Dubai, Day Two (Part One)

Didn't do a whole lot today...my dad's luggage didn't make it to Dubai last night (it got waylaid at Heathrow) so he didn't want to leave the hotel until his bags showed up. That happened about 1 PM, so once he was able to put on clothes he hadn't flown in, we set out.

My only pre-set tourist goal was to take a ride on an abra, or water taxi, across Dubai Creek. Since my grasp on Dubaian geography is still tenuous, I thought what we could do was take a cab to the Al Karama Market, walk around there for a bit, and then walk to the creek. It turns out Al Karama isn't near the creek, or at least not near enough for my dad, who just had two knee surgeries, to walk. So, as our cab pulled up to Al Karama and our cabbie pointed out that since it was Friday (the first day of the weekend) most of the stores would be closed, we asked him to drop us of creekside instead.

The area along the creek was hopping. Since it was a day off, the plazas and streets were filled with what seemed like every Indian construction worker in Dubai. I knew that something like 70% of the population of Dubai was foreign, mostly Indian, but it wasn't until I read an article in the most recent National Geographic that I realized most of them are, essentially, indentured servants, living in squalor while they attempt to pay back the cost of their airfare, fronted by unscrupulous Indian business interests.

Anyway, many of them were spending their day off hanging out by the creek, and doing some shopping. We walked around the shopping area a bit, but I'm not much of a shopper, and most of the stores in this area sold day-to-day items rather than things I'd be looking to bring home (I'll need to go to the malls for that). So we decided to hop in an abra for the ride across the creek.

"Creek" is a misnomer, since it was long ago widened and deepened. I mean, it's not the Mississippi River, but it's too wide to throw something across, which is sort of my internal definition for what a creek is. Since there are only a few bridges, and none for pedestrians, people use the abras to cross. It only costs 1/2 a dirham, or about $0.14.

The abras are simple, open wooden boats with a large bench seat and a canopy. I didn't get any good pictures of them (more on that later) but here they are:



There is no way something like this would be allowed in the States -- you sit mere inches from the water with no railing, seat belts, or even handholds, and at the end of the trip you hop out of the rocking (and often still moving) boat onto the dock. Good times.

We spent a bit more time walking around, mostly to find a store where I could buy some AA batteries for my camera. We eventually found a store selling a pack of 24 for 4 dirhams ($1.09). "Such a deal," I thought, and it would have been if Any of them worked. Most of them were so dead that they didn't even give my camera enough power for it to tell me it was out of battery. The final pair that I put in the camera gave me three photos, which was enough to take a picture of the boats laden with goods and waiting to unload:



Next up: an unwanted tour & lots of meat for dinner...