There is a lot of old-world snobbery about upstart United Arab Emirates, and especially about flashy Dubai. There is undoubtedly a thick slice of cheese about much of it, but it is also an oasis of economic achievement and comparative liberalism, at peace with its neighbours. In a region that has for decades been the opposite of all these things, let’s give credit where it’s due.
I have lived here as a base to work across the Arabian Peninsula for the past three years. I have not fallen head-over-heels in love with it like when I did a similar stint in Hong Kong, but I have had a lot of fun, and learned a great deal about Arabs and Muslims who are crucial to the world’s prosperity and security.
There is plenty to see and do beyond the big-ticket attractions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There are beaches, deserts and mountains, with fabulous resorts all over. There are mosques and forts to investigate, arts and culture to explore, and sports galore to play and to watch.
The UAE was founded in 1971 by Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first Raʾīs (President), who is lionised as the Father of the Nation and whose iconic photo is all over. Six Trucial States, protected by Britain from 1820 until its withdrawal after Suez, put aside warring hostility to each other in order to start a federation of emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain and Fujairah. A seventh, Ras Al Khaimah, acceded in 1972. Two others that had been expected to join instead declared independence: Bahrain and Qatar.
After Sheikh Zayed died at the age of 86 in 2004, he was succeeded as both ruler of Abu Dhabi and Raʾīs of the UAE by his eldest son, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. When he died in 2022, he in turn was succeeded by his brother Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (popularly known as MBZ). So the country is on only its third ever leader.
The UAE has about 0.1% of the world’s population and accounts for around 0.5% of the world’s GDP, but this tiny plot of land has almost 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Since it was discovered in the late 50s, most Emiratis have not worked. They do not feel the need since they receive such generous handouts from the state, including free housing and welfare benefits of up to US$5k a month. That also helps explain why so few Emiratis are visible in public life.
Therefore, to build its economy and society, the UAE has attracted almost two hundred different nationalities to do their work for them. The total population is 10 million, but fewer than 1.5m are local citizens; of these 85% are Sunni Muslims with the remainder, Shia Muslims, concentrated in Dubai and Sharjah. The rest of the population are all immigrants: labourers from South and South-East Asia, professionals from Britain and around the world. This is one of the most happily diverse countries on the planet.
The UAE is already a relatively liberal Islamic country, and it will need to keep going further and faster to deter companies and employees from being drawn to higher revenues in neighbouring Saudi Arabia. That is why it is now easy to buy alcohol here – tax free – in hotels, restaurants and pubs as well as at some shops. It is also why in 2022 the working week switched from Sunday to Thursday and became Monday to Friday lunchtime, both maintaining the opportunity for religious observance but also aligning with the global economy. That said, progress is not smooth. Having finally decriminalised sex out of wedlock in 2020, in 2022 schools were told to ban rainbows and stop teaching children about sexual politics.
They are trying to be progressive abroad. For example, in 2020 the UAE took the brave step to normalise relations with Israel, signing the Abraham Accord, the first such move by any Arab country since Jordan in 1994.
Many residents leave for stretches of the summer because outside, constantly pushing 50°C and humid, it can feel like a hairdryer is right in your face. Traditional Emirati clothing was developed to deal with these climatic conditions, and remains common and often shocking to foreigners: black abayas (which don’t cover the head, just the clothes) or burqas (which do, all but the eyes) for women, and white kandoras along with white ghutra headdresses and black agal cords for men.
Holidaying Europeans come in the winter when it can dip below 20°C. As a foreigner you can dress however you like, though too few tourists show sufficient respect for the fact that this is still a conservative society by global standards then complain when they get into trouble with the authorities.
This review is lengthy because I have crawled all over the country. I have tried to flag loads of stuff that I have enjoyed, much of which is well off the beaten track for casual visitors and even for those residents who really came only to enjoy beaches and avoid taxes. Yalla.
Abu Dhabi
The Emirate of Abu Dhabi occupies 87% of the territory of the UAE, although most of it is no more than sand. The south-west portion, Rub Al Khali, is known as the Empty Quarter for good reason. The sedate and gentle city of Abu Dhabi, the country’s capital, is on the coast, and the other main appeal to visitors here, the relaxing oasis of Al Ain, is the UAE’s biggest inland settlement, right on the border with Oman.
The Bani Yas tribe, the largest in the Al Dhafra region, originally from the Liwa Oasis in Rub Al Khali, migrated to the islands that are today’s city of Abu Dhabi after fresh water was discovered here in 1793. Abu Dhabi then rose to a position of pre-eminence among the neighbouring tribal states under the long reign between 1855 and 1909 of Sheikh Zayed Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, known as Sheikh Zayed the First to avoid confusion with the later Father of the Nation. In common with much of the Gulf Coast, the local economy benefitted from the pearling industry before oil was discovered, in shallow water at Umm Shaif off the city of Abu Dhabi in 1958, which changed everything.
Downtown Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi brand new international airport at Midfield, home of flagship carrier Etihad Airways, is 30 kilometres to the east of the series of islands that nestle together on the coast in the centre of this concave banana curve of the UAE. Apart from those islands already developed, there are several others further out that have been cleared and stand ready for construction. The city was planned by Japanese architect Katsuhiko Takahashi in 1967, initially for a population of just 40,000, though that has been somewhat overtaken by events. These days it is a city of a million people with claims to world status. Incidentally, locals seem not to care one jot about a noisy football club their rulers incongruously own in the north of England, and I am delighted to report that on my many visits I have never yet seen a single Manchester citeh shirt on these streets.
The breakwater on reclaimed land at the tip has been beautifully sculpted. The best place to take it in is from Observation Deck at 300 on the 74th floor of Etihad Tower 2, amid the clutch of tall buildings here, where the Conrad Hotel has a nice café with 360° views.
On the ground below are the domes of the luxurious Emirates Palace Hotel, set on a sweeping – fake – beach. Vast and ornate in its faux ancient luxury, this is the statement address of the city.
Near here is the Founder’s Memorial, a cubic pavilion housing the Constellation, a 3D portrait of Sheikh Zayed. Since it was inaugurated in 2018, on what would have been his one hundredth birthday, it has attracted a heavy security presence.
To the left, on the south-west corner of Abu Dhabi Island, sits Qasr Al Watan, the white presidential palace complex. Completed as recently as 2017, its three buildings are used for official occasions rather than living quarters. The central President’s Palace, open to the public, has huge carved wooden doors, cream marble floors, walls and ceilings, oceans of gold inlay, stained glass windows and sparkling chandeliers (and that’s just in the bathrooms); this is everybody’s idea of over-the-top opulence (even compared to the Emirates Palace Hotel). You can wander around the main hall and various state rooms. Behind, on the west wing in a separate palace is that of the Vice-President, and another to the east is for the Crown Prince, though both are off-limits to visitors, and guards are for some reason anxious to stop people even taking photos of them. However, it is pleasant to wander the pools and fountains of the sculpted squares, reached by a short bus ride from the car park at the entrance that drops at the colonnaded plaza.
To the right of the Emirates Palace Hotel, across a small bridge onto Al Kasir Island, beyond the little Marina Eye Ferris Wheel and the lovely harbour stocked with superyachts, is the Hotel Fairmont Marina, opened in 2022 and looking like it should really be in Dubai. Beyond the wheel and the harbour, at the end of a promontory off the east of Al Kasir, is a massive flagpole with a giant flag atop it. There are lots of big flags all over Downtown, more than in most capital cities, though this is the daddy. At 122m, this was the tallest in the world when it was erected in 2001. There are sculpted walkways around it on the coast.
Heading off to the north-east is the Corniche, lined with palms waving and trees trimmed square by topiarists. The sandy beaches and wooden boardwalks, reached from parking lots on the other side of the main road by a network of underpasses, face the UAE flag and the elongated Al Lulu Island parallel to and just off the shore. All along are beaches with sunbeds and cafes, as well as basketball and volleyball courts.
Behind here is Qasr Al Hosn, where the mint condition fort and watchtower, the oldest extant buildings in Abu Dhabi, house a simple exhibition of the history of the city. These defences were built by the Bani Yas tribe to protect their growing community and burgeoning pearling industry when they moved their seat of rule here in the eighteenth century. Qasr Al Hosn was home to Abu Dhabi emirs until 1966 and it is now a highly revered cultural landmark, appearing on the back of the AED1,000 note.
Keep going east and the Corniche expands into the E12 at the Al Mina port area, formerly the dhow harbour and now the cruise ship terminal as well as the fishing trawler dock. The recently rebuilt fish market here is one of the very best of its kind. Open every day from 8am to 9pm, there are dozens of clean and tidy stalls displaying every type of seafood, and around the outside each has a little restaurant that will cook anything according to your taste.
