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Dubai, UAE
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
On our final day in Dubai we visited Sharjah a few of miles north of
Dubai. Like Dubai, Sharjah is the name of both a city and of an
emirate. More conservative than Dubai, it is the emirate that
does the most to preserve the heritage of the region. Our focus
was on two souks in the city, Souk Al Markazi and Souk Al Mujarra.
Souk al Markazi
Souk Al Markazi is a beautiful building consisting of two very long
halls connected by two bridges, The roof is curved and crowned
with huge wind towers. The building was not designed with air
conditioning in mind. Much of the exterior and the roof is
decorated with ceramic tiles in hues of blue. On the first floor
are an assortment of fairly ordinary shops that you might find in any
other general souk.
The second floor was the treasure. It is actually a balcony that
lines each side of each hall. It is filled almost exclusively
with at least a hundred rug and antique shops. As you explore the
narrow spaces, rug merchants entreat you to enter their shops and look
over their merchandise. There are both old and new merchandise
and much of it is very high quality. If you like expensive silk
rugs, this is the place to go. One of the rug merchants was
especially inventive and had fairly good English skills. He asked
us to please come in and talk as he had nothing else to do. When
we hesitated he said that we must at least look at his flying
carpet. We relented and he showed us a faked photo of fighter
pilots taking off from an aircraft carrier on a rug. We all
laughed at his joke and had a good time laughing and talking while
looking at the merchandise as he unrolled one beautiful rug after
another.
After extracting ourselves from the flying rug shop and exploring the
rest of that souk we drove a couple of miles to Souk Al Mujarra.
The newest of the souks in Sharjah, it is a beautiful building.
However, it is filled with more conventional shops with clothes, etc,
much like a ordinary mall. We didn't stay long.
Chinese Lantern Festival Displays
That afternoon we went to Safa Park for a walk and to see the Chinese
lantern festival displays. The lantern display was erected for a
term of several weeks and is huge. There were elaborate scenes
depicting all kinds of stories and themes. It would have been
nice to see it at night with the lights, but we just didn't have
time. As it was, it was extremely colorful. As we walked we
wondered at the size of the park and that none of the extensive lawns
or trees or shrubs or ponds could exist without a sophisticated
irrigation system.
New Irrigation in Safa Park
In fact, Dubai is a very, very green city with flower beds dividing
most highways, fountains at many interchanges and manicured lawns
everywhere. Drip irrigation tubing is everywhere and when you
drive around in the evening or early morning there are sprinklers
everywhere. Most of the fresh water comes from seawater
desalination plants. It is a real wonder that it is possible to
desalinate that much water!
Appetizer Salad at Automatic Grill
Now it was finals time. Our final shopping stop was at a date
shop. Yes, a shop that sells nothing but dates! They
are delicious and we bought half a kilo of individually wrapped ones to
bring back home. Then it was time for our final dinner in Dubai
at our favorite place, the Automatic Restaurant &
Grills. On the way back to the apartment we made one last stop at
the Emirates Towers, set piece of all the Dubai high-rise
buildings. Consisting of two towers, one is a five star hotel
while the other is offices. There is also a mall in the hotel
side. There is nothing we could afford in the whole mall.
Wow!
Then it was back to the apartment to finish packing.
Dubai to Home Thursday, January 25, 2001
We awoke before three so Nat could deliver us to the airport by
four. We said our farewells and wished each other and the
baby-on-the-way well. Then it was off to the airport. Check
in went smoothly and Bill read while Sandy explored the duty free
shopping, said to be the finest in the world. Laden with candy
and nuts from the shops, we boarded the plane and took off for
Frankfurt and, then, home.
We had cloud cover for most of our flight time. However, we had a
good view of the mountains and high plains of what we believe was Saudi
Arabia. Talk about desolate! It is dark brown and without
any apparent vegetation from the air. Some of the mountains
appeared to have a light covering of snow and we could see cultivation
patterns in the ground but it is hard to believe that you could
actually grow anything there. It must be a hardscrabble life!
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