… in what amounts to a candy store for me

We have the ferry tickets. The ferry to Iran will leave tomorrow which gives us a whole day in Dubai. With the tires changed already, all we really needed to do was buy paper maps and Lonely Planets for the next countries. Not a lot to do for a whole day. Thus, we decided to make some social calls.

After a nice breakfast in one of Deira’s Indian eateries, we first stopped at the Shinko distributor once more as we wanted to pick up chain oil. It’s just a little something that might be easier to buy in Deira than in Bandar Abbas. They didn’t stock any but we were invited for a coffee/chai by a friendly shop owner next door. 🙂

Hamid and Shadi on the left here with Hamid’s GS

Afterwards, we went to the Touratech Middle East branch. By now, it’s fascinating even for me to see the different branches in different regions. We had a lovely time with Tony in Malaysia and now we were warmly welcomed by Shadi and Hamid. It was quite busy as they were shooting photos and film footage of the shop but for us, it was really interesting. Hamid’s fully equipped GS 1200 was presented in the shop so that the lighting would be good on camera.

Discussing the merits of Ortlieb with Hamid

Hamid is from Iran and full of recommendations of what to do and where to go. 🙂 His excitement was contagious and if we hadn’t been looking forward to our time there so far, we sure would be now. The route will be pretty straight forward but full of great landscapes and cities so we can’t wait! He also gave us his number as an emergency contact if anything (especially bike related) should go wrong.

Asking for a balaclava, Shadi then gave me a Touratech snood for free so I can wear hijab under the helmet as well. So awesome. Lunch was also shouted for us by Shadi so we shared pizza with the guys. Flo even gave a short interview about our travels and our Touratech gear. Way too quickly it was time for us to leave again.

Let’s hope the photo for the wall is a bit better …

The staff of Biker’s Cafe had asked us to be back around 2 pm today and we were only a little late. This time, we were offered lunch for free but we had just eaten. Instead, Flo had a fruit juice while I went for chocolate cake and tea. The photo shooting didn’t take long at all but we also left some information about our travels and a card with them.

Already it was 4 pm now and we hadn’t been book shopping yet. Riding to Dubai Mall, we stocked up on Lonely Planets in Book World and bought a road map of Turkey. A little surprisingly, there was no good road map of Iran available. Since we were in the biggest mall I’ve ever been in, we also sorted out enough cash to take to Iran. It sounds like we didn’t do much in the mall, however, we walked close to 5 kilometers just because it is soooooooooooooo huge. When we left, it was almost 6 pm.

We got quite close, but it was against the sun

Drawn to Deira, we checked into the same hotel again as last night. We literally just dropped our luggage before going out for dinner. Deira is a great place to be. You can buy everything here if you just find the right shop. And there are many shops; every building has a small shop on the ground floor selling something incredibly specific…or food. Maidan Kashmir was the Indian eatery of our choice and the food was just fantastic. It kept coming. Flo ordered a mutton stew and I vegetable dal but first the salad platter arrived, then a plate with vegetarian side dishes (one was made with mushrooms and very umami), yogurt and mint sauce, a plate with bread and THEN our main dishes. Afterwards, we had coffee and chai with a complimentary sweet dough ball dunked in honey and rose water. We rolled out of there.

With just a little effort, we found a shop that sold chain oil (*check*), bought snacks in a super market for the time on the ferry tomorrow (*check*) and even found a place to print new business cards. Unfortunately, they closed before we could source the file of the cards from the hotel room so this is something we will try and do tomorrow before heading to the harbour (*not yet check*).