Dubai Creek Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Dubai Creek is the reason the city exists. A natural saltwater inlet running fourteen kilometres inland, it gave the Bani Yas tribe a sheltered harbour in the 1830s, and the pearl trade and then the re-export trade with Iran and India grew along its banks. It was dredged in the 1960s with money borrowed from Kuwait, which let larger ships in and settled Dubai's future. Deira sits on the northern bank with the gold souk, the spice souk and the wooden dhows still loading cargo by hand at the wharfage. Bur Dubai is opposite, with the Al Fahidi historic district of wind-tower houses, the ruler's old residence and the city museum in the Al Fahidi fort, which dates from 1787 and is the oldest building in Dubai.

Crossing is the experience. Abras, the small wooden ferries, run continuously between four stations for about a dirham a head, and the ride takes five minutes; hiring a whole abra for a private half-hour circuit costs a few pounds. Dinner cruises on larger dhows run in the evening along the same water. On foot, the two banks make the best walking in Dubai — the souks, the textile market, the restored courtyard houses, the coffee museum — and every city tour includes them as the old half of the day. Further upstream, Dubai Creek Harbour is the new development at the wildlife sanctuary end, where flamingos winter.

Practical. Mornings and evenings are the times to walk here; the souks close for a few hours in the middle of the day and reopen around four. Abras run day and night and take cash only. Modest dress matters more in Deira than in the malls. Gold is sold by weight at the day's rate plus a making charge, and the charge is negotiable while the weight is not. The metro Green Line runs along both banks with stations at each souk. Season is November to March; the creek is humid and airless in summer.