then leads into the utensil souk which leads to the gold souk! At the entrance to the gold souk there was a huge ring at the entrance that is listed in the Guness World as the largest gold ring in the world.
After experiencing all this bling and smells along with harassment, we were ready to return to the hotel! With both of us getting tired, we decided to take a taxi instead of walking about 3 km back in the heat. It was a good decision! The taxi driver drove us down next to the Dubai River and explained that the ships that we ships that we saw with the ornate carvings on them are ocean going and are coming from Iran with various goods.
Back at the hotel, we both had a nap and then ordered room service for dinner – I ordered Butter Chicken and rice and Andrew ordered a wrap. I FORGOT the spice wimp that I am to order ZERO heat on the Butter Chicken so it was a sit and sweat situation for dinner! Early to bed as tomorrow we need to be up early for the Tour of Dubai we are taking at 9am!
