Category: Destinations

After playing two tournaments in small-town Vietnam, the plan for Hanoi was to eat a lot of food, explore the city and find a good coach to train with.

I found a great Airbnb right by the French Quarter, a short walk from Hoàn Kiem Lake.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the weather. Hanoi was in the middle of rainy season and almost every day I was there it rained. Often I wanted to go out walking at night but alas, it was pouring down much of the time.

First thing on the list in Hanoi was to find a badminton hall and a coach to work with, which took a bit of hunting but I managed to find something within a few days.

I started training at Duc Thao club with Coach Tuan who was awesome and became a good friend during the month I was there.

So the routine in Hanoi was training at 10 am, gym at 12 pm, eat as much food as possible and then get as much work done in the evenings. It didn’t leave much time for exploring, but I still managed to get a few things in!

One odd thing about gyms in Hanoi – they’re really expensive. If you’re a foreigner, you might pay something like 300K VND (about $11 USD) for a day pass.

That might not sound crazy, but in Hanoi where everything else is so cheap, it can feel crazy.

Of course there are some small gyms around that will be much cheaper, but for a quality gym that’s what I found most places charging.

After training the goal is to slam as many calories as possible and luckily in Hanoi – that’s easy!

Unfortunately I was boring and Grab’d almost all of my meals as my schedule was always so tight (not great blogging material, I know) but I can report that Grab food is good and cheap and most days it was raining and not very fun exploring weather anyway.

In the evenings I used to take a walk around the nearby lake, Lake Hoàn Kiem.

It’s a small lake in a fancy area (there were Prada and Rolex type stores on the same block) and it’s busy every night. People doing things like tai chi, dancing, people-watching, eating snacks, running, or just doing what people do around lakes.

Also right on the north bank is the start of the Old Quarter, a matrix of streets where you can buy tons of knock-off goods. Lululemon, Nike, Timberland are all really popular brands to pick up there, I bought a few Nike sweats and they were great. Some people online claim they’re genuine, but as someone who lived in China I can tell you with 99% certainty everything sold there are fake knock-offs. The quality however can be comparable, so if you don’t care, you can pick yourself up a pair of Nikes for $20 and probably can’t tell the difference.

Unfortunately I never took any photos, but the whole lake area beautiful (though often crowded) little lake to stroll around with lots of little coffee shops and places to grab a drink or bite.

My landlord was a Vietnamese woman maybe in her 40s that was very into fitness.

When she saw my badminton gear she started asking a lot of questions, about how she used to play but now she’s gotten into running.

I told her I also run casually and she mentioned the Hanoi Marathon was on in a couple of weeks.

I checked the website and thought maybe I could run the half, but unfortunately, sold out! Same issue I had back in Chiang Mai a few years back.

She said – don’t worry! I will get you an entry!

A few days later she called and said he’s secured me a bib number for the race.

I guess it was time to start marathon training!

Now every day after training, instead of doing badminton work I was on the treadmill, trying to ready my legs for 21 km.

It had been a long time since I run that distance, a few years at least. I didn’t have time to put a proper training circuit together, so I figured I’ll just get as comfortable as possible running 10km, then we’ll just figure out how to get it done on the day.

When I went to pick up my race number, I was quietly confident that I’d get through the race. I didn’t have many kilometres in the bank, but I knew I could count on experiene to get me through. I definitely wouldn’t be setting any PBs, but a finish? Sure!

There’s a big running culture in Vietnam – I don’t know why I found it surprising, but I did. In fact, I’ve learned in almost every country the running scene is bigger than you’d expect. Running truly is the global sport.

When race day arrived, I got to the start point nice and early. It was drizzling, which wasn’t much fun, but they had free pho for everyone which was a good way to slam some electrolytes down before the gun.

I didn’t have much of a race plan. Start slow, just pump out the first 5 km and get the legs warm, cruise onto 10km and from there, just pace myself and have fun. I knew the last 5km were probably going to be tough for me, so the goal was to keep some gas in the tank for the final quarter and not push too hard for a time.

