Epic Honeymoon - Day 02 - Dubai

Dubai Spice Souk.

Day two started with breakfast at the hotel, which was reasonably varied between Middle Eastern / Indian food and some Western staples, including an omelette station. The selection of fruit was a bit of a letdown; also the coffee, which was only instant. Nevertheless, we fueled up well and set out for the day. Catching the metro out to Al Ras, on the northern side of the creek, we wandered into the backstreets and a generally random direction to find the old Souks, running into the Gold Souk first. Here, there are modern shops selling all kinds of fine jewellery; we even spotted a single ring priced at 3-million Dirham (about 1-million AUD)! Though, reflecting on that, maybe we read it wrong. That seems a bit over the top!

Dubai Gold Souk.

Winding our way south, we found the Spices, Textiles and Utensils Souks. The Spices were really cool – so many different colours and items that I’d never considered were natural elements. Of course, the number one offering was saffron, but many other shops have sticks of yellow sulphur; Indigo for dyeing jeans; various green herbs; even preserved lemons. I had expected some amazing smells – it wasn’t actually very fragrant except when you go up close. However, the colours were amazingly vibrant.

Stall merchant messing with our selfie!

We started looking for some food, stopping off along the way for my wife to haggle with (and mildly annoy) a textile merchant! She managed to pick up a cashmere scarf for about 10 AUD; a similar one made of llama would have been the better part of 60 AUD. With not a lot of food on offer, we came back to our hotel area and walked up towards the creek, eventually happening upon a kebab & Indian restaurant called Jabal Al Noor, just off the main road. This resulted in a very tasty lunch, so it was a good find! It’s hard to define – as an outsider – what is local food and what isn’t. With Dubai’s workforce being so predominantly foreign (Indian, Philippino, Chinese), the cuisine available is quite varied, but ultimately delicious!

Lunch time!

Bellies sated, we visited the Dubai Museum which was just near the restaurant. This gave us a brief introduction to life in Dubai over the several hundred years as it developed from a humble trading post into the ostentatious metropolis it is today.

Dubai Museum.

Dubai Museum.

Dubai Museum.

We retired from the sun for the afternoon to rest up, emerging again around 6pm, heading to the Dubai Mall to watching infamous fountain show. Thousands of people line the lake to watch the water squirt and dance in time with the music, all in the humbling shadow (if it were day time!) of the Burj Khalifa.

Dubai Fountain.

The Burj by night.

Take a First-Class tour on Day 03!