The Gold Souk

090307 I will start this blog out with immediately relating that I’m not in Beijing! More to follow!

When I arrived in Dubai early last month, one of the first things I was told was about the basic honesty of all the people. To help “back up this honesty,” the police are extremely strict as they are in Singapore. From what I’ve seen, everyone seems to listen intently to the police when they would like your attention. Now that it has been said…

There is a law in the UAE that basically states that a new company may have up to ninety days to decide in which Emirate they are working. Safi’s ninety days ended last Sunday. The problem being, we live in Sharjah and work in Dubai – two different Emirates. Knowing that the authorities well knew of this problem and that it had to be resolved, we were told not to come to work on Monday. I still had to get some paperwork from the office so I went in to retrieve it. After loading up the paperwork and memory stick with the driver, I decided to send those items back to Sharjah and go sight seeing on my own.

The driver took me along Dubai Creek on my way to the Gold Souk (Market). The ride over past the small (80 foot) boats that delivered the dry goods to dockside was very interesting. This is probably the way it has been done for a thousand years, all manual labor. These boats are tied up three to four abreast with rough walkways across each for carrying “the cargo.” I will try to get pictures of these in the future. We drove past a large bus terminal and taxi stand as we turned into the Gold Souk.

There was only an hour and a half available for me at this point because the Gold Souk, as well as all other Souks, closes daily from 1:00 to 4:00 for prayer and reflection. The Gold Souk itself is very similar to the market in Moscow, Ismaliva (?). It is a combination of probably five hundred+ independent vendors but all specializing in GOLD! There is also jewelry such as pearls, diamonds (RS take note), rubies etc. The upscale stores have some very interesting and unique jewelry. There are obviously Arab vendors, but there are also very strong contingents from India, Thailand, Columbia, and South Africa. The sky appears to be the limit on what you can spend here.

Interesting aspect here is that there don’t appear to be prices for the gold items. Everything gets weighted and the price is set by the daily price of gold in London. There appears to be negotiating room with hand made items such as rings, where workmanship comes into play. Then the fun begins, if you have plenty of time.

After the Souk closed at 1:00, I decided to walk along the outside and see some of the other shops in the area. As I was picking up the “flavor” of the place, I received a call from one of the pilots. After immediately solving his earth shaking problem, I placed my cell phone back in the holster J had given me. As I continued walking into smaller and smaller areas, I decided to make sure the button on my wallet pocket was buttoned as more and more people were around me.

A short time later I reached for the holster with my cell phone to make another call and nothing was there! There was a moment of panic, a quick look around, a quick look down, and no cell phone. Everyone’s back was toward me walking away in all directions. My thoughts went back to my initial briefings here about the honesty here and I quickly decided “so much for that philosophy!” I then had to make myself feel good by telling myself that the guy that stole my cell phone had to be really good to get MY CELL PHONE! I also fooled that guy because I still had my wallet, and no one could get that from ME.

Now I’m a little depressed because someone has gotten to me. I’m ready to be back in my apartment NOW. Get me out of here! I was able to easily find the cab stand I saw on arrival at the Gold Souk. As I arrived at the first cab in line, I realized that not one of the twenty five cabs had drivers. Prayer time gets me again, as they won’t be driving again till 4:00. As I look across the street, there is the bus terminal. Do I or don’t I and where do I go?

I decided to go to Terminal One of the Dubai Airport. It was half way between Sharjah and my present position and right on the way. Anyway, the bus cost forty cents US, and with the cab added, I ended up back at the apartment spending $4.20 US. I was beginning to show “the system” that I could at least do something correctly, and I was feeling better!

Returning to the apartment a number of people informed me they had tried to call me but some Arab answered the phone. All thought they had wrong numbers. Then the light comes on, I’ll call and tell him what I think of him.

To wind this up, I did call and he only spoke Arab. I called our IT Manager, S, and asked him to call my cell phone and find out if it was stolen. S did call and the individual told him he found the cell phone on the sidewalk and didn’t know where to send it or which of the many numbers to call. S got his address and the next day one of our drivers took me over to pick it up. The finder would not take a tip, was extremely nice, with everything being translated by the driver. Nothing like eating a little crow, so I take back everything I’ve already written about stolen items.

Thursday two pilots and I were driven to the Chinese Consulate to get our visas. It is located in Bur Dubai which took us about an hour and a half in prime traffic. The ride was actually very interesting in that it passed all the famous buildings you have seen in tourist magazines and such. Architects are having a field day over here with unlimited resources which are then transformed into buildings that would even impress Frank Lloyd Wright! Of course this all ended up by passing the Bur Dubai building, which is the tallest building in the world. The Bur Dubai’s top is constructed so if another building is built that is taller, another ten or twenty stories can be built on top.

We each purchased two Chinese Visas. One is the normal Tourist Visa that will get us into China, with the second being the Crew Visa that will allow us to pick up the plane and fly it out of China. Needless to say, these visas were very expensive as they were in the neighborhood of $800 US for a one day turnaround. However, with visas in hand we are scheduled in Business Class aboard China Air bound for Beijing Sunday. Then the fun begins.

Will have more on China later, so have a good week and keep your cell phones close!