Historical Districts, Markets, and Lights - A very long day
We had a list of what we wanted to do, had arranged it into logical days (with one day open to add things), and after debating some sort of city pass decided against it (if we would have been at our usual pace it might have been worth it but we thought skipping it would allow for more flexibility and less of a feeling that we HAD to do everything). So now the question was just what did we want to start with? My thought, the old neighborhoods. What better way to start a trip someplace new than to understand the origins.
According to my research, Al Fahidi was the old area, but when Meir asked the front desk, she mentioned Bur Dubai, which left us totally confused. When we asked for a map, they only had one of the whole city, and none specifically of the old neighborhood. We decided to just go for it.
First Metro ride! Thankfully Meir noticed a sign saying Women and Children only, so we went to another car. People were so nice on the metro. Any time we got on and I couldn't find a seat (which was actually pretty often) someone always stood up to let me sit. It also felt super safe. Though it was totally enclosed, no one sat next to each other and the people standing also tried to stay away from each other as much as possible. Everything was also SO clean, I don't even think there were trash cans everywhere but there was no trash on the ground, you weren't even allowed to chew gum on the train, I assume to avoid people spitting it out, and we constantly saw people around cleaning.
Anyway, back to the day. We got off the metro close to where we though Al Fahidi was, asked a few people, and started walking. The area we ended up in seemed to be very residential (my dress wasn't to my knees so I pulled down my shorts from underneath to cover them and I kept my cover-up on to keep my shoulders covered, but I still feel like men we walked by looked at me weirdly). It was interesting to see where people lived - we saw laundry hanging on balconies, we saw a delivery man struggling to push his cart up a ramp to a building and a man walking by go over to help him. This area was mostly apartment buildings, some fancy and some more modest. We happened upon the Palestinian consulate, as well as the Lebanese (I took a picture outside without noticing that we weren't allowed and the security guard yelled at me but realized I hadn't done it on purpose and I definitely didn't do it again). Thankfully there was a map right there and we realized we had walked in the wrong direction, but we didn't mind too much since it allowed us to see a bit of the city.
We turned and headed the other way and after a tiring walk (we kept finding stoops and ledges for me to stop at) we found the historic district of Al Fahidi!
According to what I'd read you're just supposed to get lost so we just started wandering through, finding a few cute shops, some graffiti, galleries.
I had read that there was a coffee museum and I saw a sign for it so we went. It was very cheap but still probably not really worth it. I'm not a big coffee person but you get a free taste with each entrance and they have options for Ethiopian, Arabian, and Turkish coffee. Meir decided to try one Ethiopian and one Arabian. Apparently there was a ceremony we could have seen with the Ethiopian but we had to sit on little stools and I really wanted something more comfortable at that point so we went and sat in the more comfortable area. The Ethiopian coffee came with popcorn and the Arabian came with dates! I didn't like either coffee at all, but really enjoyed the little snacks. Even Meir didn't really like the coffee so much (we had thought it would make a nice gift, but good thing we got to taste it first, we decided it wasn't worth buying for anyone).
Everyone says the Al Fahidi Fort is worth a visit, but when we asked we found out it was closed because of COVID, so we'll have to save that for a future visit. I think a lot of the shops and galleries we passed were also closed for that reason, but it was nice that a few were open. We happened upon the last piece of the old wall of the old city, which they had taken down in order to expand (we're more used to walls being destroyed in wars, so this was interesting).
We made it to another entrance to the old city and decided we were ready to leave. There was a cute kid area there, with a tent (looked like a Bedoin tent) sent up to show what life like used to be like, and there were camels.
We asked the security guard on the way out how to get to the boats to cross the Dubai Creek to get to the famous spice and gold markets, and he pointed out where to go, but we noticed another market on the way so we decided to wander there first since we weren't in any hurry.
The nice thing was he really didn't push us to buy it or yell at us for taking the picture and not paying lie they do in a lot of other countries we've been to (which is why we usually don't do the pictures to begin with...).
We realized most of the shops were about the same (though we didn't actually go into any others) and so we decided we were ready to cross the river. The boat ride is super cheap (people had told us 1 dunham each, but this ride was 2... when we crossed back over on a longer ride but a different kind of boat it was 1 each). We had heard the boat was an experience, but it was so short it wasn't really much, again, maybe people were referring to the second ride?
