Valentines day

No sleep and about 12hrs later from when when landed, and it was only 9am, but in the United States it was about 12am, so we are feeling really tired, but our day just started.  From the airport we had gotten a map, and on the map were some real cool attractions of of things to do in Dubai.  One of the things to do was take a bout tour of the Creek, "The Dubai Creek Tour". To me it was a a chance to sit on some comfortable cushions on a roof top of a boat and relax up and down this river market.  Driving there was mess, I thought it was in one area in Dubai but it was a good 25 miles away.  So the tour was at 1130 and I wanted to be earlier so luckly we left pretty early because we were lost.  Driving to the creek is pretty neat because you get to drive through all the markets.  The place of local business, where the had their Gold Souks " souk" is a term for market in arabic, I guess.  Driving through the city is hectic, tight streets and constant honking!  Not to be a stereo typical person but I see how all New York drivers are the same, because here in Dubai same arabic drives same attitude and same honking.  I played along with the game and honked my horn as needed, and suprisingly it makes you feel better about the traffic and situation your in.  It does nothing to traffic but really calms your nerves a little.  We finally made it to the Dubai Creek and saw soooo many ancient wooden boats docked along side the Creek.  I just didn't know which one was ours, so we had to ask around and finally got pointed in the right direction. 

We got to our boat it and it was and broken down, certainly had a little vintage look to it so I was wondering if it was even going to stay afloat.  I couldn't swim but I figure the cusion could be used as floating devices, but maybe not, well atleast that's what they always said on the planes.  We got there and were the first one's to board the ship, so we got to pick our seats.  The weather was so perfect in Dubai, and the strangest thing was that every kept on apoligizing for how cold it was and it was maybe 75 degrees.  Just right for me, the thing was it was there winter and their busy season.   Everything is slow in the summer there, which you can only imagine it's in the desert.  We got our seats and got comfy and everyone elses started to show up.  An older couple sat directly accross from us with the old gentlemen directly accross from me.  I think they were from Denmark or Germany because they just had the accent.  Tiff for some reason had some attraction to this olds mans "camel balls" and couldn't stop looking at them, made some comments in English and I think they understood because they certainly said something in English to us. 

Other than the camel balls the boat ride was interesting.  They had a commentator and some drinks for the cruise.  The creek was pretty important to Dubai before they found their Billions, they original dynasty built there home on the Creek and most everyone used the creek for trade.  The Dubai creek was a creek because it was only 4 feet deep and you were able to walk across it from one side to the other, it actually split up two cities, Deira and Bur Dubai.  The creek was dredge to get it much deeper for bigger ships aventually and became a huge place for the residences of Dubai everyday.  And existing fish market and pearling market, which used to be Dubai's main source of income until they struck oil.  Up and down the creek we went we finally made it back to the dock. 

When everyone decide to get off the boat everyone all went to one side.  I heard a story once of a these exact ships in Dubai fliping over because they just weren't meant for great balance, and like I said I can't swim so I was not ready for this boat to capsize.  I stayed on the opposit side of the boat until everyone got off and finally the decided to deboard the boat.  Whew!!!! I'm telling you it was a close call. 

Walking the creek was pretty neat because you saw people bringing in products from all over the world, along side there were tons of water taxi's.  These water taxi's were really conveniant for people who were trying to get to Bur Dubai which was on the other side.  There was a bridge but by the time you got in your car and drove through traffic and on the bridge to the other side you could have been back and forth in the water taxi's.  The water taxi's looked like a gondola boat from venice, which was strangly odd because it was these small gondola boats going next to these huge yahts.  Just didn't seem safe so I'm glade we didn't decide to take one of those accross to the other side.