Shopping in Dubai

Two kinds of shopping sit half an hour apart. One is the Dubai Mall: some 1200 shops over more than a million square metres, with Mall of the Emirates and its indoor ski slope one metro stop away. The other is Deira, where the gold souk holds around three hundred small shopfronts, the spice market starts a few steps on, and the textile lanes are across the water in Bur Dubai. Prices are fixed in the malls and negotiable in the souks.

Gold sells at the day rate per gram plus a charge for the workmanship. The rate is identical in every window, so the bargaining is only about the making charge, and asking for it as a separate figure keeps the conversation short. The spice lanes reward the same discipline: ask where the saffron, dates or frankincense came from, and ask to smell and taste — Iranian saffron gives itself away by scent, the cheap version is dyed safflower. The abra across the Creek costs one dirham.

The Dubai Shopping Festival runs from late December to late January, when reductions of 25 to 75 per cent are ordinary rather than exceptional. Tourists reclaim the five per cent VAT at the airport on purchases from 250 dirhams, with the receipt and the passport used at the till, so leave extra time before the flight. Malls trade until midnight and stay usable through the summer midday; souks close earlier and many stalls shut for hours in the afternoon, which makes early evening the window for Deira. On gold, ask about the certificate before paying.