Not far away there are several other markets which are hard to define as souqs in the usual Middle Eastern sense: for flowers and plants, for home furnishings and appliances, and for fruit and veg, where there is an entire street selling only dates.
Saadiyat Island
Twenty minutes east of Downtown on the E12, at the western edge of natural Saadiyat Island, marketed as the “Island of Happiness”, is the rapidly emerging Cultural District.
The first star turn here was the controversial Louvre Abu Dhabi, opened by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2017. It was controversial originally because of alleged human rights abuses of migrant workers in its construction. In addition, it is not actually a Louvre building at all, but in exchange for US$1.15bn the local museum has been allowed to lease the illustrious brand name for thirty years and borrow works for a decade from it and a dozen other French institutions (which means the installations change frequently), theoretically giving it time to acquire a permanent collection and establish its own reputation.
In truth, it is all about the architecture: white halls float above the clear blue water and beneath the sweeping aluminium and steel dome that protects it from the sun in the clear blue sky. The idea behind the exhibition is a bracing race around the history of world art as a civilising instrument from as far back as 10,000 years ago through to the 1960s, though there is nothing more contemporary, which might be considered too difficult for its target audience. It is the most visited museum in the Arab world, and it is closed on Mondays. Attached to it, Pierre Gagnaire’s Fouquet’s fine dining French restaurant has a lovely terrace.
On the other side of Jacques Chirac Street is the Abrahamic Family House, featuring St Francis Church, Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue and Imam Al Tayeb Mosque. Each of these three separate buildings, huddled together in 30m cubes, are all designed by the same architect, David Adjaye. There are free hour-long tours all designed to promote inter-faith understanding and all that.
The whole area is a massive building site. Coming soon there will be a Natural History Museum, a Curiosity Theme Park and a host of residential apartments as well as two huge and heavily delayed constructions apparently finally set to open in 2025. A Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry, is in a space of over 30,000m². And the Zayed National Museum, whose five gigantic falcon wings designed by Norman Foster will be the centrepiece of the whole Cultural District, will showcase the growth of the UAE since 1971.
Saadiyat Island is also renowned for its long beach front, where there are a handful of huge five-star resorts, with more soon to arise from the rubble of the current construction areas. The St Regis, Rotana, Rixos and Park Hyatt are to the west near Kai public beach. The Saadiyat Beach Club and Jumeirah At Saadiyat Island Resort are to the east.
Yas Island
The E12 goes over Al Jubail Island and on to Yas Island, where there is a turning to Leisure Drive. This runs past a series of vast entertainment facilities. These include the Etihad Arena, a concert stadium, and a bunch of family-oriented theme-parks I have not been to: Warner Brothers World, billed as the world’s largest indoor theme park; Yas Waterworld, a massive collection of fifty or more rides and slides; Sea World, the extremely controversial marina animal circus; and Ferrari World, which includes Formula Rossa, apparently the world’s fastest rollercoaster. Leisure Drive then goes on to the Yas Marina Formula 1 Circuit, 25km from Downtown Abu Dhabi.
The Yas Circuit I know well. It has hosted late night Grand Prix races every December since 2009. Always the last of the season, it is so often full of drama, and was notably the scene where Lewis Hamilton was controversially robbed of the world championship in 2021. There are always superyachts in the marina, and it does not have to be race weekend to stay in the iconic Yas Viceroy W Hotel that acts as a bridge over the track.
Outside the big race, there are loads of ways of getting on the track. You can run it, cycle it, and drive it in a variety of different types of cars. We did the Yas 3000 Driving Experience in authentic race cars; zipping along the racing line around the chicanes is cool, but low to the ground at top speed through the finishing line in front of the albeit empty grandstand is a proper rush.
Greater Abu Dhabi
Away from the main attractions of Downtown, Saadiyat and Yas, there are two holy sites that are unmissable on any trip here.
The first is on the eastern end of Abu Dhabi Island. Since 2007, the bright white and immense Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque has been the premier Islamic shrine in the UAE. More than eighty marble domes are held aloft by over one thousand pillars, with one 106m-high minaret at each of the four corners, all surrounded by relaxing reflective pools.
The courtyard, 17,000m2, has the largest marble mosaic in the world. Inside, the loomed carpet, 5,627m2, containing 2,268,000,000 knots, took 1,200 craftsmen more than two years to complete. Under the seven mighty chandeliers is space for 40,000 worshippers. It is closed on Friday mornings but open to the public, including non-Muslims, the rest of the week.
In the grounds of the mosque is the mausoleum of Sheikh Zayed, though it is out-of-bounds for tourists. In fact, only sitting heads of state are allowed to enter.
The other must-see religious monument is 40km north of here, heading towards Dubai first on the E10 then the E11. Just two minutes off Junction 366, and opened as recently as 2024, by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, this BAPS Hindu traditional mandir is an important political and architectural statement.
It is only the third Hindu temple complex in the UAE – after Bur Dubai and Jebel Ali Village – that services the huge community of South Asians, and it is now by far the most imposing and most significant.
Open to worshippers and visitors except on Mondays, when it is closed, there is a long and beautiful walk-up on white marble floors flanked by blue pools. At the large outhouse where you leave your shoes, just before the steps, is where everyone stops for the iconic photo of the striking turrets in pink sandstone from north Rajasthan. Inside are ornately carved white marble columns and glass cabinets of deities.
Sir Bani Yas Island
About 250km west of Downtown Abu Dhabi, just off the E11 coast road not far from the border with Saudi Arabia and near Qatar, is the little port of Jebel Dhanna. It does not take long to get here as the speed limit is 160kmh (100mph) all the way. At the far end of the port is the Sir Bani Yas ferry jetty, where you leave your car then take the easy half hour ride due north to the south side of the eponymous island. Formed 20m years ago (80% of its soil is salt) and surprisingly large (88km2, bigger than the land area of Dubai), Sir Bani Yas Island makes for a wonderful weekend (though it is obviously best to go when there are no cruise ships docked).
You book the ferry when you reserve your room in the Anantara, which has three separate resorts on the island, each with different vibes. Desert Islands on the north coast is the main hotel, with the gym and the spa; its Al Shams restaurant is in the Arab mode so also provides shisha. Al Yamm in the east has thirty gorgeous barasti-type villas on the huge beach; its Olio restaurant is Italian. And Al Sahel out west has safari-style fabulous cabins in the bush where gazelle, hyrax and peacocks happily wander inquisitively like pets right to your lounger while you are chilling in the sun; its Savannah restaurant is African.
The island is alive with African animals – including cheetah, hyena and giraffe – plus Indian spotted deer and Arabian oryx. In fact, there are more than thirty exotic species among over 10,000 individuals. They have been imported consistently since 1977, when Sheikh Zayed declared the whole island a wildlife reserve (today’s Abu Dhabi royals still have a palace here, to where they retreated during the months of Covid lockdowns). There are also about 4m trees, including 70,000 fruit shrubs such as mango and orange.
Though the animals roam free and are easy to spot all over, you get the best views on a two-hour open-side jeep safari organised by the Anantara, which also offers all the usual add-on activities from mangrove kayaking to wadi hiking as well as transfers between the three resorts so you can experience them all.
On top of all that, there is a series of salt dome hills in the central mountains of Jebel Wahid, and there are several notable archaeological sites, including an ancient Christian monastery on the east side.
Al Ain
Forming an almost-equilateral triangle 130km east of Abu Dhabi and 130km south of Dubai sits the oasis “garden city” of Al Ain. This authentic and easy-going place has the highest concentration of Emirati nationals of anywhere in the whole country at a whopping 30%.
Al Ain is where Sheikh Zayed was born and raised. His home until the age of 48, when he became ruler of Abu Dhabi in 1966, was what is now the Palace Museum, the most prominent building in the clutch of sites clustered together in the centre of town.
Al Jahili Fort was built in the 1890s as the summer residence of Sheikh Zayed the First. Beyond the pretty flower garden, it looks like a giant sandcastle.
The Sheikh Khalifa Grand Mosque opened in 2021 on the site of what is thought to have been the first mosque in the country; excavations have unearthed ruins dating back more than a millennium.
The star turn is also in the centre. The Al Ain Oasis, fed by natural spring water that is now conveyed by concrete channels to irrigate 150,000 trees, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Entry is free from 9am to 5pm through one of several gates, and you can either hire a bike or just walk the sculpted cobbled streets and off-road tracks that lead through the shaded date plantation. It is one of the loveliest places in the country to spend a sunny afternoon.