Once across we asked where the spice market was. Silly question since it was right there. We weren't sure if there was something specific we should look for but it didn't seem that way. Again, most of the stalls were the same, and the shopkeepers were really pushy trying to get us to come in. We wonder if part of it was due to the fact that there were so few tourists, when it's packed they probably don't need to call anyone over. There was one guy who wasn't so pushy, so we had him tell us about the spices he had on display, and he also explained to us how usually there are tourists swarming the area (and locals don't shop there). After that we decided we'd had enough but wandered through some alleys, finding the "utensils" market which was really more of home things, and we saw but didn't enter the "mattress" market. It's unclear what they think mattress means but we didn't see one mattress.
By then I was getting really hungry and wanted to sit, but was hoping to find a local place to eat... we started hunting unsuccessfully. We thought if we went away from the touristy markets we'd be more successful but we didn't really see much. We found a few cafes but couldn't tell what were in them. We finally asked someone and he told us he'd take us to a place. Obviously it was going to be a place he knew the owner or something and it wasn't super close but by that point I didn't care and decided we'd just go wherever he was leading us. He brought us to a cute little square with a restaurant (outdoor seating), some benches, a tree and bakery with people lined up getting this flat round bread (looked almost like laffa to us, though we didn't end up trying any). The menu was crazy, with so many sections and SUPER inexpensive! We got an Indian dish (we almost ordered two but the waiter said one was plenty) and I got fresh mint lemonade and Meir got a shake (dairy, but it was snickers so anyway I wasn't tempted to try it).
We chatted a bit with the couple at the table next to us (the woman sprayed some sort of disinfectant on her soda can before opening it and we said what a good idea it was - it also reminded us to purell after touching the menu). After a while we discovered that the man was actually an Israeli guide who was there training to guide in Dubai. They gave us a few recommendations (some of which we'd already crossed off our list like the Global Village, which based on what I saw looked better for families) and said it was best to do the Frame (which was on our maybe list for that day) at night (I ended up disagreeing but we'll get more into that later).
We were right next to the Gold Market and went there next. Again we didn't go in anywhere, but it was interesting seeing the full basically outfits of gold they had there. I was shocked, Meir actually wanted to stay even longer than I did.
When we got through to the other side we decided to head back to the dock to cross back over. One street we walked by seemed deserted, with almost all of the shops closed, but they didn't look totally shut down and we were wondering whether it was due to COVID or something else.
This time the boat cost 1 dunham, and you paid on the ride.
We took it to Bur Dubai, another historic district.
When we got off, we weren't really sure where to go but there was a market right there so we thought we'd check it out. It didn't seem any different from the first market we'd seen that day so we tried to find quieter alleys to avoid the sellers.
We didn't know what we were supposed to do there, and just wandered again as we'd done in the morning. Everything was closed, but I could imagine it being interesting with everything open and it was a nice walk regardless.
We didn't stay too long, though, and the Metro was right there so we hopped on, and with it being pretty early, decided we'd give the Dubai Frame a go.
Warning: Dubai Frame is NOT as close to the Metro stop as people say and it seems. Maybe if I wasn't pregnant it would've been fine, but being pregnant and with nowhere to stop and sit it felt like torture getting there.
Psych! We had beautiful views of it, but first we had to pass a giant park (a paid park.... but at least there were benches out front so I got a bit of a rest) and then the Frame is fenced in to these huge grounds. You actually see the entrance to the building, but have to keep going past because there's no entrance in the gate and then once you go in you have to go that whole way back. Maybe it was just pregnancy speaking but it felt like such a long walk, and we saw a bus out front so it's possible we could've taken a bus from the Metro...
Anyway, we made it and got some great photos outside at dusk as it was turning golden and colorful.
We went in (it wasn't too expensive - it may have been cheaper to buy tickets online but it wasn't bad regardless) and uppppp the elevator (Meir, with his fear of heights, did not love that part).
Looking out over the "old Dubai" in the dark we didn't find all that interesting... we couldn't see much except for the fact that buildings were low. I think it might have been more interesting to see during the day. The "new Dubai" side was cool, seeing the Burj Khalifa and we could make out the light garden we were planning to head to next. I was over it pretty quickly (there wasn't anywhere to sit so that probably played a part, I ended up just sitting on the floor next to the window for a bit while Meir walked around). The middle of the room was a glass floor that you could walk on, but even for me, who likes heights, it was pretty scary. Meir also discovered these screens that you could sort of write on... we're not sure what they had to do with anything but it was fun. We both agreed it wasn't really worth going up...