One thing I didn’t realise until the race was well underway – what a beautiful way to see Hanoi! I’d been stuck at the badminton hall or my apartment for most of the month, now I was running the streets at 5am watching the sun rising over the lake. Running through alleys where people were just setting up their noodle stalls for the day, or people still drinking from the night before. I’m not often awake at that hour, so it was a treat to do some sightseeing while pumping out kilometres in the early morning hours.

The race was easier than I imagined. The last 5km was a slog, but nothing too painful and nowhere near as bad as some of the absolute soul-crushing finishes I’ve had in the past. I cruised over the finish line and relaxed in the finishers zone with lots of free noodles and ice cream. An amazing way to end my month in Hanoi.

I’d love to return some time when the weather is less rainy and I’ve got a freer schedule, I’m sure there are many wonderful nooks and crannies in this city to explore!

After Ghana, the next stop on my West Africa tour was Cameroon.

I had high hopes for Cameroon, as I really enjoyed Cote d’Ivoire when I visited some years ago, and as part of francophone Africa I was expecting them to be somewhat similar.

Well…I was wrong.

The first drama happened as soon as I landed in Yaoundé, the capital – myself and some other athletes who were also on my flight lost our bags. This was NOT ideal as we had to compete in 48 hours. Luckily only one of my bags got lost, so I still had my rackets and my shoes, but all my clothes were in my other suitcase.

In the end we were sent away with a form and told they’ll call us when the bags arrive.

Getting a taxi to the apartment was simple enough, I had to do it the old school haggling way, but I got a nice enough driver who spoke a bit of English.

The funniest part was when we drove through a police check and he slowed down until the cop came to the side of the car, then zoomed off.

“I am the chairman!” he said, laughing.

I later learned that drivers do this all the time – they know the cop is just going to make up some nonsense and ask for money, so they just don’t bother stopping. They know nothing will happen because the police don’t have any police cars to chase them. Pretty funny.

My apartment for the week turned out to be comfortable, however the area it was in totally disappointed. I had chosen to stay in Bastos, supposedly the nice expat area in Yaoundé, but on my first walkabout the following morning, I discovered there was literally nothing around me.

One restaurant down the road was the only place to eat within walking distance, there were three restaurants on Google Maps nearby, but when I went looking for them, all were all non-existent.

Nobody seemed to stare at me too much, meaning foreigners aren’t uncommon in the area, but I was surprised that there were just zero stores or restaurants around.

To make things worse, there is no Uber or food delivery! In Ghana I had been using Uber and Uber Eats daily, but here things were going to be a lot more interesting. It was like going back to my early backpacking days in 2010 – no phone, no internet – just real-life exploring.

Since there was nothing in the streets around me, I walked a little futher, and still didn’t find much other than a Chinese supermarket. It wasn’t even a normal store, it was like a house that had been converted into a supermarket, behind a normal residential gate and everything. The only reason I knew it was there was because I saw it on Google Maps. I knocked on the gate, and a local man came out who spoke no English. But I said “supermarket?” in French and he nodded and pointed me in. That already was odd, but once inside, I realised there was also a Chinese restaurant in there.

I walked in and the owner seemed shocked to see me, but I used my broken Chinese to ask if he’s serving food right now, and he said yes. So it turned out my first meal in Yaoundé was a big plate of Chinese dumplings.

After returning back home, I went down the road to look for a taxi, and after five minutes I realised – this isn’t going to work. I can’t be walking down here searching for taxis every day when I have a tournament to play.

I texted my landlord and asked if she knew of a taxi that would be willing to be my driver for the week. I’ll pay him $10 or $20 per day and he can just drive me everywhere. She said she knew the perfect person and sent me a number.

That’s how I met Richard.

Richard picked me up the next day and became my one friend in Yaoundé. First stop – take me to the mall to get some groceries.

The mall he took me to was called Playce Yaoundé, a small but modern shopping mall with mostly clothes shops and a big Carrefour supermarket.

