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Published: August 8th 2007
It is 7:40pm on Friday, April 27th. Now that is what you call up to date. I am sitting in area 3 of Dubai international airport six hours early for a flight. We’ve already been here for almost two hours. Even with a guaranteed late checkout thanks to our Starwood Gold membership and a trip the Deira souqs, we find ourselves here too early. I guess we could have tried to do more, but we’ve done everything we wanted to do (or could afford) in Dubai, and it’s time to go.
Jumeirah Open Beach: So salty, you can’t drown Our lofty plans to get to the beach before sunrise do not materialize and the rays creep into our dark room signaling our failure. It’s all good, the beaches do not open until 8am anyway. We sign up for the free hotel shuttle to Jumeirah Open Beach and start packing up before our 10am departure. The ride takes only 10 minutes. It’s 10am - remember what I said about when you should *not* be out and about in Dubai? Oh, sun, how shall I describe thee today? Blistering? Used that yesterday. Searing. Two days ago. Oppressive, bright, powerful, baking, sautéing, simmering,
boiling, steaming, HOT HOT HOT. Why are there hardly any trees? And the trees that are here - why are they palms with fronds that barely provide any shade? I smell my skin frying. We walk along the boardwalk where Filipino, Indian, and Pakistani expats are spending their Friday (akin to our Sunday). Tomorrow is a holiday, so it’s not the last day of the weekend. There are two main areas for swimming that we can see. It is a man-made beach, with Gulfwater cordoned off by some rocks and sand piles indicating that it’s not quite done. The water is a beautiful green, almost teal in the shallow waters. There are many people enjoying the water, but it’s not too crowded. We walk out on the concrete pier-like structure that separated the two swimming areas. At the end of it, it spreads out into a circle shape and you can walk around and take in the view in the direction of the Burj al Arab (hard to see due to the haze or smog) to the left and what looks like an oil field to the right. I am barely making it in this heat, sitting down next to
walls to steal some shade when I can. I need to get in the water, so after some pics, we head to the beach on the left. There are a few white women in bikinis, but other women swim in their regular clothes. There aren’t that many XXs around anyway. We make sure to reapply our SPF50 cream and then get into the cool waters of the Persian Gulf. It is a bit nippy, but it’s perfect for this kind of heat. There are small fish flitting about in the shallows, and the sand is fine. Once you dip your head and come back up for air, the first thing you notice is how salty the water is. It stings your eyes and makes you hesitate from licking your lips. But the great thing is that it is really easy to float in this kind of water, and if it weren’t for that red hot star in the sky, it would be quite relaxing to just lie back and float the day away. Leroy floats a little bit more than usual, but not enough to enjoy it like I do. He’d have to increase his fat content and decrease his
bone density to do that. We frolic in the water, but make sure not to get to close as public displays of affection are frowned upon. I’m weirded out by the way men stare at me and other women in bikinis, but I try to ignore it. It gets worse when we walk to the rinsing station, as the men gawk obviously. The ratio is just too much, so many men around, where are the women? I wish I had a towel but the hotel wouldn’t let us take ours. So, I have to air dry, in my bikini. I put my dress on while I’m still damp. We stop at the Palm Strip Starbucks and enjoy our usual drinks while checking out our London guidebook.
Last-minute souq-ing At the crib, we order in from the Iranian restaurant down the street: hammour (from the grouper family) filet with rice and a Caspian mix (4 different kinds of kebab with rice). Hammour is the most common fish eaten here, so much so that the price is rising due to dwindling supply. The Caspian plate comes with lamb, beef, chicken, and ground seasoned beef. The whole thing is delicious. Once we’re
packed and checked out, we head toward Deira to see the spice and gold souqs. These are markets where there gold trading and spice selling is done, and they are in the old part of Dubai where we first stayed. We get there before 5pm, so most of the shops are not open yet as they tend to close during the hot hours and it is Friday. There is much gold to be seen, and it’s quite shiny, but with 21 karat gold hoop earrings priced at 180 AED, there’s no way I’ll pick any up. It’s much cheaper in Bangkok, in my opinion. We walk to the spice souq by following our noses and I seriously consider picking up some Arabic coffee with cardamom. The salesmen are kind enough to show me all their spices and products - turmeric, saffron, black pepper, red pepper, green pepper, cumin, black cumin, coffee, roasted coffee beans, cardamom, star anise, vanilla, whole nutmeg, sage, lavender, frankincense, rock salt, sandalwood, masala curry, and so much more. They give me samples to smell and chocolate to taste. Although I walk in for coffee, I almost buy a small bag of cardamom and a larger mixed
pack of 12 spices for 35 AED (30 when I said it was expensive). But as much as I would love to have those spices to play with in the kitchen, we have seven more countries to get through, and that’s a lot of customs to bank on. Even if I want to send the spices home with my mom after Paris, she’ll have to get to the U.S. with spices labeled with only their names and no other commercial information. Australia and the loss of the cashews has made us wary, and so we leave empty-handed. The rest of the shops in the spice souq have yet to open. The gold souq was less interesting to me than the spice souq, and I like both gold and cooking. But the gold souq was filled with air-conditioned shops, much like many of the Chinatowns of the world where gold is sold. The spice souq, on the otherhand, has smaller shops, much more like what you would imagine from the old days. The aroma of spices takes the experience to another level, engaging a different sense, and with the feast that your eyes take in, there is synergy. I only wish
that more of the shops were open so I could walk through the narrow alleyways and take it all in through my nose. We are so close to the Old Souq Abra Station that we decide to take an abra (a motorboat) across Dubai Creek to get from Deira to Bur Dubai. This will get us within walking distance of the hotel for just 1 AED each (our book says it’s half that price at 50 fils, but this is one battle I won’t take on). The abras are filled with men. Men everywhere. I thank God that I am a woman and that the world is filled with both sexes. I enjoy the boat ride over, looking down toward the larger section of Dubai Creek (it’s called a creek, but it’s the size of a river) where the high-rises are—off in the distance, two Rolex Towers (one building with Rolex written in English on it, the other with Rolex in Arabic—can be seen. Once at Bur Dubai station, we hop in a cab to pick our luggage up and head to the airport.
Let us in, let us in! And that’s how we end up at the airport
7.5 hours early. There are many other things in Dubai to see, but sweating in this heat and hanging out in weekend evening Dubai traffic is not our idea of a last day. We’re also thinking that maybe we can get into the British Airways business class lounge while it’s still open and well before our 1:45am flight, but no luck. There is no British Airways counter right now, and we are stuck waiting in the check-in area between the first security station and passport control. No food. No water. No business class lounge. But plenty of time for blogging.
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