Day 003: It was fun today to take Nazeer to the Gold Souk for the first time. To many, the name Dubai conjures up only stretches of beach and desert filled of the luxury, high-rise residential and business towers. However, to me, the old stretch of the original creek between Deira and Bur Dubai is the heart and soul of this Emirate. The natural inlet is where small vessels carried goods on trade routes from the Indian Ocean for hundreds of years.
No trip is complete without a walk through the updated Gold Souk (market) and perfume and original business areas near the historic center. We took the metro just a few stops and surfaced at the Al-Ras station.
As we didn't get started until late, things were already bustling.
We continued our walk along Al-Sabkha Street to the creek. Of course, there were many shops to visit along the way.
The abras are the traditional way to cross the water. They are used by commuters and those in business as an easy, quick way to get to the shops and residences. We enjoyed crossing back to the Bur Dubai side. The cost is still a single dirham.
We completed our tour by walking to the Al Ghubabia Station and returning a few stops later to our hotel apartment near the Bur Juman Centre.
As soon as we returned we were delighted to hear that we could move to a larger apartment here. Or existing kitchen was pretty full with groceries and we'd done a great deal of unpacking. However, it only took us about an hour to move. The hotel is completely booked but I'm appreciative that we can spend our nine additional nights in the new digs.
Later in the evening, we went back out to some of the local shopping and Renuka got a new suitcase. It will be useful for carrying all the purchases, I'm sure.