Once we went down the elevator on the other side, you go into this room (without anywhere to sit) and watch a video about the future of Dubai... super futuristic and pretty cute but a bit random. And that was it, I was ready to go find a good place to sit.
Just outside were some benches so we sat there for a bit (and got a few more nice photos from the outside). Then was the hunt for how to get to our next destination - the Glow Garden. Apparently there's sometimes a way through the park, but for some reason there wasn't, and there were no buses either. I was NOT about to walk, so FINALLY we got in a cab. Our driver had no idea where we were going but thankfully Google Maps had it and we were there! (it was pretty close but NOT walkable)
Glow Garden (actually called Dubai Garden Glow) would have been MUCH smarter to buy tickets to online - it wasn't cheap and online you could buy tickets for half price. The tickets are for the Glow Garden and Dinosaur Park, plus a separate entry to the Magic Park (though we weren't given an option to buy a ticket that didn't include that...)
The Glow Garden part was HUGE, and like all of these (Miracle Garden too) there seemed to be no map, so who knows if we saw it all, but we tried. It was very cool, though I will mention that the closer you got to the sculptures the more you realized that it could use some maintenance. But all of them looked amazing from afar - we particularly found the ones that were made up totally of lights amazing, but I also thought the big blow ups with lights inside were pretty cool as well (Meir was less impressed by those).
Thankfully we found a place to stop and eat, though we couldn't find anything that seemed great so we just ordered a garden salad (the waiter was not impressed and kept trying to push us to get more and then proceeded to warn us that this wasn't an American salad like he insisted we wanted and it didn't have lettuce and we wouldn't like it... it ended up being exactly what we wanted and we really enjoyed it)
We somehow managed to wander into the Dinosaur Park where Meir walked close to one for a picture and it started making noise and moving! Talk about a shock! (although Meir insisted some of the noises sounded like cows)
We continued on and realized there was a whole separate trail to see the dinosaurs. I was a bit less interested in that section and I was tired from so much walking, so I sat on a bench and told Meir to go on his own. We both got exactly what we needed. He had a great time wandering through and I really enjoyed the rest and not having to feel bad about holding him back.
When he came out I was hungry again (the salad was good but not filling enough to last the night). We thankfully passed more food stands, still with nothing I really wanted but I got a crepe in the end since I needed something. It was really delicious and filling, though as we'd started becoming accustomed to in Dubai, took much longer than we would have expected for them to make it.
It seemed like we were done so next stop - the Magic Park. Meir loves magic so I really thought he'd enjoy it. It turned out to be a house of illusions, although not really illusions for us - illusions for photos. We couldn't figure out all of them, but there were tons and it was really fun. Only thing is this part was indoor and small rooms so we avoided going into the rooms while other people were in there so sometimes we had to backtrack or skip some we wanted to go into.
The whole park was definitely a lot of fun, not too crowded but there were definitely people around, and great for families.
By then I was DONE. We asked how close we were to the Metro and someone told us a ten minute walk. I decided I didn't really want that so we got into a cab, but when we told the driver we wanted to go the Metro he said it was just a 5 minute walk so we got out... bad idea. I need to learn to stand up for myself. We started walking...and walking...and walking... and as usual there was nowhere to sit. I finally plopped down on the sidewalk defeated and frustrated (it probably wasn't actually that long but we had just walked through this whole park too, though we took breaks there, but also it was after such a long day with tons of walking in general). I finally got back up and we kept going. We got to a parking lot just in front of construction, and there were guys there who told us to keep going so we did. Boy were we wrong. Maybe if we'd been on the other side of the construction we could have made it, but we ended up walking a very long way around a building and basically back to the parking lot. On the bright side, we found benches and Meir found more people to ask for directions. They told us that we'd been on the right track so clearly no one knew that the construction blocked whatever way we were supposed to get to the Metro, and at that point we just had to go back to the entrance of the park where the cabs were... The park was closing so we started worrying that the cabs would leave, so Meir ran ahead. Thankfully he got us a cab who agreed to take us to the Metro. Not a great end to what had been a very great day.
When we got back to the hotel and started talking about the next day, I said I needed a rest, and anyway we'd only really planned 3 days but had 4, so we decided we'd sleep in, breakfast late, and pool the next morning before heading out. Great decision.
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