About 10km south of town on Zayed Bin Sultan Street, just past the giant IKEA, is the central market. At the end is an animal bazaar with a few goats and sheep crammed into tiny pens, as well as hundreds of camels kept behind metal fences under concrete awnings.
To a constant soundtrack of guttural growling, dromedaries are divided and traded according to their purpose. The going rate is between AED5k and AED10k (€1k to €2k) for an animal for providing milk or meat, rather more for breeding or racing, and those for showing in high-prize beauty pageants, where only recently have Botox and filler become frowned on, can go for millions. Most of the activity is in the morning, though you can wander around at any time, and if you are lucky a herdsmen will pour you a bowl of frothy milk freshly drawn right in front of you.
Further south is Jebel Hafeet, at 1,249m the third-highest point in the UAE, rising up from the desert plateau all alone, an outlier of the Hajar Range to the east. It is only 10km or so as the crow flies, but it takes a good half hour to drive on smooth racing tarmac because the road helter-skelters up the brown limestone. Past the archaeological remains of 5,000-year-old tombs at the foot, there are car parks with viewpoints all the way up to the Waha Qimat Cafeteria at the end, just past the Mercure Hotel. There are panoramas across the dusty desert as far as the eye can see; this is Rub Al Khali.
Fourteen teams compete in the UAE Adnoc Pro Football League every August to May, and the most successful is Al Ain FC with a record-breaking fourteen titles. They are also the Asian Champions of 2024, defeating both of the two big Saudi teams in the knock-out stages and then Yokohama of Japan in the final.
Rub Al Khali
Rub Al Khali, the Empty Quarter, starts south and west of the line between Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and then stretches 1,000km long and 500km wide into Saudi Arabia, covering an area of 650,000km2 over most of the southern third of the entire Peninsula. This is the vast desert of lore, and one of my favourite parts of the UAE, far from the big city glitz.
The serenity of the world’s biggest uninterrupted sand mass was largely unexplored by foreigners until the 1930s. There are several very good reasons for coming here today, though almost nobody ever does.
One is to get a quick selfie at the Tropic of Cancer road sign. It is on the southerly direction of the E65, 100km due south of Abu Dhabi, about halfway to the border with Saudi Arabia. It is soon after the psychedelic double-take of the suspended gigantic replica jeep, grounded aeroplane, and massive pyramid of the National Auto Museum.
The further south you go, the bigger and cleaner grow the sand dunes. There are oceans of sand, with dunes rising and falling like waves; there are those tinted white by salt and gypsum, and there are those rust red heavy with iron oxide. It feels like the remote wilderness it is, and while you are likely to see camels here and there, you would be lucky to spot a gazelle or an oryx.
Some 70km below the Tropic of Cancer is the magnificent Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, one of the most luxurious hotels in the whole Arabian desert. It is the perfect base from which to explore the area and the ideal place to get at quintessential desert experiences a lot classier than the mass tourism options out of Dubai.
The hammam and the spa are popular, as are dawn walks, fat-tyre bikes and camel treks, as well as camp-fire barbecues and romantic dinners for two with your own butler far out into the remote desert. Most of all, I strongly recommend the classic falconry display here.
Half a dozen of us were driven fifteen minutes into the desert where we were seated on traditional majlis sofas facing a line of six birds in leather hoods tied to small wooden perches. Peregrine falcons can spot small prey up to 2km away – with eyesight eight times better than humans – and can dive at almost 400kmh – the fastest creatures on earth. These displays are facsimiles of ancient hunting techniques, in which one falcon at a time is set free by one handler to swoop after a lure swung on a rope by another, and then to land on your gloved hand for the meat there. There are even saluki dogs with webbed feet that in days of old would retrieve the kill to make sure it got eaten by humans not other predators.
From Qasr Al Sarab, the E90 runs west for 120km, more or less parallel to the Saudi border, through patches of date palm forests surrounded by sand; strips of healthy green among the arid brown. From the fifteenth century, the Bedouin people, who lived nomadic lives around here, began tapping underground freshwater to drink and cultivate dates, causing them to establish a series of small permanent settlements collectively called the Liwa Oasis.
This became the birthplace of the Nahyan family, the leaders of the local Bani Yas tribe. At the end of the eighteenth century, they migrated to the coast after freshwater was discovered there too, building political power from the economic muscle of the pearling industry in what became the town of Abu Dhabi. They continue to rule there and the United Arab Emirates right up to today.
The Bedouin who remained at Liwa put up a ring of forts and towers all along the fertile crescent that now conveys the E90, in order to protect their palm groves. Most of these battlements have been destroyed, though some were rebuilt in the 1980s. The most easterly are a trio at Yabbana (45km from Qasr Al Sarab, behind the strip mall), at Al Meel (AKA Attab, 20km further along, soon after the camel racetrack), and at Mezair’ah (10km more, past the roundabout). These three are identical in size and shape, and look exactly like giant sandcastles. The most westerly is Muqib Tower, another 40km away.
These date palms continue to be so important to the national economy that the government is currently building a train line from Lima for the sole purpose of transporting the crop back to the capital. At so-called Liwa City, a newly-founded Dates Festival is held every October.
From Liwa City it is 30km down Obaid Bin Kenaish Al Hameli Street, winding through increasingly impressive sand dunes, to reach Tel Moreeb, the world’s tallest wall of sand. It is more than 300m-high and has a 50° incline, deemed too dangerous for ordinary mortals to play on. However, there are permanent enclosures in the valley at the bottom that host the Liwa International Festival over the last two weeks of each year, when motor sports enthusiasts race up and down this “Terrifying Mountain”.
Dubai
It is 140km between the cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, a journey connecting opposite ends of the spectrum, from low-key conservative to ultra-brash show-off. On the E11 you can drive it legally in under an hour – and many do – since the speed limit here is 140kph (that is 90mph for those who still prefer to count in Winchester Units) plus 10% tolerance. It does not cost much either, as petrol is about €0.80 per litre, roughly 40% what it is in Europe. Etihad Rail’s 200kmph high-speed passenger trains will soon link them too, as part of the brand new 1,200km of track that will connect all seven emirates.
Of course, the metropolis of Dubai has a rather tainted middle-brow reputation where everything has to be the latest and the greatest, taller and bigger than anywhere else, with an unhealthy dose of TOWIE and Russian nouveau riche thrown in. A cultural desert in the actual desert. While a lot of it is like that, terminally uncool, and constantly turned up to eleven (very true in the case of music piped into gyms and restaurants), if you look hard there is more to it under the skin. I have to admit that when I first saw the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Jumeirah and dozens of other projects that would never even get on the drawing board in other cities I shook my head in disbelief, but after living with them for a while I came to admire a place that was without electricity until the 1960s but now has the high-wattage chutzpah to illuminate its successes and create spangly new entertainments almost every week for its residents and visitors.
Maktoum Bin Butti established his dynasty in this fishing village in 1833 following a split from the Bani Yas tribal rulers in Abu Dhabi. His heir Maktoum Bin Hasher abolished all customs duties on imports here, essentially creating the model of a free trade zone, as long ago as 1902. As Dubai grew, sibling rivalry with Abu Dhabi was kept on the boil, and tensions escalated into outright war as recently as 1947.
In Dubai, oil was discovered relatively late – in 1966 – and in comparatively small quantities – accounting for less than 5% of the Emirate’s GDP – so to keep pace with its neighbour, Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, ruler from 1958 to 1990, stimulated growth by investing revenues from trading activities in large-scale infrastructure projects. The first to come on stream were a deep-water port, entrenching this as the main entrepot of West Asia, and an airport, establishing this as the principal regional stop-over for flights between Britain and India, thereby creating an economy more diversified than the other Trucial States.
This process was rocket-boosted when Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum succeeded his brother as ruler of Dubai in 2006; he is also Vice President, Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and as he was born in 1949 he is inevitably approaching the end of his rule. In my opinion he is likely to be judged one of the great visionaries and leaders of our age for the dynamism he has brought to building this epochal city. It must have felt for a while like there was no stopping the golden goose as Dubai turned itself into a truly global emblem with the world’s busiest international airport, home of Emirates, and four of the top ten world’s busiest international air routes beginning or ending here, where the names of local real estate developers DAMAC, EMAAR and NAKHEEL are emblazoned in banner letters across virtually every building.