Since my kitchen wasn’t great, I stocked up on canned goods and survived on tuna, corn and chickpea salads with healthy spoonfuls of olive oil, three times a day, plus a disgusting amount of mandarins and apples for dessert.

Then later that afternoon, it was time to head to the stadium to practice.

Richard didn’t actually know where the badminton stadium was, so we had a little adventure hunting for it while we chatted and got to know each other. The big bonus was he spoke great English, unlike most people in Yaoundé, where the dominant language is French.

One thing you notice while driving around Yaoundé, and forgive me for not taking any photos but it just never crossed my mind, is how poorly designed the city is. The way the roads are laid out and where they’ve built things around the hills, where the shops have been placed and so on, it just makes no sense. So often Richard would be trying to manoeuvre down a road and I was thinking “He’s going to try driving down there?” Sometimes I would laugh, and he’d laugh back, knowing exactly what I was thinking.

“Welcome to Cameroon!” he would say.

The following afternoon my bags still hadn’t arrived, so I needed to improvise. I was scheduled to compete the next day, and BWF rules require you to wear a playing kit with your name on the back.

I told Richard the mission, and off to the mall we went.

Finding sports gear in there turned out to be harder than I thought. I bought some fake Nike shorts from Carrefour, and then after browsing every store, had to settle with some black cotton tees.

I explained to Richard I needed someone to print my name on the back, and he knew exactly where to go.

When we got to the place, there was no indication it was a printing place, or that a business even existed there at all. Just one building in a big row of buildings. It didn’t even have a front door. I followed him down the side alley, up some stairs into a small room, and there I found a bunch of printing machines humming away.

Richard translated into French what I wanted, and they said they could have it done in a couple of hours. Perfect!

After dropping me at the stadium, he called me a few hours later saying the printers called and he’s on his way to pick up the shirt. Price – about $4. Seriously I don’t know how I would have survived Yaoundé without him.

Turns out it was all for nothing though.

That night, I get a phone call from another athlete. It’s almost midnight.

“Our bags have arrived!”

Last time my bags got lost on the way to Thailand, the airline delivered them to my hotel for free. Not the case in Cameroon.

I call Richard.

“Are you working now?”

“I’m always working!”

“Can you take us to the airport?”

He picks me up, then we go pick up two other athletes from their hotels. It’s about a one hour drive out to the airport. We drive through the Yaoundé nightlife, streets full of Cameroonians drinking the hours away.

“What would happen if I walk down this street right now?” I ask Richard.

“Everything would be stolen from you in five minutes,” he laughs.

“But what if I’m walking with you?”

“Ahh with me! Nothing can happen if you’re with me.”

We all laugh.

We get to the airport and head to the luggage desk. They point us to a huge stack of bags in the corner, but none of our bags are there. Please tell me we didn’t come all this way with no bags.

Then a guy calls us over. We follow him into a room in the back. Once he opens the door, we see our bags right there in front of us.

“Phew!” we all sigh with relief.

“So you’re happy?” the man says loudly.

“Yes very happy thank you.”

“I also want to be happy,” he says, staring at us.

The other two guys freeze. It’s their first time in Africa.

“Ah we don’t have anything, man.”

“You have something…”

“We really didn’t come with anything,” I say, pulling out my pockets.

“Okay just go,” he says, waving us out.

As we’re walking back to Richard’s car, they say to me, “That guy wanted money, right?”

I nod.

“Oh man!”

Yeah, it used to shock me too, mate.

The next day, after I’d finished my games, I went walking around the stadium to try and find something to eat. If I’m in Cameroon, I need to try some Cameroonian food, right? So I went searching. The main street by the stadium looked busy enough to have some food options, but also didn’t look like the safest street in the world. I left my bag in the stadium so nobody could rob me, and went wandering. Ten minutes in and I’d found a few small shops selling things like burgers and chips, samosas, but as for a local food joint that didn’t look like it would nuke my stomach … nothing.

This seemed to characterise a lot of my week in Cameroon – wanting to see and try things, but not finding much to see and try.

