We are really good at accidentally visiting places at times during which everything is closed. The religious holiday Eid al-Adha is this weekend, which was unfortunate for us for several reasons. First, our room at the Crowne Plaza offers a free cocktail hour, but the government of Dubai prohibited all alcohol service during the first day of Eid. Second, when we decided to walk through the “old” town of Bur Dubai, many shops were closed. We wandered through the nearby souks for a while, deftly avoiding a myriad of touts, until the Dubai Museum opened. For only 3 AED, the museum is quite a bargain and gives a good overview of the history of Dubai (which isn’t very long; the modern city-state has only existed for a few hundred years and during many of those years there was very little writing).

After the museum, we found a restaurant that was surprisingly open even though everything else in its historical souk was closed. After a fine lunch of middle eastern cuisine, we walked along Dubai Creek before walking to the Metro to take us back to the hotel.