Dubai and Djibouti

---

Hereare a few pictures of Dubai. Most are from a bus tour that I took which included a Dhow (pronounced “dow”) ride on the Dubai canal, a tour of the Dubai museum and a walking tour through the souks. The canal is in the old part of the city near Bastakiya. Dhows still bring goods into the canal form the Persian Gulf to trade. They unload right on the docks and leave them there until the people who have shops in the souks come and get them. Souk means market. There are textile souks and gold souks and spice souks, etc. The dhows line up three or four deep on each side of the canal. Apparently there are stiff penalties for stealing the products so no one bothers them. Crime is very rare in Dubai. I never saw any area that I did not feel safe in.



Dhows have been made in this area for a very long time. They come in various sizes and are still used. They are all over the Persian Gulf. You see them miles from land. Sometimes the radar screen is lit up with little dots that end up being dhows. They are used mostly for fishing.



There are water taxis that take you from one side of the canal to the other. They are open sided. You just hop on and when it is full it takes off. It cost one Dirham which is a coin. It probably could not run in the states due to insurance. The boats are wooden and seem very old. They are steered from a steering wheel in the middle of the boat and it is hooked up by ropes and pulleys to the rudder. The taxis miss each other by inches. It is very fun to ride them.



The souks are a series of shops and when you walk by you are almost herded into them. “Buy a watch sir, look at my spices sir, Come in please. “ Sometimes it gets irritating. They close at lunch for nap time and open again at 4 pm.



The Dubai museum is worth seeing. It is a replica of one of the first structures. Great exhibits.



A few of the pictures are form Djibouti in Africa. That is where I left the ship. Djibouti to Ethiopia to Rome to Philly and back to Norfolk. It was a grueling 32 hours.

---