Gold Souk, Dubai

The Gold Souk – Dubai

The Gold Souk is in the Deira part of Dubai and is easy walking distance from the spice souk and the Dubai Creek crossing. This makes it a great place to wander around as there is so much to see.

We were not in the market for gold buying and despite quite likeing jewellery I am not really into spending a lot of money on this sort of thing when on holiday and my husband is even less interested.

There are a number of small alleys with small shops each selling very similar things. The souk is a very traditional type of shopping area and consists of over 300 retailers all selling gold and jewellery. The shop windows are just full of gold. It really is gold in most shops despite the fact that silver is found in the region it seems that gold is the metal most desired The gold is hanging in such quantity that it almost looks false like painted paste stuff used in films etc.

We went into a couple of the shops but in reality you do need to have an idea of prices and what you want if you want to buy something. Bargaining or haggling is always necessary and obviously if you want to buy a few things then you have more bargaining power.

It is quite a sight to see the huge variety of gold on offer it is impressive – you can see huge displays of earrings, rings, necklaces, bracelets & pendants. What is also unusual is that you can get so many different shades of gold from: white, pink, yellow and even purple gold glistens and sparkles in the windows.

The prices of the products are mainly determined by the weight of the gold and the gold prices here are among the lowest in the World. The pieces of jewellery are also priced according to whether it is machine-made or by a craftsman. So it is a combination of gold weight and craftsmanship.

The local laws in Dubai are very strict and the Dubai municipality regularly performs quality checks. This means that you are as safe buying gold here as many other places in the world. When buying any gold jewellery you will get a detailed invoice, a certificate of authenticity as well as the gold purity hallmarks. The fact that Dubai is duty free means that you will get a good price as tax and duties are often quite a big percentage of any jewellery prices.

According to reliable estimates approximately 10 tons of gold is present at any given time in the souk.

One shop in the souk had a huge gold ring that is in the Guinness book of records as it weighs something like 80kg. It was pretty impressive – totally useless apart from being a record breaker – certainly too big for anyone to wear!

So in short if you are in the old part of Dubai in the Diera area this souk is certainly worth a look. If you are in the market for buying then go prepared to shop around and bargain and if paying by credit card you will have to pay a bit extra.

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