Middle East 2024 - Day 5 - 12/3/2024 - To Dubai

In contrast to the previous days I was forced to get up early this morning - I had a 10a flight to Dubai on flydubai. After a quick breakfast at the hotel I took an Uber to the airport to catch the 1h10m flight, which ran on time. I found it notable that the Dubai/UAE immigration officials give tourists a SIM card with 10 GB of free data upon entry.

 

Brad's flight from Dallas was due to arrive at noon at DXB, 15 minutes before mine. He got in slightly earlier than that and we coordinated meeting up - his flight landed at terminal 3, while mine was at terminal 2. He had used credit card points to update his round trip flights to business class on Emirates, which he was excited about. Because of the upgrade, he got the fast track through immigration and came over to my terminal to meet me. There was a bit of confusion about meeting at departures vs arrivals, but we eventually worked it out. From there we took an Uber to our hotel, the Hyatt Centric Jumeirah.

After settling into our room, we headed out on a walkabout. Our first stop was the Jumeirah Mosque a short walk away, but we just missed the end of visiting hours at 3p. We continued north to the Etihad Museum to look around there for a bit. This continued the tradition of museums I had visited Qatar, but on a lower level: visually interesting building (though to a lesser degree than the Qatari museums), but uninteresting subject matter (the least engaging so far). As the museum was dedicated to the formation of the United Arab Emirates as a country, I did learn that "Etihad" means "union" or "unity"; so "Etihad Airways" is essentially "United Airlines" (except with significantly better service 😅).

Brad's colleague had recommended that he visit the Gold Souk, so we headed in that direction. We took an Uber to a Nepalese restaurant that Brad had picked out in the old city area, but left because he wasn't feeling the vibe. After a bit of wandering around we eventually settled on a South-Asian-ish place that was honestly almost certainly worse than the initial place we passed on; I say that not only because I found my paneer masala too spicy.

Following the suggestion of the concierge at the hotel, we walked to the Dubai Creek and took one of the abra ferries across to the Spice Souk / Old Souk (this cost 1 AED / UAD Dirham, or about 27 cents; good thing we took out some cash). During the walk through the market we were hounded by merchants trying to catch our attention - something neither of us is ever in the mood for. We continued on to the Gold Souk for a very quick look around. This souk expedition was not something either of us was particularly interested in, so Brad decided to downgrade other recommendations he had received. From there we took an Uber back to the hotel.

On the subject of Ubers... At least two of the UberX's that we ordered so far in Dubai were Lexus cars - not something that we would have expected.

--

Trip highlight photos can be found here.