Going around in circles in Bur Dubai

Yesterday we decided to go to the gold souk. Tourist sites encourage you to go there for the cheap gold. Of course we now know it's a bit of a tourist trap, though admittedly the gold is pretty cheap, say compared to Montreal.

The funny part is that we were looking for the gold souk. We had actually studied the map and written alternate ways to find it, should we get lost before crossing the creek. Well you know what they say about the best laid out plans. We drove around looking for the two streets I had marked on my paper, but they were not significant enough streets to be able to find them from the main road we were on and thankfully we turned around just before we got to Sharjah. We asked for directions several times and to be honest I got to think people were just sending us off to a wild goose chase. We eventually found one of the two streets and I suggested we park. At least it was a commercial area, and not residential like most of where we had been circling around. We took the first parking spot we found and didn't have change for parking machine and could not find a place opened to get change. For some reason most of the shops in that area seemed closed between 2 and 5. Of course it was 3 o'clock.

I had studied the map enough to know where to expect the gold souk so we walked and found it, but by the backside. We couldn't even find a door, but we found it's underground parking and entered that way. Of course most of the shops were closed until 5, except for the 1 food place, which interestingly enough actually had veggie burgers on their menu. So we ate, and window shopped for a bit. I did end up getting the one thing I really wanted to get, a new gold chain for my astrological sign pendant, that I've been waering for 20 years.

Overall there was way too much bling. I don't like things that are big or attract attention. But I looked at the different jewelry. Sometimes I find things pretty even though I would NEVER EVER wear it. I did spot a very delicate ring, no more then 2 mm wide with little sapphires and diamonds. I don't care for diamonds especially knowing most are 'blood diamonds', but this ring spoke volumes to me.. so much so my sweetie insisted getting it for me. It was a battle I wasn't going to win. So I've got this really perty ring now on my finger :)

On our way out, we actually left by the front of the building. It made me realize we must have driven past it early in the day. That fact was confirmed by the picture I'd taken of the building when we first drove past it. Of course it didn't say "Gold Souk", it said "Gold Land". How were we supposed to know???

The moral of the story is that it is so incredibly easy to get lost in Dubai traffic and roads.. especially the closer you get to Sharjah. People complain about the poor road signs in Montreal. Obviously they have NEVER been to Dubai.

Oh and we ended up getting a parking ticket. But it was about $50 CAD. Much cheaper then the parking tickets in Montreal [$75 CAD]