I called Richard to come pick me up. When we arrived home, I reached into the front pocket of my bag to pay him. It was empty. I grunted with a puzzled look on my face. Richard’s face quickly changed to the same look. He knows that’s where I keep my cash, because I pull it from there to pay him each day.

“My money’s gone.”

I searched all the other pockets in my bag, then just quietly laughed to myself. Someone robbed me. Obviously while I was outside the stadium hunting for food.

“Sorry man I’ll need to pay you tomorrow.”

“No problem, no problem.”

The rest of my days in Cameroon were just sitting in the stadium, sitting in traffic with Richard, and eating tuna and corn salads in my apartment.

By the time I left, myself and some other athletes were chatting and we all agreed, Cameroon is pretty rough. Many people seem to be on edge all the time, there’s a palpable tension in the air. And after you’ve spent a week there, you sorta understand why. Things are just not easy, even the most basic things like finding somewhere to eat lunch.

I’ll be honest – once I hopped on the plane, I was happy to be leaving. Next stop – Nigeria!

Getting to Ghana was actually much more difficult than it should be.

I was heading there for a badminton tournament and needed a tourist visa, which on its own sounds like no big deal.

I was in Dubai at the time, so I called the Ghana embassy and asked for an appointment. When I told them I’m on a New Zealand passport, they said it needs to be done at the embassy in New Zealand.

“So you’re saying I have to fly 17 hours to New Zealand, get the visa and fly 17 hours back?”

“Yes.”

“Can I send my passport to New Zealand and have them send it back?”

“No.”

“I have to be there in person?”

“Yes.”

“For a one week tourist visa?”

“Yes.”

Sounded kinda silly for 2026. So what did I do? I do what every man does when he doesn’t know what to do.

I called Mama!

I told her to call the embassy in New Zealand, explain that I’m a travelling athlete and if it was possible for me to DHL the passport to her, get the visa, and then she can DHL back to me.

The good folks at the Ghana Embassy in New Zealand said that would be fine, but to guarantee it in a week I needed to get the express visa for a few hundred dollars extra. But after spending a few hundred on DHL fees, what’s a few hundred more?

After a couple of weeks, I had my passport back in Dubai with my shiny new Ghana visa.

First impressions after touching down?

Ghana drivers are crazy! I’ve travelled much of Africa, and road rules aren’t really followed anywhere, but in Accra they literally drive as if they’re playing Need For Speed. On the way from the airport to my Airbnb, I figured I just got a wild driver, but it turned out all my Uber drivers the entire week were like that.

My apartment was in the Osu area, and at least according to ChatGPT, it was supposed to be one of the upmarket areas where the expats stay.

Note: If you’re heading to Accra, I stayed at this apartment which was perfect for my needs, but the area was so-so.

Next time I go to Accra I will likely stay somewhere around Accra Mall which I think is much better for a short stay, somewhere like this apartment.

There are also many other affordable options all over Accra on Booking if you have a different area in mind.

On the morning I arrived, I put on my walking shoes and went for my first scouting mission of the neighbourhood. Sorry to report that I was quite underwhelmed with this “nice expat area”, it was rougher than I expected. However, it did feel safe to walk and nobody gave me any strange stares, so I guess foreigners are a common sight around there, even though I felt like I was the only one at the time.

I walked about an hour and the place I decided on for my first meal was going to be at a smoothie spot called Nourish Labs. They have a mixture of tuna, salad and apple that they called “pocholala” and the waitress convinced me it was delicious so I tried it…and it was!

Then it was time to check out the beach. The reason I had picked this particular Airbnb was because it was just a few minutes walk from the ocean, at least that’s what Google Maps told me. Just turn left, walk straight and you’ll be at Osu Beach in no time!

Reality turned out to be a little different – as I walked the three or four blocks towards the water, things started getting rougher and rougher until I found myself in an area I really didn’t feel like I was supposed to be in. Nothing new in Africa – that happens in almost every country I’ve been to, but the road Google Maps was telling me to get to the beach looked to be some kind of private/village/alley type of road?

