As Westerners who traveled in Dubai in May of 2005, my husband and I found out a few details of travel there which I'll share here in part 5:
It's hot! True, it's dry heat, but it blows over you like air from a furnace. You will enjoy the cool malls, buses, and restaurants. Take your swimsuit for the hotel pool. Swimming in the gulf is allowed, but restricted. Tourists can use only small parts of the public beaches. If you really want to swim in the gulf, stay in a hotel on the gulf that will have a private beach access. Otherwise, use the pool. Most hotel pools have a bar. It's a good way to spend a hot afternoon. It's just as hot at midnight though.
How you dress is really up to you. I chose to wear pants and shirts, not shorts or sleeveless or halters or very fitted tops. I saw a few foreign women dressed in fitted tops, but none of the local women dress in that way. Take a cover-up to wear over your swimsuit when walking through the hotel to the pool. If you leave Dubai for another emirate, you may find much stricter clothing requirements.
A typical souvenir is the shisha. These water pipes or hookahs (or bongs) are used to smoke fragrant steam. There are shisha bars everywhere. People lie about on sofas with the shisha on a low table between them. Each person has his/her own mouthpiece, but they share the shisha-produced steam. It's a social occasion
Textiles in Dubai were marvelous. The street markets were arrayed with lovely textiles hanging overhead across the alleyways. These colorful markets are a bargain.
If you can afford it, the best souvenir is a rug or carpet. They are amazingly beautiful. If you think you may fall in love with the carpets while you're in Dubai, take the measurements for the area from home with you. The rug merchants will ship to you anywhere in the world. We found carpet stores in every mall. Perhaps there were carpets in the street markets, but we didn't notice them there.
Other souvenirs include coffee urns, dates, nuts, models of Bur el Arab.
This post is linked to this previous post on Dubai.
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