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Dubai We spent a couple of days in Dubai. Dubai is an amazing city, very cosmopolitan, with lots to see and do. |
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Dubai Gold Souk (Souq) We visited the Dubai Gold Souk. It is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy gold, and there are hundreds of stores. |
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Ibn Battuta Shopping Mall We visited the Ibn Battuta Shopping Mall, an amazing themed mall in Dubai. |
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Ski Dubai Of course, we had to visit Ski Dubai, the world's largest indoor downhill ski hill. We had never downhill skied before (despite being Canadian!) but we somehow survived. |
We also visited the world market Global Village, part of the Dubai Shopping Festival. This is a huge shopping/theme park about an hour outside Dubai that can best be compared to the Epcot Center, but with much more of an emphasis on shopping. Each section of the park is divided by country, ... (read more →)
The Bur Dubai Souq, across from Deira and right next to the abra station (this is where the boats drop you off when you cross the creek) had some of the best deals we saw in Dubai. Lots of knockoff watches, handbags, as well as beautiful textiles, rugs at rock bottom prices (after haggling). ... (read more →)
Another mall we checked out was the Ibn Battuta mall. This mall is at the far end of New Dubai, so was a little costly in a cab to get to. It was worth it however, and was for our money the most unique shopping mall we visited in Dubai. Every wing ... (read more →)
Ski Dubai and the Mall of the Emirates is another must-see in Dubai. Despite being Canadian, we’d never actually been downhill skiing, but why not start in Dubai? Attached to the shopping mall, Ski Dubai is a massive indoor structure, 60 stories high, with some impressively good slopes.
The whole Ski Dubai experience is ... (read more →)
Right beside the Burj Al Arab is Souq Madinat Jumeirah. This is a high-end shopping mall/”souk”, which is the cleaned-up, high price version of the souks elsewhere in the city. This is more of a tourist trap than a legitimate place to get a good deal on souvenirs. That said, we did ... (read more →)
We opted instead for viewing the outside from the public beach, about a 20 minute walk away. The hotel is surrounded by beautiful beaches, but all the ones close by are exclusively for use by hotel guests. The public beach was a nice long stretch of sand, and if we had our swimsuits, ... (read more →)
One of the “must-see” for any visit to Dubai is the Burj al Arab, a beautiful tall modern hotel in the “New Downtown” of Dubai. It is a six star hotel and costs a ridiculous amount of money to stay there per day. Unfortunately, to get in costs $65 US per person just to ... (read more →)
From our hotel in Deira, we picked up our bags, crossed the Dubai Creek by dhow (10 cents), and from there it was about a 15 minute walk to the bus station. The bus station was easy to figure out (everyone speaks English, and everything is clearly labelled) and we were soon on the next ... (read more →)
The next morning we headed out to explore Deira. We started out wandering through the electronics market. Nothing very exciting – prices were similar to or worse than what we can get in the US.
It wasn’t long before we moved on to the Gold Market. There are more than 700 shops here, crammed with all ... (read more →)
We had arranged through Expedia.com our first night at Le Meridien Baniyas Square. Le Meridien is a fairly high end chain. They have several expensive hotels in Dubai, but they also have one cheap location (”Baniyas Square”) in the Deira district (close to a lot of Dubai’s top tourist attractions). The rate was only $70 ... (read more →)
We booked our tickets relatively late, and as such, didn’t have much luck finding reasonable fares online. We ended up using a discount Asian travel agent/consolidator called Dada Tours, based in Los Angeles. The San Francisco to Dubai route is often used by Pakastanis trying to get home. The travel agent beat ... (read more →)