However, they were all caught in a debt trap after the global financial crisis of 2008, which almost brought the city to its knees. There are still half-built apartments and office blocks all over the place, rotting away from a time when the money ran out. Yet Dubai slowly recovered before taking off again as one of the first places to lead the return to normal life and tourism after Covid, assisted by hosting Expo 2020 and COP 2023, and offering shelter to an estimated half a million Russians in the twelve months after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Metamorphosing into a genuine global crossroads, the fulcrum between West and East, attracting good guys who want to turn a fast buck with zero tax but oodles of sunshine as much as bad guys on the run from Interpol, the local hoardings are within their rights to boldly claim that DXB, as it is known locally, is the “centre of now”.
From a population of about 20,000 in 1960 today there are 3.5m of us, three-and-a-half times that of Abu Dhabi; 85% of us are foreigners (85% of the foreigners come from Asia, mostly the Indian sub-Continent) and 75% of us are male (because most of the South Asians are male labourers). This diversity is itself a story of success and brings for many wealthy expats a sunshine lifestyle (of all-you-can-drink weekend buffets, pool days in exclusive beach clubs, and vast villas in private gated communities with live-in maids) to envy. No wonder so many celebrities have homes here.
For up-to-the-minute listings and latest reviews, check out FACT Magazine, Loving Dubai, Time Out Dubai, Visit Dubai and What’s On Dubai. Since 2022, you can also refer to the very first Michelin Guide anywhere in the Middle East and choose in which order to go to the city’s 105 recognised restaurants, including fifteen starred and four double-starred. Another way to know what is going on is through middle-of-the-road Radio Dubai 92, especially its popular Big Breakfast Show with Jono & Nats.
The best way to start to get your bearings is with a helicopter ride; there are several and the one we used was Falcon Helitours, which leaves from the Atlantis Helipad on the Palm.
Downtown Dubai
At 829.8m (more than half a mile in old money), Burj Khalifa has been the planet’s tallest structure (and one of its most instantly recognisable) since it opened in 2010. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, this elegant pinnacle has won masses of awards. Taking only six years to construct, it was originally called Burj Dubai but was forced to change its name to honour the then Raʾīs of the UAE after the country’s coffers had to bail it out during the credit crunch.
The best view is from the other side of the fake lake, on which there are little abra motorboats for hire. There are boardwalks for a look through the Dubai Fountain (the second largest in Dubai, and the world, using 80,000 litres of water and 6,000 lights per performance), which dances every day every half-hour from 6pm. The building just over the bridge houses on its second floor Souk Al Baha, a highly sanitised version of a Middle Eastern bazaar, and on its third floor the Time Out Market, a score of restaurant off-shoots from major places in town. It is rather corporate, as you might expect in Dubai, but very nicely done, and with an outside terrace that is the ideal spot to face the sound-and-light fountain show and the Burj (“tower”) behind.
On the ground floor of the Burj itself is the Armani Hotel, and on the 122nd is Atmosphere, inevitably the world’s highest restaurant. The world’s highest outdoor viewing platform, At The Top, is on the 154th, from where you can challenge your vertigo to see the sun fall over the dusty city isolated in a sea of sand.
Dubai is a creamy beige colour spread 70km along the coast, served by a magnificent 16-lane highway, the part of the E11 known as Sheikh Zayed Road. It is plied constantly by Careem and Uber cabs. In the middle section there is also a new metro, parallel to the road.
The Burj is the centrepiece of the Downtown development that has sprung up in the past decade. At its foot is the Dubai Mall, the world’s biggest, obviously, with 1,300 stores and 200 restaurants spread over 1,100,000m², enough space for 200 football pitches. Emiratis tend to keep themselves to themselves but on Thursday evenings in particular this is the place for locals to be and be seen at Fashion Avenue, the Aquarium, the ice-rink, the waterfall sculpture and other iconic spots.
Reel Cinemas, the world’s largest, naturally, with twenty-six screens, is here, and over the road Cinemacity Fountain Views, one of the world’s plushest, has VIP suites where you get the full reclining-bed, push-button waiter service for meals and even alcohol.
The other standout building around here is Dubai Opera, a surprisingly elegant 2,000-seat theatre that plays host to pop acts and stand-up comedians as well as touring international opera and ballet companies. Nearby is the Address Sky View Hotel, which has three thrill-seeking ways to get a look at the city below: the Observatory, the Glass Slide, and the Edge Walk.
The Dubai International Financial Centre, a neighbourhood just north of the Burj complex, is home to the chichi international restaurants, from Amazonica for South American to Zuma for Japanese. Most are spread around the gorgeous outdoor terracing of Gate Village, near the very nice Capital private members club.
In DIFC Gate Avenue you will find Dubai’s Saville Row, with dozens of tailors. Starting at about AED5k per suit they are much cheaper than London and take about a month with two or three fittings. I tend to use Bespoke.
Sheikh Zayed Road north from here is lined with idiosyncratic high-rises, including Al Yayoub Tower, which looks like a Lego copy of Big Ben, and Jumeirah Emirates Towers, which resemble a pair of giant razor blades. However, none are more distinctive than the Museum of the Future. You must book at least a week in advance but inevitably the exhibits inside cannot match the wonder of the outside. It would appear the future, which seems to involve a lot of queueing and people taking videos on their mobile phones of even the dullest installations, looks a lot like those envisioned by sci-fi flicks in the 1980s.
Another uniquely Dubai landmark, set in the sculpted gardens of Park Zabeel, is the 150m-high Frame. Like so many buildings here, when I first saw it, I thought WTAF, but then it grew on me even though it does not actually frame anything in particular. You can go inside too. After walking across the glass floor of the top bar, there is a virtual reality journey into Dubai fifty years from now; being Dubai this is pretty wacky and includes flying cars and a satellite settlement on Mars.
Downtown’s neighbour to the west is City Walk, marketed as an open-air lifestyle destination full of shops and cafes as well as the Coca Cola Arena, the city’s premier venue for pop concerts. Its neighbour to the south is Al Quoz, a gentrifying former industrial zone and home of buzzy creative hub Alserkal Avenue, the only area of Dubai that could fit into a cool neighbourhood in say London or New York. There are art galleries and dance studios in converted warehouses, artisanal coffee shops, makeshift Cinema Akil that runs seasons of arthouse movies to audiences on red velvet sofas, an attempt at improv theatre (on Monday evenings) in the stunning setting of the Courtyard Playhouse, the Italian Shoe Factory bespoke footwear maker where I have had several made that take about six weeks per pair, and Chalk, the only mixed gender hairdressers I know in the whole of the city.
Jumeirah
The coast of Dubai is bookended in the north by Port Rashid, the deep-water facility opened in the early 1970s, where Dubai Creek empties into the Arabian Gulf, and in the south by Jebel Ali, a much larger port built a decade later to accommodate escalating demand. The northern half of this stretch is the neighbourhood of Jumeirah, historically home to fishermen, pearl divers and traders, and these days an integrated area of large villas owned by locals and foreigners alike, with scores of Middle Eastern restaurants as well as specialist medical centres including plastic surgeons and cosmetic dentists. This is a coastline of fake beaches, artificial islands, and uniquely weird attractions that despite their synthetic heritage provide fabulous fun, and insofar as Dubai has a heart, it is to be found here.
Just south of Port Rashid is the old cruise-ship terminal, which is where the legendary ocean liner the QE2 was brought to rest in 2008. It was converted into an hotel and finally opened for business a decade later, with a number of not very luxurious cafes and restaurants.
Jumeirah proper starts south of Pearl Jumeirah Island, which hosts the rather cool local branch of global chain Nikki Beach Club. Jumeirah Beach Road and Al Wasl Road then run like a pair of stop-start arteries parallel to the coast all the way through this neighbourhood. At the head of Jumeirah Beach Road is the Etihad Museum. This is the historic site where in 1971 the UAE constitution was signed and the first ever UAE flag was raised. In 2017, a 123m-tall flagpole was put up for the much bigger UAE flag that flies there now, and this snazzy structure was erected to house a high-tech exhibition that accurately describes itself as a letter of homage to the seven tribal leaders who merged their emirates into the new country at that time.
Jumeirah Mosque, also on Jumeirah Beach Road, is the most interesting holy place in Dubai because it is one of the few in the country that is open to non-Muslims. At 10am and 2pm six days a week (not Fridays) it hosts one-hour guided tours (free and no need to book) as part of its commendable Open Doors Open Minds programme, on which questions about Islam and Emirati life are encouraged. They go to great lengths to argue that Islam has a lot in common with Christianity and therefore there is no reason for Westerners to be frightened of it. However, there is always a danger letting light in on magic, and it often ends up sounding like Islam today has a lot in common with Christianity of several decades or even centuries ago, so much of it is likely to appear out-of-date to international visitors, many of whom are in any case atheists.
