Dubai UAE – Day 3 - Sharjah and Ajman Day Tour - March 21

We had until 1:00 today to do more touring before the ship sailed, so we decided to visit Sharjah and Ajman on a 4 hour tour. Sharjah is the 3^rd largest Emirate and is the cultural center of the Middle East and Ajman is the smallest of the 7 Emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is a budding hub of important industries.

We woke to rain this morning. It was also much cooler. The rain didn’t stop until around 10:00, but we were in the car for most of the time. It made for some awful photos at our first few stops. It only rains once or twice a year and we got “lucky”. The driver said it did not rain at all last year. Our guide was thrilled to see the rain. 

Today we had Sandish as our driver and Marikar as our guide. We used the same tour company as the past two days. www.dubaiprivatetour.com They arrived promptly and we discussed our time frame to make it clear what time we needed to be back. On all 3 tours our drivers were all from Cochin, India and the guides were all from the Philippines. They all did a fantastic job and I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting a more personal experience vs a large group tour.

It was a relaxed and fun day with just the two of us. We drove through Sharjah first and then toured Ajman before returning to Sharjah to tour. These Emirates are not as glitzy as either Dubai or Abu Dhabi and have a lot of the old-style buildings that were seen. Many people live there as it’s less expensive and commute to Dubai to work.

We had a photo stop at the King Faisel Mosque. Non-Muslims are not allowed to enter so we could only view it from outside. We also had a photo stop at the Quran roundabout, where a large Quran was displayed. We drove past the Sharjah Ruler's Palace.

 "lovely" view from the car

 Sharjah Ruler's Palace

 Quran roundabout

 Quran roundabout

Sharjah Ruler's Palace

 King Faisel Mosque

We visited the Ajman museum which was really well done. It actually is a better one than the Dubai Museum. It did a much better job of showing what life was like over the years and the changes and was open and airy unlike in Dubai it’s a pretty dark and tight space in their museum. We saw the public beach and how they were making it larger to try and encourage tourism to the small Emirate. At the Museum, we saw some Parakeets. (yes, we find birds everywhere….)

 Ajman museum

 bathrooms

 4 barreled pistol?

 sponges

 goat bladder

oldest man in Ajman (he's NOT stuffed....)

We stopped at the Central Souk and the Blue Souk. One houses the Gold Souks and carpets all under air conditioning instead of open air markets like most Souks. The Central Souk was indoors, but set up like the outdoor Souks with some very interesting stalls. I got a very nice hand woven pillow case for a throw pillow with a camel and palm trees and of course a magnet and a Christmas ornament that is a wooden red bell with an Arab, a camel and some palm trees on it.

 blurry shot, but yes it's a camel on the beach

 Central Souk (the old souq)

 me buying the ornament

 lots of old junk (yes, it really was junk being recycled)

where I bought the pillow cover

 the Blue Souq

this emirate was very patient posing with the young Asian girls, our guide said they never do that

 the drive back to the port

 Baskin Robbins

Sandish our driver and Marikar our guide

It was a nice contrast to the glitzier over-the-top Dubai. We actually could have spent way more time there as there was another museum there that looked huge. The Souks deserved more time too. When we were in Dubai in 2013 we had very sunny clear days which made for great photos, this time it was dusty, sandy, windy and then rainy on the last morning. Such a contrast!

We were back plenty early and we went up to grab a quick slice of pizza before we had to be at the lifeboat drill. After the drill we went up and finished our lunch. 

We have new tablemates that are on until Venice. They are from England. It also was fun to catch up with our regular tablemates to see how their tours went the past few days. 

The evening entertainment was Mickey Finn on piano and Cathy Reilly on the banjo. We also met our new Cruise Director, Sammi. Frank left us in Dubai. Honestly, most people we knew were glad to see him go. So far, we can tell she is quite energetic, but she likes to talk a LOT. She comes on the PA system quite often to announce things. (that’s often done on lower end cruises) She also talks for a long time after the shows. 

Now for 6 much needed Sea Days! Lots of photos to catch up on and now that I have new minutes I can start uploading photos to my Picasa Web Albums.