Hello all my lovely pearl loving friends.
Quick update on my adventures of pearl hunting, that is Gulf Natural Pearls / Basra pearls, here in Dubai.
Friday is like our Saturday night here in the Gulf (UAE) as we work Sun - Thurs. Personally I love Fridays as the roads are quiet and lot of the human traffic stays at home and recently have gotten up for a crack of dawn drive around parts of the city you could never get near at normal day time operating hours (more on the crack of dawn drives in the future).
Got a call from the lads here to say tonight's the night for drinking and I was like no as the lingering feeling of exploring "Little Bombay" here in Dubai was still in my head...
If you can remember and as per the previous posts in this forum my visit to Exim jewellers in Bur Dubai had a hugely profoundly affect on me as that was the first time I got to see real Natural Gulf Pearls in their real form.
My mum's 60th is next week and having got her the present and pearls that I am happy with I wanted to see if I could get her the one really special present from this part of the world.
Went back down to little Bombay and this drove down myself as I wanted to make sure it was a journey I could repeat. Needless to say it is not a journey for the faint hearted but you soon get into the grove of driving like the locals do with zero regard to the laws of the road and hand on horn the whole way there.
I had my GPS on and eventually found the road that the pearsl where on. Ok now to park. Jeez 18,000 badly parked cars here, it's 38c and humidity creeping up. Right drop car off at small hotel valet and walk. I get lost immediately. My shirt is sticking to my back as I pound the pavements looking bewildered at the shop fronts trying to find Mr Jayesh F. Jhaveri's shop - turns out I've actually just walked past it twice like some sort of Benny Hill movie.
Ok my idea is this, lots of fabric dealers here so thinking buy a square of red silk and then go to see Mr Jhaveri and furnish him with several crisp Dhs1,000 notes currently burning a hole in my pocket.
Unfortunately in all my dilly dallying about by the time I circle back the shop is closed. All well it will be open tomorrow and now my driving down there mission is wickedly well accomplished I shall be loading up the Lancaster and heading back down there again tomorrow.
On a side note I asked around in a few other jewellery shops in the area (all packed all Indians in their 100's all haggling ferociously haggling over gold and little diamonds - it's another world entirely) - I asked who sells pearls here, Basra/Bahrain pearls - one chap said hang on only one man sells these and his name is
http://www.gemstoneportal.com/Gemst...il/335-Al-Fardan-Jewellery-/View-details.html
BUT the best bit is he said that Exim (Mr Jhaveri) sells his pearls to him so this fact confirms Mr Jhaveri is the main supplier for GNP's. With that I am very happy to do business with him the future.
Watch this space and hope to showcase more from the same story.
Yours in Gulf pearl fever....