I decided, probably I shouldn’t go wandering down there on my first day in Ghana so decided to go back home and ask my security guard a few questions before coming back.

The next day I headed for the badminton stadium. I was here for the Ghana International which was hosted at Borteyman Stadium – an impressive complex built for the African Games in 2024.

It feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere because there seems to be nothing else around it, and a lot of Uber drivers seemed to not where it was exactly. But inside the facilities were good and better than most tournaments I’ve played in Africa. This is where I spent most of my week!

Funny story from the following morning. I woke up and wanted some fruit so went looking for mangoes. There’s a small street stall just on the corner of my apartment, so I went looking at her small table of fruit and only found oranges, papayas, watermelons, avocados, but no mangoes. I asked if she had mangoes.

“Oh that’s my sister’s stall, let me call her.”

Then she screams at the top of her lungs for her sister to come out, and keeps screaming eight or nine times for at least a few minutes until her sister finally appears.

“Do you have mangoes?” I ask.

“Mangoes are here!” she says, and under the papayas there are indeed a couple of mangoes.

I grab one.

“How much?”

“Eighty” she says in her friendly big mama voice.

Now, eighty Ghanaian cedi is equal to about $7, but since it’s my second day in Ghana (and first day shopping) I don’t actually know this and haven’t bothered to check. I have a pocket full of 100 cedi bills, and I don’t always carry my phone when I go walking, so I can’t check. So the price is eighty, no problem.

So I take the mango, then I ask, “How much are the oranges?”

“Oranges are four.”

So I take five oranges and I say to her, “So five oranges are 20, and the mango is 80, so that should be 100, right?” and I hand her a 100 cedi bill.

And she looks at me with a bemused face, and then looks at the money, and looks at me again, even more bemused, and finally says, “Okay!” and gives me a huge smile, and I walk off thinking, that was weird, did I calculate wrong or something? Why was she so confused?

It’s not until that night when I go to order some groceries online, and I see the price of oranges are indeed around 5 cedi, but the price of mangoes are about 10 cedi.

And I realise, when I asked the price of mangoes, she wasn’t saying “eighty” she was saying “eight”. Just with the Ghanaian accent, the T on the end is hard so it sounded like eighty. So there I was giving her eighty cedi when she only asked for eight cedi, and of course she accepted it with glee once she figured out what was happening, and I’m here laughing in my apartment that I ripped myself off, but also happy that an extra $7 probably made someone’s day.

During the days I was competing, I tried to not be too adventurous with food, so I was mostly ordering Chinese and Korean, or cooking my own. Surprisingly the Korean food there was really good. I think I ordered from the same place three times at least.

Next thing I had to do was try some Ghanaian food! On my free day I went looking for a popular cafe not far from my apartment, apparently some of the best local food in the area.

When I arrived looking like the typical lost tourist a waitress pointed me to a table and told me the menu.

I told her to just bring me the most popular thing because it’s my first time eating Ghanaian food. She said she’ll bring me okra lamb and banku – I said fine!

The banku is a type of pounded cassava, and the okra and lamb is like a traditional stew. I told her I didn’t want anything spicy, but she said in Ghana that’s not possible.

I didn’t expect it to be that spicy, I think I needed two bottles of water to finish it and a twenty serviettes to wipe away my sweat, but I finished it. Pretty good!

On my final day, I decided I couldn’t leave Accra without seeing the beach – it’s the whole reason I tried to stay near the beach after all. I grabbed an Uber and took a ride down to one of the resorts near Labidi Beach to have dinner.

This time I tried more Ghanaian food – lentils with yam fries and fried bananas.

This was too oily for me and stopped being enjoyable after the first five bites or so, would be good as a daytime snack though.

As for the beach – well, it wasn’t much to look at to be honest, certainly not somewhere I would want to swim. But having some food on a warm night overlooking the ocean – a great way to end my trip to Accra nonetheless.

Final thoughts on Accra?

I had expected Ghana to be much more developed than it was – I’m not sure why but there’s a perception that the west of Africa is much more modern than the east. In my experience this hasn’t been so true. It was also much sleepier and less busy than I expected.