Next door to Jumeirah Mosque is the first and best branch of the popular local chain Lime Tree Café, perfect for smoothies and salads. The only other mosque in Dubai open to non-Muslims, Al Farooq Omar Bin Khattab, is a few minutes further south, past Boxpark and the Dubai Water Canal, just off Al Wasl Road. That was originally established in 1986, though it was extensively renovated in 2003 and again in 2011.
In this Islamic country it is fine to wear the most revealing swimwear on the beaches of Dubai – though it is illegal to go topless – but do not be surprised if there are also women in burkinis lying near you. The most northerly mainland beaches, and the most recently opened, are on the J1 development at La Mer. At its south end is a long curve of sand on which there are thirteen restaurants and beach clubs, including imports from East Asia (Baoli), France (African Queen and Chouchou), Italy (Baia and Gigi Rigolatto), the Mediterranean (Sakhalin and Sirene), Mexico (Gitano) and Spain (Lunico) as well as local concepts (Almayass, Ina, Kaimana and Ninive). All this is overlooked by another giant UAE flag and, further back, the Burj Khalifa.
South of here are several renowned restaurants: Orfali Brothers, 11 Woodfire and 3 Fils, past Mercato beach at Jumeirah’s busy little fishing harbour, all regularly top the lists of best places to eat in the city.
Below the Bulgari Hotel on Daria Island, connected to the mainland by a short causeway near the Four Seasons Hotel, is where the southern portion of Dubai Creek disgorges into the sea. The ferry terminal, on the northern corner, has tourist departures that go halfway up the Creek as far as Al Jaddaf, and commuter boats that go south to the Marina or north to Sharjah.
Just below here is the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, a homespun retreat from the chaos of the city, and from where I have set off to whittle away many lovely days on the ocean. Next door is the little Jumeirah fish market, out front of which is the simple Seaview Restaurant and the little Dibba Bay Oyster Bar where you can sample the catch at outdoor tables by the water that are especially lovely at sunset.
The World Islands, more or less opposite DOSC, are three hundred artificial sandbars, none more than a couple of metres above sea level, bunched together in an approximate reflection of the map of planet earth. The idea is to build luxury hotels, tourist facilities and private villas on each island “country”. Construction began in 2003, and 60% of the land area was sold to developers by early 2008, though work ground to a halt soon after because of the credit crunch.
Since then, only three islands have opened and to board the boats to get to them you need to show your ID. There are daytrips to the rather low rent Island beach club on Lebanon, which has a restaurant/bar, pool and kayaks (their 20-minute boat ride starts at the fishing harbour by 3 Fils).
The Anantara in South America is definitely the most traditionally luxurious, and one of my favourite hotels in Dubai. It has beachfront villas and several swish restaurants plus plenty of oddball activities from eco golf (where you tee biodegradable balls straight into the sea) to outdoor cinema (for private hire where you lounge on beanbags to watch any film of your choice) plus a gym with a spectacular panorama of the Downtown skyline and a breakfast terrace with a great view of the Palm. It also allows day-trippers, and their boat goes from near the Jumeirah fish market, by DOSC.
Most of the activity is on the Heart Of Europe, where there is building work on Germany and Sweden, as well as in Marbella and Portofino, not to mention the Floating Lido and the Floating Seahorse (check them out; words cannot do them justice). Two hotels here are already open. The Côte d’Azur has a trio of brightly coloured buildings named Cannes, Nice and St Tropez clustered around a large pool, along with a silly street shedding artificial rain at the back. Nearby, the Voco, in Monaco, promises an “adults only 24/7party haven”. They all provide day passes and their boats all go from near DOSC.
Back on the mainland, Jumeirah beach itself begins not far south of DOSC, with discrete stretches of sand all linked by a wooden boardwalk and a running track. There are intermittent beach shacks and ubiquitous paddle courts, plus Careem bike hire holders and electric scooter stands all the way to the Burj Al Arab about 10km further down.
The best bit of sand is at Kite Beach, which is pretty and packed with loungers, parasols and kite-surfers as well as a bunch of mobile food sellers ranging from healthy juice bars to traditional hot dog stalls. Umm Suqeim has a Night Beach, where floodlights illuminate the sand and the sea to encourage bathing after sundown.
There are several places along this coast to hire jet skis for doing donuts in front of the Burj Al Arab; the biggest centre is at the Marina in Umm Suqeim. This is beside Al Souq, an unsung little mall surrounded by thirteen eateries. My favourite is Al Jalboot, a very nice Emirati place with a terrace overlooking the Marina and the Burj Al Arab. Nearby is Surf House, a renowned surf school, gear shop and groovy café, and 21 Grams, a popular Balkan bistro.
Burj Al Arab, which opened in 1999, is exactly as it claims, a global icon of Arabian luxury. On its own artificial island 300m off the coast, it is reached only by curved bridge or by helicopter. Lauded for its elegant design and its state-of-the-art construction techniques, it is modelled on an ancient dhow; in an exemplar of form-not-function, 40% of the world’s only 7-star hotel is non-usable space. At the top, on only the 27th floor, are Gilt, a cocktail bar that looks like it should, which infamously served a single shot that cost more than US$7k, and Skyview, which as it implies has the fabulous look back over Downtown. Al Muntaha is the Michelin-starred restaurant, and L’Olivo at Al Mahara has the aquarium décor, though to be honest neither are all that sparkling. The beach club is Sal; it is not cool but it has a cracking location.
Burj Al Arab is part of an oceanic trilogy. Jumeirah Beach Hotel, which resembles a breaking wave, opened in 1997, has thirteen restaurants. And Marsa Al Arab, modelled on a futuristic superyacht, will open in early 2025.
In the shadow of all this, not far from the Mall of the Emirates, home of the famous indoor ski-slope Ski Dubai, is Madinat Jumeirah, the single largest resort in Dubai, opened in 2004. Aiming to resemble a traditional Arabian village, it contains three five-star hotels (Jumeirah Mina A’Salam, Jumeirah Al Naseem and Jumeirah Al Qasr) as well as more than fifty restaurants, bars and shisha joints of various tastes and qualities, many of them with outside seating, linked by artificial waterways full of neon-lit abra boats. The pick are Pierchic restaurant and its Onda bar, at the end of a jetty jutting out over the sea. There is also a maze of tourist outlets in the sanitised indoor bazaar. The whole thing is an over-the-top magnet for middle-of-the-road tourists to dress to the nines and party to nineties pop classics; but it also has special close-ups of the Burj Al Arab.
Black Palace Beach or Al Sufouh Beach is easily missed because it is hidden away among various royal mansions on Sheikh Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Street. There is a short sandy track between high security walls that opens onto a long beach with great views of Palm Jumeirah. Sheik Mohammed’s Palace, veiled behind barricades and security cameras, is just before the bridge to the famous artificial island.
Palm Jumeirah & Dubai Marina
I love the Palm. I live on the Palm. Like a lot of Dubai, at first glance it looks mad. But it is an amazing leap of imagination and feat of engineering, taking just six years to build, a third the time to build London’s Elizabeth Line. Millions of tons of rocks and sand were used to create a space the size of 600 football pitches, doubling the coastline of the city to 140km.
I have lived for the past three years on the east side of the trunk of the Palm on the Shoreline, a series of apartment blocks with private beaches facing Sheikh Mohammed’s (now ex) second wife’s personal island and views across the sea to both Burjes. My local neighbourhood restaurants and beach clubs are Byron Bathers and Peaches & Cream, secret hideaways that are probably my favourite hangouts in the whole city. Also here is Tagomago, a beautifully situated Spanish restaurant, and a bit further up is Club Vista Mare, a line of a dozen or so chilled restaurants (including my favourites Ibn Al Bahr Seafood and Logs & Embers American Smokehouse) that all have tables and sofas spilling onto the sand.
On the other side of the trunk, branded heavily as Palm West Beach, is a series of major hotels facing the Marina skyline. The archetype is Five, the most Dubai place there is, a magnet for boys with Lamborghinis and girls with cleavages. Along the way is a row of beach clubs, including The Club (with six restaurants), Kyma (a Greek take-off), Lucky Fish (where the dress code is “elegant”), Surf Club (with a signature live sushi counter), February 30 (bangin), Koko Bay (ideal for shisha on the sand) and Orange Chameleon (a more casual and chilled restaurant and shisha joint).
Atop Palm View, near the Nakheel Mall, are for my money the best views on tera firma in the entire city. Apart from the St Regis, there are several notable restaurants, including Sushi Samba and Tresind Studio, an Indian with a spectacular tasting menu that was anointed in 2023 the Best Restaurant in the Middle East and Africa as well as the eleventh best on the planet by The World’s Fifty Best Restaurants.
