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In our “postcards” series, we share port-related dispatches from recent cruises. This trip: a 16-night cruise on Crystal Symphony from Singapore to Dubai.

I thought it curious in Dubai, one of the best shopping destinations in the world, that our complimentary ship-to-town shuttle took us directly to a new mall, some 30 minutes away, rather than to a souk in the city’s historic shopping district.

The souk, a bazaar, is of course the traditional style of shop in the Middle East. Souks are chaotic, large markets with a lot of tiny shops specializing in one thing or another (rugs, gold, scent). You bargain, hard, for merchandise. In Dubai, the souks are clustered around its Dubai Creek area (where you’ll also find the majority of museums and other sites celebrating its tribal origins; more on that later).

Dubai has long been all about the shopping. But by arranging for the motorcoach shuttle, every hour on the hour, to take us way out to the outskirts, relatively speaking, instead of to a more historic neighborhood that’s frankly much closer to the port, seemed to symbolize that history in this now-audacious place is relegated to a back seat behind veritable creations of whimsy, fancy and commerce.

Which is not to say they aren’t fun!

Our shuttle was heading in a do-not-pass-go fashion to the much-hyped Mall of the Emirates, where shops included some pretty big powerhouses, like Harvey Nichols and Debenhams. The Virgin Megastore, which sells everything media-related, from iPhones and laptops to books and DVDs, is a destination in its own right. There’s The Body Shop, Chili’s Restaurant, and Bvlgari. There’s even a modern interpretation of a souk – off to one section of the mall were a combination of boutique-sized shops that sold gold, silks, rugs and perfumes.

The real draw here – for curiosity seekers and the active among us (mostly crew members!) – was the aforementioned Ski Dubai, an indoor ski slope, and even if you didn’t want to ski, it was fun to grab a seat at one of the numerous cafes that ran alongside picture windows and watch the action. A tip: the best views are from the TGIF Restaurant. Or better yet: don a ski jacket and take a ride up (and back down again) on the lift.

But if you really, really want to shop – and by this point, I was in the mood – the best mall in town, and frankly one more suitable to tastes of luxury-minded cruisers, was the Dubai Mall. Billing itself as the world’s biggest mall (yawn, that claim again!) it was both egalitarian (lots of luxury shops but also some quite moderately priced retailers, too) and entertaining.

And it actually is a beautiful indoor destination (this from someone’s who’s decidedly not a big mall rat), with different sections, primarily grouped, as in the traditional souk, in themes. Home design is in one area, fashion in another and luxury boutiques are housed in a majestic domed section called Fashion Avenue.

The mall is anchored by Bloomingdales, Galeries Lafayette, and Marks and Spencer. It’s got – and I stand by this claim! – the biggest, most handsome and best bookstore in the world called Book World, by the uber-luxe Japanese chain Kinokuniya. You can find Arabic fashion for men and women at numerous places like Abdulla Hussain Khunji. There’s stuff for children at Ralph Lauren, GapKids, and Oshkosh B’gosh, among others. The minimalistically styled Manolo Blahnik shop was offering 50 percent off (one of the few bargains I saw in Dubai). There’s a huge Waitrose supermarket and an organic grocery so gorgeous it puts Whole Foods to shame.

In the luxury pavilion, sleek and edgy, you’ll find Escada, Cartier, Pucci, Carolina Herrera, Chopard, Stella McCartney, and Tiffany, to name just some options.

But it was where the worlds of ancient Arabic traditions and more contemporary ones merged that was most compelling in Dubai Mall. The Gold Souk is like a Hollywood interpretation of the traditional Middle East bazaar, featuring a somewhat sterile yet altogether palatial ambience. Shopkeepers, just like in an old souk, stand outside their doors and attempt to beckon you inside with tantalizing comments (though these are far less audacious than those I’ve heard in more “real souks”; lines like “miss!  I love your sneakers!” which was one attempt to lure me into a shop in a Turkish bazaar, did not surface here).

The hallways are broad and the atmosphere otherworldly (a great place to absorb the ambience is Café Bateel, located right in the middle of a vast piazza with a soaring dome overhead that’s programmed to reflect different colors at various times of the day). And like any well-designed souk (and, come to think of it, any contemporary mega-mall), its warren of hallways and distractions is meant to literally trap you within its confines.

Can you haggle here? Will you get the absolute cheapest deal on good gold jewelry? Not likely. For that you will have to head over to Dubai Creek. But the experience of shopping, Middle East-style to a point, will be memorable nevertheless.

CSB