Things to do in Ajman

Ajman is the smallest of the seven emirates, about 259 square kilometres. It is one city on one beach with a creek through it. The whole thing takes an afternoon.

That scale is the point. Things to do in Ajman are small and unhurried, and the corniche is low-rise rather than high-rise. Nobody comes here for a skyline.

What the town holds

• The dhow yard. At the creek mouth, where wooden hulls are still built by eye rather than from a drawing.
• The fish market. A working market at dawn, not a heritage display.
• Ajman Museum. Inside the eighteenth-century fort that was the ruler's house and later the police station, wind towers and all.
• The corniche. An open run of sand with hotels behind it, and no promenade act.
• Al Zorah. Mangrove channels on the northern edge of town.

Beyond the coast the emirate owns two inland pockets, Masfout up in the Hajar mountains and Manama below it. Both are green and cool by local standards. Neither is on a tour.

What sells from here

The catalogue is thin and mostly points outward. Evening desert safaris cost less than the Dubai equivalent, with or without the dune driving. Days out run to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

There is also a long day across the mountains to the Gulf of Oman. The rest is transfers — Dubai airport, Sharjah airport, the theme parks, Ferrari World. Cheap bed, everything else a drive away.

Practical

• Season. November to March is comfortable. June to September sits above 40C with coastal humidity that lingers after dark.
• Alcohol. Served in licensed hotels here, unlike Sharjah next door, but not sold in shops.
• The Dubai road. It runs through Sharjah and inherits Sharjah's traffic, so a nine o'clock pickup is not a nine o'clock arrival.
• No metro. Nothing beyond the corniche works without a taxi, a car or a hotel shuttle.
• Airports. Sharjah is about twenty minutes away and Dubai about forty, outside the peaks.
• Cash. Cards work in hotels and malls, but the dhow yard and the fish market want small notes.
• Dress. Modest away from hotel beaches, and enforced more than in Dubai.