My longest conversations about the country were with the Uber drivers during my 40 minute drive to the stadium each day, and we talked about all the usual things – politics, work, women, travel. My impression was it’s slow, but also stable and reasonably safe by Africa standards. Definitely much more pleasant than somewhere like Cameroon, though I think their neighbour Cote d’Ivoire was a step ahead in most things.

Should you visit? Absolutely! It seems like the type of place where the longer you stay, the more you’ll find and fall in love with the place. Bonus if you like spicy food!

If you’re in Dubai, a visit to the Gold Souk is a staple on the list of things to see.

Well known as one of the safest and cheapest places in the world to buy gold, people from all over the world flock here to buy gold jewellery, gold coins, gold bars, gold decorations, and pretty much anything made of gold you can imagine.

I spent a day at the gold souk on my last visit to Dubai and wandered as many stores as my legs would allow, and then bought myself a little something to take home as well.

Let me take you through everything you need to know, so whether you’re going on a gold shopping spree or just taking in the golden sights, you won’t be left cluelessly wandering the alleys wondering what’s going on!

How To Get To The Gold Souk

The Gold Souk is located in Deira.

It’s an area of Dubai that’s known for cheap shopping and restaurants, situated near the airport. You can easily get their by car, taxi, or using the public metro (take the Green Line to the Al Ras or Gold Souq metro stations. It’s a short five minute walk from either one).

However you decide to get there, you want to be heading towards the “Dubai Gold Souk” on Google Maps.

There are many entrances to the souk (technically souks – plural) which won’t be hard to find once you get into the general area.

All should be signposted and so just keep your eyes open and follow the map!

What Can You Buy At The Gold Souk?

For luxury lovers, the gold souq is a little Disneyland.

There are so many things you’d never imagine could be made of gold, from shoes to homewares to full sets of clothing.

Of course, most places still focus on the standard jewellery items like necklaces, rings etc.

In the main souq, you’ll find the higher priced stuff, which includes everything from basic jewellery to royal style decorations and adornments.

What most people don’t know is while there is an “official” gold souk, the entire area is a gold trading area, so there are other malls and souks in the surrounding blocks that are also great places to shop for gold.

The main souk will have the most reputable brands, and the biggest crowds too.

So, once you’ve exhausted the gold souk and still want more, keep exploring! There are many gold traders in the area worth checking out.

How To Buy Gold At The Gold Souq?

Almost all the shops in the Gold Souk follow the same system.

First, you have the price of gold. This is standard and you should be able to see it published on screens around the souq.

You can see there are four different prices here, which relate to the different purities of gold.

• 24 carat gold is the purest, but also the softest, so it’s generally not recommended for everyday jewellery.
• 22 carat gold is the next purest. This means it’s mixed with a small amount of other alloys like copper or nickel to make it harder and less malleable.
• 21 carat and 18 carat golds are mixed with higher amounts of alloys to make them even tougher, but obviously this brings purity down even more.

Whatever type of gold you want to buy comes down to your own intentions and preferences.

If you want gold as an investment you might prefer 24k gold, but for a ring or bracelet that might get knocked around a bit, 21k or 18k might be more suitable.

The next step is to determine the weight of whatever you’re buying, because that will determine the price!

Every item for sale will be based on weight, and this weight is usually printed on the item label.

For example, here’s a gold chain I ended up buying which you can see has a weight of 4.42 grams:

You can also see on the tag this is 22k gold. At the time the rate was 286 AED ($78 USD) per gram.

This means for the gold only, the cost would be 4.42 grams x 286 AED per gram = 1,264 AED.

The next component of the price is the maker’s fee.

A maker fee is exactly what the name suggests – it’s the markup the jeweller adds for time and labour to actually make the item into a bracelet or necklace or whatever you’re buying.

For this particular jeweller, the maker fee was 9.9%, which came out to 125 AED.

The final part of the price is your VAT, which in Dubai is 5% (you can get this refunded at the airport when you leave).

This gives a final price of 1264 + 125 + 70 VAT = 1,458 AED or $397 USD.