Beyond the seventeen fronds, hiding vast villas behind their security gates, at the head of the trunk road, is the Pointe shopping and dining district. This is best known for its Palm Fountain, which from 6 every night shoots water up more than 100m; this one is the world’s biggest, pipping that at the Burj Khalifa.
From here, through a road tunnel or across a monorail bridge, is the iconic Atlantis, which opened in 2008, cost more than US$1.5bn to build, and has 1,500 bedrooms plus all the attractions for kids and big kids you would expect.
On the north side is the Dubai Balloon, tethered to 150m for great views. Also here is the Lost Chambers Aquarium, which anyone can scuba dive. Its Ossiano Michelin-starred restaurant is frequently voted the best in Dubai and requires booking with full upfront payment several months in advance; this is cuisine as theatre, sitting among 20,000 fish in the aquarium. Next door is the large – in fact, you guessed it, the world’s largest – waterpark, Aquaventure, with more than a hundred of the longest, deepest, darkest and thrill-seekingest rides. On the south side is the White Beach Club, where every Ramadan the Asateer tent holds the most iconic iftar (for a couple of hours after sunset) and suhoor (from 10pm to 3am, with shisha) in the city.
The 17km-long crescent breakwater that protects the Palm from the open sea holds dozens of five-star resorts, ending in the south with the One & Only, host of the lovely 101 Lounge, ideal for sunsets.
The most prominent of these resorts is the recently launched Atlantis the Royal, which markets itself as “the most ultra-luxury experiential resort in the world” and it is hard to gainsay that. Apart from the striking building design, the atrium, gardens and waterfall (its USP is its combined water and fire feature) are all stunning. It is stuffed with restaurants and bars, the pick of which are Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and Estiatorio Milos. I also strongly recommend a day by the infinity pool at its Cloud 22 beach club in the sky, from where you get another great lookout.
South of the Palm, beyond the other One & Only (which has Drift, the best located beach club in the city,) the Westin (which has Bussola restaurant), and the Le Meridien (which has Barasti Beach Bar), is the rapidly emerging development of Dubai Harbour.
On the east side of the Harbour is Bar Du Port, which is highly recommended for sundowners, and on the west is Ushuaïa, a high-energy open-air DJ venue.
Opposite the Harbour, past the massive outdoor gym, which is usually rammed, is Dinner In The Sky, tables-and-chairs suspended from cranes 50m above ground. Also here is Skydive Dubai, which has a short runway opposite the new cruise-ship terminal. There is a constant parade of tandem parachutists landing here having been dropped over the Palm, with adventurers strapped to experienced jumpers, and a stream of two-seat gyrocopters taking off for cracking views of the city.
As the billboards everywhere declare, Dubai Marina is 400,000m2 of space with 7km of landscaped public walkways offering more than 200 cafes and restaurants. Construction began in 2003 and it continues to expand; by the time the plan is completed it will, naturally, be the largest artificial marina in the world. Known these days as Marinagrad in view of all the Russians who moved in after Putin invaded Ukraine, it is the home of young expats and the playground of casual tourists.
It is also an actual marina buzzing with life, where you can hire everything from jet-skis to motor-yachts. In addition, there is Xline, which claims to be the world’s longest urban zipwire, skimming right over the length of the water, plus 90-minute sightseeing boat trips out to the Palm.
At the north end of the water, bunched together in what is advertised as “the tallest block in the world”, are the second, third and fourth highest skyscrapers in the city (with two, Marina 101 and Princess Tower, up over 400m). Other notable structures include the architectural highlight of twisted Cayan Tower and the loftiest hotel-only building in the world, 82-story Ciel Tower.
My favourite places to eat around the Marina include the pleasantest branch of local chain Café Bateel and almost everywhere in Pier 7 (especially Abd el Wahab, Asia Asia and Atelier M). Smuggled in among all this hedonistic excess is the beautiful Al Rahim Mosque, which regularly issues a distinctive Islamic soundtrack to remind you where you are.
At the south end of the Marina is the Address Beach Resort. This has the highest infinity pool in the world, on the 77th floor at 294m, more than twice the height of second placed Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, giving more great views.
Across a pedestrian bridge from here is Bluewaters Island. This is where you will find Ain Dubai, the tallest Ferris Wheel on the planet at 250m. It opened at the end of 2021 and closed again six months later with seemingly unfixable mechanical problems in further proof that accruing records not delivering functionality is the USP of Dubai; today it is rusting away as nothing more than a beautiful piece of gigantic public art, sparklingly lit at night.
Between the Marina and the ocean is Jumeirah Beach Residence (known universally as JBR). This is the largest single phase residential development in the world, containing forty cream-coloured towers (thirty-five of apartments and five of hotels). Back in 2002 this was one of the first attempts to modernise the city to attract high skilled migrants.
JBR Beach, a recently crafted 1.7km strip of loungers, eateries and shops, is one of the liveliest stretches of sand in Dubai. Highlights along the beachfront between the Hilton and the Sheraton, connected by a boardwalk, include Maine seafood restaurant, Bla Bla beach club (which turns into a terrific venue for live bands at night), Yalseh and Smoky Beach sunset shisha lounges, a string of licenced restaurants in the Pavilion, plus the Flying Cup, a typically silly idea, a coffee shop 40m up a pole.
Beyond JBR Beach proper, further along back towards Dubai Harbour, are the Cove and Azure beach clubs, a Five Lux (with Playa Pacha beach club), a Ritz-Carlton, a Le Royal Meridien, and an Habtoor Grand Resort (with Obeach beach club).
Old Dubai: Bur Dubai & Deira
North of Downtown, on the south and west banks of Dubai Creek, is the historic district of Bur Dubai, translating as “mainland” Dubai to distinguish it from Deira on the other side of the water. Together, these two form Old Dubai, one of the few parts of the city with genuine street life.
Originally, Bur Dubai was the seat of the city’s ruling family. Saeed Al Maktoum House, near the mouth of the Creek in the impeccably renovated maze of Al Shindagha neighbourhood, was their residential quarters from 1896 up to 1958; it is now a museum of Old Dubai.
Just along the water is their citadel, Al Fahidi Fort. Built in 1787 even before the arrival of the Al Maktoums, it is the oldest extant structure in Dubai. In 1971, it was converted into the Dubai Museum, apparently presenting the traditional way of life in the context of the new country, though that has been shut for one reason or another ever since I came here.
The surrounding Al Fahidi neighbourhood, also known as Al Bastakia, sprang up in the 1890s as home to immigrant merchants attracted by financial incentives to promote free trade. Although half the area was demolished in the 1980s to make way for office blocks, the remaining half has since been immaculately restored and it is a joy to wander the shaded narrow alleyways of cafes and galleries and brown stone architecture that all looks like a Hollywood film set. There are several good spots here to sit by the Creek, the best of which is Bayt Al Wakeel, on a platform above the water, that has been going since 1935. In addition, the flagship branch of the Arabian Tea House is a quintessential experience, serving classic Arabian and Emirati breakfast trays and machboos in their cool blue and white atrium.
Around here, not far from the imposing municipal government offices, are several important mosques. These include: the Iranian Hosainia, provocatively built during Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution and named after Ali Ibn Abi Talib, a central figure in Shia Islam; and the Grand Mosque, which has the city’s tallest minaret.
These days, Bur Dubai is home to the vast majority of the city’s South Asians, who comprise about 60% of Dubai’s total population. No wonder nearby Al Karama district is the place to find a cheap curry house. Back near DIFC, Carnival By Tresind and The Crossing are both higher end and highly recommended.
Since the 1950s this has also been the host of what were the main Hindu temples in the UAE before the opening of those in Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi in the 2020s, though their smallness and homeliness could not be more different from those grand designs. The Shri Krishna Temple is easy to find, not far from Al Fahidi Fort, and visitors are allowed to join the throng at prayer times. The joint Shiva Temple and Shiridi Sai Baba are hidden away on the top floors of the low-rise warren of alleyways full of stores selling flowers, incense and other paraphernalia for use in worship, but these two have recently been shut down following allegations of financial impropriety.
Spread all around is Meena Bazaar, centre of speedy tailors and spicey street food, as well as a night-time underbelly of down-at-heel bars with table dancers and sex workers. This seedier side of Dubai never features in the glossy brochures.
