Dubai has the world’s largest and second largest shopping malls and we visited both of them. Endorphins flowed through the legs of Sharon and Kay and any previous pain disappeared as if we had already visited Fatima. Bag shop, dress shop, shoe shop and then the Canon shop appeared in the burning bush and I was momentarily saved.
A walk around the spice and textile souks in the old town was a good experience with narrow lanes full of the items that give their name and scores of young men all trying to make a living selling the same type of pashmina. I think the ladies enjoyed the men paying attention to them, touching their arms, wrapping shawls over their shoulders. However, they underestimated the power their “No!” has on a man and nothing was bought.
After taking a photo of a souvenir in a shop window, I heard a voice call,
“Twenty dirhams. For photo, twenty dirhams.”
I thought, “Like hell! That’s 7 dollars,” so I deleted it and told him so.
“You show me. I see!” he said and I showed him a picture of some girls on Hervey Bay beach.
“Only joking! Only joking!” and he grabbed my arm like a Middle Eastern wrestler and dragged me, laughing to where the deleted shop window souvenir of a woman in a hijab was.
“You take photo! No problem! Just a joke!”
So I did and he made a call on his phone, probably to a mate down the souk who was lying in wait for me with a pashmina. I patted his shoulder and said,
“Thanks mate!” and he smiled and let me escape.
Another man said, “Rolex watch? T-shirt? Pashmina? Silk cloth? Gucci handbag?”
I said, “Fez?”
“Yes! Yes! You come with me.”
Down a lane past the spice shops, cooking pots, Chinese souvenirs, down another lane past old men sitting smoking and talking, past men dressed in white robes and wearing the hats I wanted to buy, up a narrow flight of stairs.
“This is beginning to get a little dodgy,” I thought.
We entered a small room with shelves of packaged materials and shirts where my salesman spoke in Arabic to an old man which I translated to mean,
“Father, I have found another stupid western tourist who wants to buy a funny hat. Let’s see how much we can screw him for all of his hard earned.”
A gold embroidered one fitted my head well, and I said, “How much,” getting ready to haggle.
“For you, sir, Thirty dirhams!”
Mental calculations ensured. Thirty dirhams divided by three. Ten dollars.
“Not bad,” I thought.
“Too much, twenty dirhams,”haggled.
“Twenty sir? It’s no good, sir. I can’t do twenty. I do twenty-five.”
Already I was not comfortable haggling with this man in this shop with his family in the room. There was no-one to encourage me as I’d heard the footsteps pn the stairs of the girls making their escape.
I gave him the twenty-five and made my own retreat, the salesman calling to the girls as they rounded the corner at the bottom,
“Ladies! Ladies! You come upstairs. I have dresses, hats, handbags, purses, watches, jewellery.”
Things never cease to amaze me when I travel. They kept walking!
They inspected my purchase later and discovered the label, “Made in China!”
(Click the Spain Menu for other photos)