All the prices are negotiable, but in reality 4g is a pretty small item and these shops are used to dealing in hundreds or even thousands of grams. So for a maker fee of 125 AED ($30 USD) don’t expect to shave off too much!

For example on this item I got him to bring his maker fee down from 125 to 100, which wasn’t too hard. He probably would have gone for 75 if I’d really pushed him for it.

This is the general process for building most things in the Gold Souk, unless you’re buying an exceptional amount of gold or a very intricate piece which might garner you some special treatment.

Zero Maker Fees?

Yes! You can find places with zero makers fees, meaning you’ll only pay for the price of gold and VAT.

These places get their gold at wholesale discounts and make very basic jewellery, so their business is all about big volume.

Why didn’t I buy something with zero maker fees?

Well, after spending several hours looking at zero-maker-fee jewellery, you can tell the design and craftsmanship is lower quality.

After I got the quote for the chain I showed above, I actually went and looked at maybe a hundred chains with zero-maker fees in many different shops, and none of them were as nice. To me it was worth paying $30 extra to get a better-made item, so I ended up going back and buying that one, even though that hadn’t been my plan.

I think most people feel this way, because the zero-maker shops aren’t really that common – there are a few but maker fees are the norm definitely.

However, if price is the biggest factor then the zero fee spots are definitely what you want. It’s the cheapest gold you’ll find here. The Gold Center is a good place to start for zero-maker stores, just a few minutes walk from the main Gold Souk entrance. You’ll find some of the best Dubai gold souk deals around here.

Is the gold real?

The only way to know if your gold is real is to have it independently tested.

There are places to do that around the Gold Souk, but even better would be to have it tested at a jeweller or lab back home.

However, there’s a reason the Dubai Gold Souk is one of the most popular places in the world to buy gold.

Not only are the prices among the lowest, but the reliability is also world-renowned.

The Dubai gold trade is extremely heavily regulated by the UAE government, as places like the Gold Souk are important to their economy and reputation. Agents regularly spot check stores at random, testing some of their stock at labs to make sure it’s genuine gold. Anyone selling fake gold is harshly punished. Obviously all fake gold selling is illegal, and police take complaints seriously.

A friend of mine who’s a well-known businessman in Dubai for over a decade explained to me – it’s not worth trying to sell fake gold in the Gold Souk, as if you’re caught the punishment is so severe that you’d be stupid to even attempt it. On the black market might be a different story, but for official stores in the souq it’s nearly unheard of. There’s a reason it’s one of the busiest gold markets in the world.

However! That doesn’t mean you can’t get scammed or end up with fake gold. But with a bit of common sense, you should be able to shop confidently. Here’s how to ensure you don’t get scammed at the gold souk:

• Only buy from official storefronts! Don’t let touts convince you to go wandering down back alleys to hidden or “secret’ stores, no matter how good their prices sound or how good their jewellery looks.
• Don’t use middlemen! There may be individuals who offer to show you the “best” spots. Kindly decline and insist you want to shop alone.
• The magnet test – if you want to be double careful, you can ask for a magnet, or carry one with you. Real gold is not magnetic, but many other alloys are, so if it attracts to the magnet, it’s fake (not foolproof, but useful). Genuine store owners will have no problem doing this test for you. Remember – make sure you do it before you take the item out of the store.
• After you agree to buy an item, don’t let it out of your sight while they package it. Insist they package it in front of you so it’s not switched.
• Always make them weigh it in front of you before you pay. Don’t trust the weight on the price tag.

And most importantly – have fun!

Shopping at the gold souk is a unique experience. Even if your budget is low or you can’t afford to buy anything, just enjoy yourself. You can have just as much fun watching people shop and haggle and seeing the odd and wonderful things they buy. This is Dubai!

Heading to Dubai?

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Somewhere to stay? Booking.com gives you the biggest selection and the best rates.

You might also want to check out my Where To Stay In Dubai Guide. It will break down all the major areas of Dubai to help you pick the perfect spot for your trip!