There is a lovely walk all along the south bank of the Creek, starting in the west at the Grand Souq, a Disneyfied aggressive tourist trap of pashminas and perfumes, and running out east beyond the lovely 2km strip of Al Seef neighbourhood. This is the nicest section of the renovated ancient buildings, with the calmer Heritage Souq and a host of waterside eateries. The best of these are Khofo, for Egyptian fine dining with a great shisha patio upstairs thrown in, and Al Fanar, the most beautifully situated of the small chain of authentic Emirati cuisine outlets; however, both are dry.
To the far east of Bur Dubai, in an area known as the Jaddaf Waterfront, is Qs Bar & Lounge at the Palazzo Versace, where they play jazz from 7pm to 1am Wednesday to Sunday in an old-skool smoke-filled little room with padded walls. Opposite, on its own little island, is Jameel Arts Centre, a snazzy space for displaying contemporary work.
The Creek itself is a 14km natural saltwater inlet that runs to the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary. From the nineteenth century, the Creek was central to Dubai’s early growth as both a shallow little port for dhows trading wares from India and East Africa, and as the home of the local pearling industry. In 2016 it was extended by a further 13km, through Business Bay and the woefully under-used Safa Park, by the digging of Dubai Water Canal to complete a semi-circle that returns it to the Arabian Gulf down at Jumeirah Beach.
The water is constantly buzzing with everything from fishing trawlers to superyachts though it is not possible to journey all the way around the Creek because the Floating Bridge is down during daylight hours. However, the ferry terminal at Al Ghubaiba links via the open sea to that at the other end of the Creek; boats go south to the Marina or north to Sharjah. In addition, there are scores of little wooden abras, with red rooves and side-saddle seating, that leave stations all along the water’s edge when they are full and cost just 1 dirham for a crossing to Deira on the other side. There are also dozens of neon-lit large dhows putting on the full cheesy tourists’ four-course dinner-cruise.
Most of the bazaars are on the north side of the Creek in Deira, a settlement that was established in 1841 after a smallpox outbreak in Bur Dubai forced many residents to relocate for safety. The ancient gold and spice souqs stand side-by-side with those selling knock-off bags and watches and tourist trinkets. It is pleasant enough but there is no grit in this oyster as its authenticity has been scoured from the streets along with the graffiti.
South-east from here is the Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club, next to the Park Hyatt that houses two esteemed al fresco restaurants with great views back to the Downtown silhouette (Boardwalk for seafood, and QDs for Middle Eastern/Indian) as well as the sophisticated weekend brunch at Traiteur and the very cool Twiggy By La Cantine beach club.
As part of extremely ambitious plans to construct a Creek Harbour lifestyle zone of modern apartments and offices, in 2016 work began on the Dubai Creek Tower. This is intended to be taller even than the Burj Khalifa and was slated to open in 2025, though since 2020 construction has been suspended indefinitely; Covid was publicly blamed but who knows the truth.
Incongruously, just along from Creek Harbour is the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary. Over the winter months, this is a haven for as many as 30,000 birds migrating from West Asia and Africa, which are easily visible from a pair of large hides near the road. There are herons, plovers and spoonbills, but the stars of the show are undoubtedly the flamingos, white but splashed with pink, which are fed at 11am and 4pm when they bunch tightly together in fabulous flamboyances.
Around Dubai
The temporary Expo 2020 was held – belatedly, because of Covid, in 2021 and 2022 – on a vast site in the far south of Dubai that is being repurposed into the permanent Expo City. Offices and apartments are being built under the skins of what used to be the pavilions of Russia, Ukraine and so on. For now, there are just a few family attractions, including an annual Dubai-style Christmas market, and a handful of restaurants, including an Al Fanar, for reliable Emerati fare, and an Al Baik, the popular fast food joint from Saudi Arabia.
Suburban Dubai is largely composed of substantial villas tucked away in gated communities. A particularly notorious one is Emirates Hills, infamous refuge for an elite clique of former dictators and their families who were forced to flee their own countries, including Thaksin Shinawatra, Nawaz Sharif and the offspring of Robert Mugabe. There they can while away the time at the Top Golf Dubai entertainment complex, which caters to more than a thousand players at a time, and hang out at the Spike Bar of the Emirates Golf Club.
Nearby is the Majlis course, which hosts the Dubai Desert Classic over the last weekend of January; it is the first major tournament on the global calendar each year. You can get much closer to the action than in Europe or North America, and the view of Dubai Marina from the tee at the signature 8th is cracking.
The suburbs offer many other sporting entertainments for spectators and participants alike, from the Middle East’s premier facilities for various global events through to uniquely Dubai oddities. To watch, you buy tickets on the Platinumlist app. To play, you book places through the Premier Online website.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin headquarters and local stables, winner of more than 5,000 horse races around the world, is not far from Meydan Racecourse, one of the planet’s must-see sport stadiums. The racetracks are a 1.75km dirt oval inside a 2.4km turf course. The grandstand, which opened in 2010, is over 1.6km long, and can hold up to 60,000 spectators, who can watch close-ups of the action on the world’s longest television screen, by the winning post. Meydan hosts twenty-odd meetings each winter, mostly on Thursday and Friday nights, including the Dubai Carnival which attracts international horses and jockeys. This builds up to the big race, the Dubai World Cup, only recently overtaken by the Saudi Cup as the richest in the world, held on a Saturday at the end of March.
Despite the amazing surroundings, it is hard to generate much atmosphere without gambling, though you can of course access the international betting exchanges through VPN, and at least alcohol is widely available. The best place to go is the free public admission apron. Here, thousands of families from the Indian sub-Continent come to picnic, play cards and dominoes, and let their kids run free, then cheer like crazy as the horses gallop down the back straight.
I find that much better, more authentic, horse-sport fun is to be found at the Dubai Polo and Equestrian Club. They have three locations where you can both learn to ride as well as watch polo matches and show jumping competitions, amateur and professional. They are not restricted to members and their relaxed bars and restaurants are open to anybody.
At Desert Palm there are practice polo matches every Friday and Saturday in the hours before sunset during the winter, as well as occasional championship matches. These can be viewed from the Epicure café, which serves traditional afternoon tea, the Rare steakhouse, or the shisha bar right by the field, all in the Meliá Hotel. This is next door to the Dragon Mart, a major Chinese mall, and opposite the Dubai Safari Park, popular with local families.
There are also practice matches at Arabian Ranches, where the perfect place to take it all in is the Dubai Polo Bar, which spills onto a large buzzy terrace overlooking the fields.
The principal stadium is Al Habtoor, which hosts the premier event: the Gold Cup Series, one of the top five most prestigious polo tournaments in the world. The time to go is for the Saturday afternoon finals of the Silver Cup in February and the Gold Cup itself in March. There are lots of options: you can book an al fresco table at the Resort that doubles as a grandstand, or on the opposite side of the field either take a picnic or book a gazebo and use the food trucks that also supply Pimm’s and champagne, obviously.
The ATP and WTA ranking Dubai Duty Free tennis tournaments attracts the world’s leading players, though not all that many fans, in February every year. The little hardcourt Dubai Tennis Stadium, near the airport, is surrounded by numerous pubs with outside seating in what is branded the Irish Village.
The Dubai International Cricket Stadium, near Jumeirah Village Circle, hosts occasional Test Matches, One Day Internationals and in 2021 the T20 World Cup Final.
There are two teams in Dubai in the Adnoc Pro Football League. The standard is poor, and the crowds are thin, although they get pretty rowdy at the local derbies; it is a fun night nonetheless. Shabab Al Ahli play in red at the Rashid Stadium, just off the E11 near the airport, in front of a maximum capacity of 12,052. Al Wasl, the reigning 2024 League Champions and one of two clubs in the UAE that were once managed by Diego Maradona, play in yellow in Za’abeel, where the stadium has 8,439 seats. The layouts of the grounds are identical – there is just one grandstand, with VIP seating – but at Al Wasl I recommend the bleachers as they have the view of the Downtown skyline, though it is a little further to the mosque in the car park where the whole ground goes off to pray at half time.
Al Marmoum, 50km south-east of Downtown, is the home of the Sevens Stadium. The Rugby Sevens has been held over the first Friday-Sunday in December every year since 1970, making it the longest running sports event in the Middle East. It does what it does well: there are beer snakes, YMCA singalongs and fancy-dress parties in the early winter sunshine while dozens of 14-minute fast-paced matches are played each day.
Nearby is the Dubai Camel Racing Club and although it is rare to find more than two or three foreigners here among the locals, it is of course emblematic of the region, and free to watch. Over the past fifty years, camel racing has evolved to become one of the wealthiest sports in the world; winners of the big races can expect prizes of US$1m or more.
