Dubai - Days 55-56

My last full day in Dubai was spent walking around the historic part of the city. BUT before I talk about that, I need to continue with the previous night.

I mentioned that my host and I were going out for drinks. It was initiated by another girl on couchsurfing who had contacted Girish two years ago and never showed up. This time however, she made it to Dubai and was renting an apartment and looking for a job. So we managed to all go out together to a placed called "Barasti" on Jumeirah Beach. The girl, Sabine, was hilarious from the get-go and of course everything is funnier with a French accent. We had a terrific time chatting and watching an Arab dance-off straight out of the "Step Up" movies. We didn't leave until 3:30am and by then Girish was completely hammered. His famous last words in the club were, "I'm going to stop drinking because I feel like I'm about to cross the edge." Well...20 minutes later he crossed that edge. We took a cab back to the neighborhood and I had to drive his Jeep back to the apartment. I'm not often around drunk people because most of my friends prefer sober fun, but I discovered that night that drunk adults are like little kids. At one point he almost threw a tantrum cuz he thought someone stole his Jeep :)

He felt so bad the next day that he volunteered to drop me off at my destination on his way to IKEA. I spent the day walking about the Dubai Creek area with Bur Dubai and Deira on the two banks. It was really interesting to see how Dubai started as a little fishing and trade village, and also the traditional architecture. The government has invested substantially in restoring some of the prominent landmarks and heritage sights. The added bonus was that most of the points of interest were free or really cheap admission. I walked around the gold souq, spice souq, and perfume souq as well as hit up an old school and a few old Arab homes.

The last thing I did in Dubai was buy a replacement phone. No budget for an iPhone but this one will do.

Noon flight the next day to Cairo from Dubai via Doha with Qatar Air, which I must say was probably the nicest airline I've flown with. Super clean, terrific service, gorgeous crew, and an amazing onboard entertainment system. I don't normally say this but I wished the flight didn't end so soon.

I'm in Cairo now and have been exploring the city for the past couple of days and a bit behind on my blogging. But I will try to hit an internet cafe again soon to catch up.