After the abra ride across the creek and the sprint through the textile souk, we came to the Dubai Museum in the Al Fahidi Fort. This is the oldest part of the city. The sun had just gone down and there were large numbers of noisy birds swooping around. (No, they are not bats.) I think that they nest in the fort’s tower. There is also a beautiful wooden dhow on display.
The next video is of the courtyard of the fort. There is a hut made of palm branches. There is a raised bed platform outside for sleeping in the summer. You will also see the wind tower on top. This funnels any breeze from any direction down into the house. After we head into the hut, you’ll get a really good shot of the wall because I was trying to get out of the way of people leaving. The first room is too dark to see much, but there is a bed and the bottom of the wind tower (see picture later in this post). The second room is the master bedroom/living room with majlis seating (couch on the floor), master bed and a cradle. (It always seems striking to me that they have western style beds that are up off the floor and couches that consist of cushions on the ground.) There is another small room off this one with a couple of water pots. I assume this was the bathing/wash up area.
This is the view up into the wind tower from the below showing the four chambers that catch any breeze from any direction and funnel it down into the house to cool it.
There was a sign next to this door warning to be careful of the spikes. I read it, pointed it out to Daddybird and then promptly scraped my arm on a spike. Oh well. Some people are beyond help.
The museum had several displays like this representing life in pre-oil Dubai. This is the food store.
I was a little horrified to see cans of Kraft Velveeta on his top shelf.
Living the Travel Channel 