Saturday, January 26, 2008

"I Visited The Spice Souk And All I Got Was This Lousy Upper Respiratory Infection"

Well, that's not accurate - I'm sure I got something else as well! Today, after the entirely necessary trip to Ikea (where we realized we already had the catalog memorized), we joined up with the Arnolds and company for part of Mike Arnold's trademark Dubai tour: Souk & Creek Chapter. We started at the Dubai museum (electricity in 1958), on to the water taxi (check out the video below), and then to the spice and gold souks. The crasiest thing of it all? The people hawking wares (or salt, or saris, or silver, or...) do it in at least 8 languages. "Where are you from? Deutsch? Willkommen! Irish? Are you Irish? Welcome! Oi oi, Bienvenue?". You have to hand it to anyone who can sell rock salt, Persian rugs, and room temparature rotting shrimp equally well in any language.


As usual, you can get the obligatory photo gallery here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fun things to do in the Arab World: So, as Americans in Morocco, my friends and I were typically rude and taught our Arab buddies that in the US, after a good meal, you clap your hands and say "Papsmears" to your host as a compliment. We also explained how "Jambalaya!!" is a typical American greeting. ;) Moroccans everywhere would see us and yell "Hey! Jambalaya!" from across the road. teehee.

So in Marrakech, we were shopping in the souk (which, as you know, is ridiculous and full of gift-with-purchase scorpion key chains). I made a purchase from a jeweler, and as I was leaving he yelled "Fish and Chips!" with a friendly wave. Ah- the British are just as cruel. :)

Unknown said...

They have those same kind of beggars in South America.. I had a kid trying to get me to let him clean my shoes, which were already pretty clean. After I got rid of him, he started speaking Italian to the next guy.. and after that guy shook him off, I heard him speaking Chinese! I was definitely impressed.