Friday, May 28, 2010

وق, Souks in the City






A trip to the Souq Area cost me about 30 dirham. Just when I was told I have arrived the city’s open-air marketplace, my excitement dropped like a hot potato, and I immediately refused to get out of the cab.
From glamour to ghetto, the supposedly divided shops (not souks) owned by Indians and Arabs are concentrated in one area.

Unlike the reputable grand bazaar in Istanbul, the souk area in Dubai is made up of private shops scattering around throughout the neighborhood, where the majority of shoppers were Africans while the Indians
and Pakistanis in their traditional robes were sitting bare feet or pushing carts packed with goods between the shops.
The streets looked chaotic and dirty and drew a sharp contrast to the developed area of Dubai. There are a few souks that sell different products: spice, textile and gold. I could not identify the souks because there were no signs to distinguish them and they all looked the same, with clothes and souvenirs displaying outside their shops. This part of Dubai is almost invisible to most people.

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