Lovely sunny day in Dubai. It was nice to pull back the curtains this morning and see the lovely skyline outside. We have a view of the Burg Khalifa and the Frame as well as the Creek.
I spent most of the day enjoying the pool at the Sheraton. Bob went off to the Dubai Mall in the morning to get new ear cushions put on his headphones – there is one of the last Bose shops in the world in there. of course he went to look at the fountain while he was there. Mission headphones accomplished, he came back for some pool time too,
We went upstairs, showered and packed at about 330. We have 30kg each with Turkish Airlines tomorrow plus cabin bags but we seem to have definitely got that much!
Walked down beside the creek at 515 to find a little boat to take us out for an hour to see the Golden Hour and the sunset. We found a nice little launch style, more comfortable than the habra water taxi and he did it for 96 dirhams, ie £20. Took us down towards the sea, under a couple of bridges, past the Royal Palace compound, then turned back into the sunset. It was so lovely and very evocative around the Al Seef and historic areas as the Call to Prayer rang out. In fact both areas are recreations of the old Dubai that was flattened in the 1990s as the new city was built. But so cleverly done…. you’d swear it was the real thing!
He dropped us just above Al Seef next to an enormous mosque where people had gathered for prayers and were then hungrily off for their Ifhtar dinner. As we came into Al Seef, which is like an old Dubai bazaar, we could see the shopkeeper families sitting on the shop floor with their evening feast spread out on cloths. Looked delicious I must say. We decided to go and eat too. We have a couple of favourite restaurants in Al Seef, but one of them Al Fanar, we like best of all. You can get big platters of seafood but also meat or fish on very fragrant slow cooked rice. I really like their food and for Dubai, it’s super reasonable, especially for a restaurant right on the creek bank. There are a few Al Fanar locations but they are all very atmospheric, very much designed to look old style with artifacts and bric a brac, even old cars around in some of them. I had a prawn dish and Bob had a mutton stew. Both were really delicious and dinner was about £40 all in. I bought some oudh perfume in a shop I know there, also very reasonable. It’s been great staying down here at the creek for 2 nights. We usually stay out at the Marina or near the Palm Jumairah but they are a long way out of downtown. Nice for a beaching week but if you want to be near the malls or the Burg or the souks, its a long trip by taxi or by metro. Maybe 50 minutes. So you need to pick your area of Dubai carefully depending on what you want to do.
We came back along the river, it all looked beautiful. We are happy/sad to be leaving tomorrow. It would be so easy to stay here longer but it’s time to go home. It has been an amazing winter. Hoping spring has sprung in Kent by now!
