Just a few steps ahead is the
Heritage Village, full with activities. A
traditional heritage village, located near the mouth of the Creek, has been created where potters and weavers display their crafts. It focuses on the UAE’s maritime past, trading activities and local history. There are several traditional shops, handicraft stores and exhibitions—you can also ride a camel. It’s a great place to see the more traditional aspects of Dubai life that are missing from the modern city. Here the visitor can look back in time and experience some of Dubai’s heritage. There are displays, which include a tented Bedouin village with traditional weapons, chests and household utensils.
It reminded me
of Dilli Haat (a combination food plaza and craft bazaar located in the heart of Delhi. It has stalls representing each state of India, giving a complete variety of tastes available all over India.) The Heritage Village has many shops selling souvenirs, but the shop keepers are mainly Indians or Bangladeshi’s. They speak and dress like a Arabic and sometimes it becomes difficult to understand that they do not belong to Dubai. Here you need to do hard bargaining. We purchased a spoon and freeze magnet as souvenir from a shop whose owner was from Kerala, India. There are also many small shops run by Bedouin women, where they make and sell varieties of food items mainly sweets. It was a pleasure to see live demonstration of Arabic food being made. While I took rest on a bench, and was feeding MEHR, Jeet went and purchased few Arabic roti's, filled with omlette and cheese. It was really very tasty. The Arabic food stall was full with customers and you have to wait for a long time for your turn. The village was full with not only tourist but also local Arabic people as it was Eid holiday.
During Eid special programmes are held. So we got the opportunity to see a Bedouin marriage. I was sitting next to an Arabic family. They were very friendly and explained me in details the rituals of the marriage. At first the bride’s family came, singing and playing musical instrument. There were no male/ gents in the group; only ladies. They were making so much noise that we were confused as to what was happening. Then the Arabic lady next to me told me that it is a marriage ceremony that is going to take place and that the bride is coming with her relatives and friends. Her relatives in box’s and trunks carried things that would be given to her for marriage (cloths, accessories, jewellery etc). Even one of them was carrying a pillow. After they took their seat, they showed to public one by one all the items. They sang marriage songs and in the middle of the songs would make some noise from their mouth, which we call “uruli” in Assamese (India). In the same way, the bridegroom came with his relatives and friends. In the village the traditional dance and songs were also performed as part of the wedding. Folk dance and music performances are staged from time to time in the village.
The village boasts a number of cafeterias and a seafood restaurant.
The village provides a glimpse of Dubai’s traditional culture and lifestyle. Thus it is an enjoyable, interactive look at Dubai ’s past.
For more you can check the website: http://www.dubaicity.com/What_to_do_in_dubai/dubai_heritage.htm
Near the Village, are two Arabic restaurants. They must be very popular as it was over crowded. The people were smoking sheesha, eating, enjoying the fresh air of the sea and the Creek side view. We could not find a place so decided to walk down to our hotel. On our way to the hotel, we visited
Meena Jewellery and checked out few earnings and chains. It was late and it was time for the shop to close. Anyway I did not like the designs and decided to check shops later, the next day. We had dinner at
Bhavna Veg Restaurent. It cost us 13 dirham per person; quite cheap. They gave lot of things..Plain rice, pulao, two vegetable sabzi, 2 chutney’s, roti, aachar, lachi,dal, kofta,lemon and papar. But the food was not very tasty (ok type) and the restaurant especially the basin / hand wash area was very dirty.
We hurried back as it was getting late to feed MEHR.
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