Tours in Sharjah

Sharjah shares a border with Dubai — the two cities have effectively grown into each other — but it runs on different rules and a different idea of what a visitor is for. It was named Cultural Capital of the Arab World by UNESCO in 1998 and has spent the decades since building museums: the Museum of Islamic Civilisation in a restored souk on the creek, the Sharjah Art Museum, the Heart of Sharjah restoration project rebuilding the old town as it was in the 1950s. Al Noor Mosque on the lagoon is the one non-Muslims can tour. Al Qasba is a canal-side strip of restaurants with a big wheel at one end, and the Blue Souk sells carpets and gold under two rows of blue-tiled barrel vaults. Inland, Mleiha is a desert archaeological site with burials going back five thousand years and fossil dunes around it.

Most of what is sold from Sharjah is the same as from Dubai, priced lower: desert safaris in the evening, with and without dune bashing, and day tours across to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That is the practical logic of staying here — the hotels cost less and everything else is twenty minutes away. In the emirate itself the offer is cultural: the museums, the old town, the souk and the Mleiha centre with its dune drives and stargazing. The east coast of the emirate, over the mountains at Khor Fakkan and Kalba, has beaches and diving on the Gulf of Oman.

Practical. Sharjah is dry: alcohol is not sold or served anywhere in the emirate, and bringing it in is an offence rather than an oversight. The dress code is stricter than in Dubai and enforced in malls and public places — shoulders and knees covered for both sexes. Season is November to March; summer is above 40C. The road between Sharjah and Dubai is one of the most congested in the country and the morning and evening peaks add an hour, which matters when a tour picks up at seven. Museums close on Monday and open late on Friday. Taxis are metered and cheap, the dirham is pegged to the dollar, and tipping is around ten per cent.