Dubai

We rather enjoyed our morning in Dubai. We chose to experience the older part, with the souks and more history. Early in the morning I was the only woman on the streets. The shops were beginning to open, but it was clearly a man's time of day. I avoided looking at the men and the was just one moment as we started down a dead end street that a man really glared at me. Gradually as we got toward clothing shops there more women were out and about - all covered in black from head to toe (but generally faces showing). The shops were full of beautiful dresses and even very elegantly decorated abayas. We only saw women in plain black, so wondered what occasions would warrant a very fancy outer covering.

We wandered through the famous gold soul as they were beginning to open the shops - lots and lots of fancy stuff, but we just looked, bought a couple of little souvenirs and went on. We walked through the spice souk and got a small amount of curry. I'm never sure if I'll be able to take stuff into the U.S., so don't get too much. Stan enjoyed visiting with the vendors as they enticed him to smell this and that. He took lots of pictures. As it started to get pretty warm, we found the small creek ferries and took one across to Bur Dubai, another old section of town. Wee had used U.S. dollars for a couple of things and gotten a bit of local currency to use on the ferry. We found the Dubai Museum, which has a full level of full-size exhibits of daily life in the area - it's quite well done.

We had thought we'd head to the mall where the ship's shuttle had dropped folks off (we'd opted to take a taxi much earlier than the shuttles). Since it was quite hot by now we managed to flag down a taxi, which was much less expensive than the taxi earlier (there's a fee at the port, but I guess they only have to pay that if they are in the taxi rank).