Zephyrous Travels: Dubai Day 6 (16 Mar 11) - The Charming Creek and Old Dubai

We woke up slightly later today and went to the Wild Wadi Water theme park. Initially we can't really decided to go Wild Wadi or Atlantis. After speaking to people and reading comments on internet, as well as we saw how boring and lifeless Atlantis is, we decided to go for Wild Wadi Water park instead. We spent the afternoon at the park, ensuring that we took the slides at least once. The first ride we took was the slide that goes around the park. We found this slide to be one of the most convenient way of moving around the park to different rides without having to walk too much. Basically this set of slides propels you upwards to the next high level ground. There are some parts where you get to slide down, at any given check point, the slides will end up at different areas of the park. We went around once to get our bearings and to check out where to stop for which rides. After going around once, we walked to the main attraction of the park - Jumeirah Sceirah. This is the largest and tallest slide in the UAE. I can see the whole of the theme park from the top of this ride. It is facing the wave shaped Jumeirah Beach Hotel, the view up here was breathtaking, too bad I didn't bring my camera along. It was my turn to take on the slide, the initial part of the slide was rather gentle, however at about half point of the slide its gradient turned steep. It felt like I was thrown drop to near vertical steepness. What an exhilarating ride. We headed for one of the twin rides in the park, these 2 only differ in their thrill level. We took the more exciting ride with 3 funnels on the way down (Tantrum Alley). The initial launch was thrilling, as the slide was rather steep. After passing the other 2 funnels, the ride felt rather "tamed". We then head back up and tried the other not so exciting ride (Burj Surj). Indeed this was not so exciting as the first one, just felt like riding some tube down the tunnels pretty mild though. We then head back to the slide around the park one more time. By this time I realised that we have taken almost all the slides in the park. We then went over to this wave attraction that has staffs teaching people how to do surfing. Man I really suck at this, failed to learn surfing despite the patient staff's teaching. We did the Jumeirah Sceirah and Tantrum Alley once more before calling it a day at the Wild Wadi.

We went back to the hotel to leave our swimming gears and headed out to old Dubai. This is our last night here, thus this is our last chance to take the dhow across the creek. We arrived at the creek, which is just a 10 mins walk from the nearest metro station. As we arrived, we can't seemed to find the water taxi pier. I approached a ship crew nearby and he pointed us to a direction. We headed that direction and saw some staff at the pier. I asked if that is the pier for the dhow, he told us it is. We were rather happy to learn of that. About 5 mins later, a boat came alongside the pier. I realise this is not the dhow, but a modern ferry. Nonetheless we boarded the boat with the thinking that at least we get to see Old Dubai. As we were being transported across the creek, we asked the coxswain of the boat about the dhows. He told us to stay put on the boat and alight at the next stop instead. At this moment, I was rather shocked. I asked him isn't the boat going back to the other side of the creek. He told us the boat is going up and down the creek. Upon hearing this I was delighted, at least we get to ride on the dhow, one of the things that we said we wanted to do before embarking on this trip. As the boat came alongside the next stop, we thanked the coxswain and got off the boat. At the pier, the moment we saw the dhows that we wanted to ride, we took out our cameras and started to snap pictures of the dhows.

Crossing the Creek at night

This is the dhow that was used as a means of transport across the Creek

A dhow docking

We then head over to Old Dubai as we wanted to look at the Gold and Spice Souks. The first impression I got from this part of Dubai is it looked like Little India in Singapore. There are alot of Indians congregating at this area, perhaps the rental in this area is cheaper then the other areas in Dubai. As we were walking along the streets, which was either illuminated by the neon lights of the signs in front of the shops or the lights within the shops, there were a few men standing at junctions of the road asking if we want women. OMG! I thought UAE being a muslim country was very strict in prostitutions, and these men are asking if we want women??!! What a risk they are taking. We walked around the area, soon most of the shops looked the same to me. They soon appeared rather monotonous to me. As we were walking back towards the creek, we found ourselves standing across the infamous Gold Souk! This is where people from all over the world visit to buy relatively cheap gold. We took a stroll in the Gold Souk, looking at the golden jewelry being displayed at the window, glittering at us under the halogen lights. At the end of the street, was a shop that has the world's biggest ring on display at the window! We asked the staff at the shop if we could take pictures of it, they generously allowed us to do so! After snapping some pictures of the ring, we decided to head back to the creek as we wanted to get back to the metro station before the last train leaves. Arrived at the creek after 10 mins of walking from the Gold Souk, we took the dhow across the creek (which was an interesting experience, we would have taken the dhow a few more times and appreciate how people used to travel across in yesteryears if not for our time constraint). We alighted the creek, and at this side of the creek, the lightings on the building makes it a good photographic spot. We wasted no time and took out our cameras to do the touristy thing. After taking some pictures of the buildings and the creek, we headed back to the metro station. As we were kinda rushing for the last train, we half brisk walked to the station. As we arrived at the station, we found out that the last train has left. Damn! We should have taken a stroll instead if we knew it has left. We hailed a cab back to the hotel and rest for the night.