With all the effort I put into finding veg food while traveling, it shocked me to learn that I had accidentally chosen a Dubai hotel with a vegetarian café. Instead, I’d picked the XVA Art Hotel for the art.

I’m not really a prime candidate for Dubai, since I like old stuff better than new and gave up nightlife long ago. So when I was looking for a hotel online, I ruled out everything that looked too sleek, modern and overly air conditioned. When I saw pictures of the XVA Art Hotel, with its focus on art and history and its setting in the old part of Dubai, I knew it was the hotel for me.

Architecture in old Dubai

XVA Art Hotel Style

I arrived in Dubai at night and took a shuttle to the XVA Art Hotel. It was quite a challenge for my driver, as it turns out you can’t drive to the entrance. You have to walk down some alleys to find the absolutely gorgeous property.

One of the XVA Hotel’s courtyards

The XVA has 15 rooms, three interior courtyards, and a sheltered rooftop area perfect for morning yoga. I could really feel I was in the Middle East – the hot, dry climate, birds chirping, a bougainvillea flower tumbling over my yoga mat and the tips of mosques visible in the distance. The café serves Middle Eastern fare and has a resident cat named Marmar.

XVA Art Hotel cafe

Dubai Activities

I’d signed up for a walking tour of the old part of town but nobody was there when I went to meet the group. I was very disappointed when I figured out I’d gotten my dates mixed up and booked the wrong day. But when I told the XVA staff, the front desk person reassured me he could design a self-guided walking tour where I’d miss nothing. So he gave me a map and drew a route guiding me to the textile, gold, and spice souks.

crossing Dubai Creek

The best part was taking an old-fashioned water taxi across Dubai Creek to get to Deira, where the gold and spice souks are. Also, smelling stuff the spice guys offered me in the spice souk, like dried bitter lemon, dried black lemon and an extremely powerful whiff of peppermint that left me gasping. I went in one store that had about 20 different kinds of dates, arranged by country.

Other Dubai highlights included:

• Visiting a cheap local Indian restaurant where I got a dosa and a lime soda for five bucks
• Watching the water fountain show at the ginormous Dubai Mall

Water show at the Dubai Mall

• Riding the metro system. But beware—Don’t go in the VIP car unless you buy a special gold ticket. And if you’re a guy, don’t enter the ladies only car. Either of these infractions could result in a fine.

Guys, don’t sit in here!

• Meeting people from around the world who’d come to work in Dubai, including some Sri Lankans working at the XVA and a guy from Cameroon working in a restaurant. After all, 85 percent of Dubai’s residents are ex-pats, so this is one cosmopolitan place.
• And at the end of the day, returning to the XVA to sleep in a comfortable and beautiful room.
  

  My twin room at the XVA Art Hotel