Dubai Update #7 – A visit to Shajah

The city of Shajah is the capital of the Emirate of Shajah funnily enough. The city and emirate of Shajah border the city and emirate of Dubai.  In fact as you drive from one city to the other, unless someone points it out, the gap between the buildings of each city are imperceptible.

Amanda, Christine and I headed off to look for the “Blue Souq” in the historic and cultural part of Shajah.  The two big kids were at school and the maid was left to look after the baby which is part of her job spec.  This meant of course that at lunch time we could be a little adventurous with out having to worry about the grand children’s reactions.

The local tourist books to promote different attractions around Dubai and Shajah quite clearly list the “Blue Souq” as a “must see” destination.  So not only would we expect the GPS to have it listed as a POI (Point Of Interest), but we would have also expected the locals to know where the “BLUE SOUQ” was situated.  Not on your nelly, nobody, but nobody knows about the “Blue Souq”. They  do however know about the Central Souq that does happen to be blue, or almost, as does the GPS.  So after some considerable time fighting early morning traffic we eventually arrived at our intended destination.

Just as an aside, addresses don’t work in Dubai. For example you cannot give a taxi driver an address and expect to get where you want to go. The core to this problem is that suburbs and streets are numbered. Amanda’s address is a good example.  The villa complex where the family lives is on 14th Street in Safa 1.  There is also a 14th street in Safa 2; confusing; so everybody has fallen into the habit of using reference points such as “English College” (a college close to us and well known) or larger shopping centres.  Once you are in the vicinity of your residence you then give the taxi driver instruction for the last 1 or 2 kms.  This surprisingly also applies to the GPS unit.  Google maps works but data charges are worse, much worse than Australia, so very few people use Google maps on their smartphones. People often do not have addresses on their business cards for this very reason. So to find a persons place of business you ring the receptionist to get the closest well known PIO, and then get detailed instructions from that PIO.

Getting back to the “blue” Central Souq: It was 9:30 in the morning and there is very little trading done during the morning hours, so many of the traders were still opening their shops and stalls.  Comparatively, shops in the larger shopping centres in Dubai don’t start opening until 10 am but this varies from day to day and cannot be relied upon. However they do continue to trade well into the evening. At the Central Souq  there were two main malls, the first housing high quality gold, silver and jewellery merchants on the bottom floor and high quality Persian carpet shops dominated the top floor. In the second mall there was a mixture of traders ranging from ornate light fittings and antique artifacts, some of which were quite exquisite,  to textile shops selling mainly cashmere and silk Pashminas and Abayas (the traditional Islamic attire for women in the UAE). Scattered amongst these shops were a variety of shoe and clothing shops of a more western style.

Christine and Amanda purchased a couple of items, and if  she could have justified purchasing items that she would probably not wear back in Australia she would have purchased many more just for the quality and colour of the fabrics, and Chris does know her fabrics very well.

Joining each of the main malls were overpasses connecting them to one another, these overpasses containing smaller down market shops with various items of jewellery, clothing and textiles and the inevitable watch shops.

After leaving the Souq we headed for the heritage area of Shajah along the water front and in the process we ran across the Shajah Museum of Islamic Civilization.  This is a fabulous building with a large collection of art and artifacts dating back to the 1st century AD.  You cannot help but admire the incredible artwork in the vast collection of art pieces that are held in this museum. Many of the items would be priceless. I would recommend this museum as a “must see” for any visitor to the UAE. As we needed to have some lunch and get back to Dubai in time for the kids to arrive home from school, we did not do the Museum justice, so Chris and I will return in a day or two to revisit.

A last comment though about the Islamic Craftsman and Artisans.  Their talents have not diminished over the centuries, particularly when you see the exquisite stone work of recently constructed Mosques and other cultural buildings that dominate the suburban landscape.  The Mosque next door to our villa that wakes us up every morning at 5:45 with the amplified call to prayer is an excellent example. The call to prayer occurs 5 times a day and is coincidentally in the background as I type this post at 6:00pm.  Now that we are used to it, we tend to let it pass by unnoticed, it simply becomes part of the daily routine and backdrop to suburban living in the UAE.

So after the museum we headed off into the narrow streets and laneways to look for a restaurant to get some tucker amongst the many stores and shops selling a large range of items. In this area it seems there was a dominance of mainly Shisha paraphernalia (the previously mentioned huge bongs for smoking flavoured tobacco). We eventually found a restaurant that seemed like it might suite our adventurous spirit.

The proprietor eagerly welcomed us, contrasting with previous proprietors who had looks of anguish on their faces as we entered their domains.  Perhaps it was because there were only 3 of us with no children in tow.  Communication was not great but we got by fairly well, discovering that the owners brother had studied for his MBA in Melbourne and was now set up as a consultant in Qatar advising fledgling businesses.

There were no menus at all, not even in Arabic, however with some discussion with the owner we eventually ordered Chicken Biryani, Meat Curry and Naan style bread to share. Not a concept that appears to come easily here, the proprietor eagerly waiting for us to order a serve for each of us. Once again we did not receive an individual plate for each of us so we made do with the sparse utensils we were provided, not wanting to seem like un-appreciative tourists.  I would just like to emphasise the term “Meat Curry”. There was no thought of revealing the animal are part of the animal that was the source for the meat so we did not ask but we figured it was beef liver.  It tasted really good and the Chicken Biryani was sensational. We have had better Naan bread before however.

Lunch over we headed home to welcome the kids home from school, replenishing our beer and wine stash on the way as we were running low from our recent foray to Ras Al-Khaimah and Dibba.

 

Cheers

Till my next post

Graham