There are fifteen camel racing tracks around the UAE and the season runs from October to March. The Club website lists the dates of the races, which tend to come in frequent festivals of two-week chunks, with the action taking place between 6.30am and 9.30am. Each race lasts less than fifteen minutes as twenty or thirty camels charge like whippets around the wide 8km sand track with tiny robot jockeys on top; child jockeys were outlawed in 2002.
Straight out of the car park, you will see hundreds of camels being saddled up and marched to the start line, which has a small viewing bridge over the top. You can also watch the start trackside then wander over to the finish a few minutes away to sit in the cute grandstand, which has a natty royal box and where you can see the race unfold on TV screens before the caravan of animals and robot controllers in cars by the side of them come hurtling down the long back straight. There is no betting, of course, but it is a hoot.
Not far from the Dubai Camel Racing Club is Al Qudra bike track. This is a narrow tarmac path that loops into the desert for 50km, with a couple of additional 30km extensions if you feel up to it. I tend to arrive well before sunrise so I am out in the desert, alone with maybe a few Arabian oryx, the national animal of the UAE, and if I am lucky small families of gazelle, as the light breaks over the sand. You can hire bikes and buy kit from Trek Bikes at the start. There are a lot of middle-aged men in lycra but there are family riders too.
Close to here is Bab Al Shams desert resort, popular with weekending expats. Coach parties also ferry day-trippers to the cheesy campfire dinners, falcon displays and even belly-dancing shows, which can be found at Al Hadheerah, an open-air restaurant-cum-theatre. Nearby is a network of artificial lagoons, the most well-known of which are the Love Lakes, a pair of pools shaped like interlocking hearts; they are reached on sandy tracks and around here people come to stroll and jog, picnic and BBQ.
A bit further out is Al Maha desert resort, which has Al Diwaan restaurant with a lovely terrace overlooking wildlife in the dunes. Only fifteen minutes away from here is Margham, the main base for launching hot-air balloons across the desert.
There are loads of operators along the E66, which means you are likely to take off amid a dozen or more colourful balloons that burn bright when their burners are aflame. The operators all seem like much of a muchness. They will collect you from your home or hotel at 4am – although you can make your own way here – for hour-long sunrise flights that drift across 20km or more of empty desert – bar occasional camels and gazelles running wild – that gives the impression of earth never having felt the touch of a human soul. Sometimes flying at more than a kilometre, often at less than twenty metres, this is a beautiful way to understand a little more about the central topography of this region.
Deep Dive Dubai, at Nad Al Sheba, is a big hole in the ground. It was originally dug to 40m until – typically and hilariously – it was closed after they found a deeper one in France so they obviously had to extend it down to 60m to claim another world record. It is expensive (one dive costs AED1,200) but fun in a very gimmicky Dubai way as you swim through a replica home replete with kitchen, bathroom, library, pool table, chess set, cars and motorcycles.
Jebel Ali Village
Roughly 35km south-west of Downtown Dubai is Jebel Ali, known primarily for its deep-water port, opened in 1979, and secondarily for its version of a 300km2 artificial palm island, which is still incomplete despite construction starting as far back as 2002 then stalling since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.
For visitors, the main draw is Jebel Ali Village. Originally put up in the 1970s to house builders working on the port, it has been recast in recent years with compounds of luxury villas and – the point of interest – a large complex of non-Muslim sites of worship.
The Christian section has St Mina Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, Our Lady of Annunciation Roum (Lebanese-Greek) Church, St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Mar Thoma Parish Church, Dubai Evangelical Church Centre, Christ Church Anglican Church, Telugu Church, and Mor Ignatius Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, all side by side.
In addition, the grand Guru Nanak Darbar Temple opened in 2012 to serve the 50,000 Sikhs in the emirate. It is accessible every day from 4.30 in the morning until 8.30 in the evening. And the substantial Hindu Temple, opened in 2022, is home to sixteen different deities. Despite what it says on the internet, you do not need to book, and it is open from 6am to 8.30pm every day.
Hatta
Another 100km or so east begin the picturesque Hajar Mountains, the highest range in the eastern Arabian Peninsula, in which nestles the lovely little town of Hatta. It is about 140km from Dubai, and if you go on the E44 you have to pass through Oman on Highway 5 to get to it, though you may not even notice as there is no border here; ignore Google Maps which unnecessarily routes you the long way round to avoid Highway 5. That is because Hatta is partially surrounded by Oman, and in fact the rest is surrounded by the emirates of Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah, making it an exclave of Dubai Emirate.
A rare phenomenon in the world, there are many exclaves in eastern UAE and western Oman. This is because in the days before formal territorial boundaries, major centres like Dubai had claims on smaller settlements, even if they were far away, not least as there might be nothing but desert in between; when emirate lines and later country borders came to be legally defined, these isolated towns were allocated to their parent regardless of contiguous geography. Hatta was in fact transferred from Oman to Dubai Emirate in 1850; many other places were similarly assigned when the UAE was formed in 1971. Some are quite complex, making local political geography hard to grasp. For instance, Nahwa is a town in Sharjah Emirate that is a counter-exclave of the Omani territory of Madha, which is itself an exclave surrounded by Fujairah Emirate.
Hajar translates as “stone” and it means exactly what it says, and Hatta is a good base to explore the beginning of the range. There are two options for an overnight stay: either the JA Hatta Fort Hotel with its excellent resort facilities, or glamp at Hatta Wadi Hub to sleep under the stars out of town near the dam. Whichever you go for, you can hike or bike the trails that are clearly delineated with different categories of difficulty on the maps but are in fact very hard to follow in the hills; you can rent bikes from Hubbers. Other activities include all the usual ones like kayaking and ziplining as well as archery and axe-throwing.
Sharjah
A million miles from the glamour and the parties of Dubai, though only twenty minutes up the E11 and really part of the same conurbation these days, the city of Sharjah was anointed by UNESCO in 1998 as the Culture Capital of the Arab World. Museums Capital of the Arab World more like; you name it, and they have a museum for it, from Ancient Calligraphy to Classic Cars.
Like its Emirate, it is deeply conservative. Both alcohol and shisha are banned, and when the rest of the UAE started working on Fridays, Sharjah refused and promptly adopted a four-day week to preserve the sanctity of the holy day.
In the early eighteenth century, the Al Qasimi family set up here, building a protective wall around their settlement on the Arabian Gulf coast in what is now the north of today’s city. Most of the wall has long gone but 35,000m2 of the old town constitutes the largest heritage site in the entire Gulf region, and the marketing department want us to know it as the “Heart of Sharjah”. This neighbourhood of ancient buildings has been under builders’ tarpaulin for more than a decade, and they say it should finally be complete in 2025, when it hopes to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Already open are several museums, mosques and markets. The pick of the galleries are run by the Sharjah Art Foundation, which hosts a renowned contemporary art biennial and puts on the Rain Room, a well-known immersive installation where you walk through a downpour without getting wet (don’t wear black or the trick won’t work).
Renovated to within an inch of its authenticity, much of the area feels rather soulless as well as deserted. This is especially true of the two historic souqs, Al Arsah and Al Shanasiyah, where the few tourists who come are dragooned to buy trinkets. However, there are several places worth a look, including Bait Al Naboodah, an important pearl merchants’ home.
There is an Arabian Tea House and the Chedi Al Bait. There are several five-star chains in Sharjah, but this is the one you want; a collection of four former traders’ properties beautifully melded together in the old city style.
Another landmark here is the Museum of Islamic Civilisation, which offers a simple guide for those who know little or nothing about the world’s fastest growing religion.
Al Hisn Fort was built in 1823 and largely demolished in 1970 in the crossfire of a power struggle between local sheikhs. In 2015 it reopened having been renovated as new. Like most of the places around here it is open Mondays to Saturdays (except it is closed on Friday mornings). It is not far from the striking 60m-high Clock Tower that was erected in the 1960s.
Just south of the Heart of Sharjah are the main markets. Souk Al Jubail is a set of three huge halls, devoted to fruit and veg, meat, and fish, which in the afternoons are auctioned wholesale. There are even gender segregated tills. Neighbouring Central Souk mostly sells gaudy jewellery and cheap clothes, but it is in an historic large and ornate building of blue tiles juxtaposed right in front of the steel and glass skyscrapers that have recently sprouted along the seafront. Both souks have excellent views of Flag Island, which as you might expect flies a giant national banner, next door to a funfair with a Ferris Wheel.
Al Noor Mosque not only has a stunning location on the bay, called Khalid Lagoon, it is also the only one of the 600 in the Emirate that is open to non-Muslims. They host free one-hour guided tours Sundays to Thursdays.
The Corniche hugs the ocean, along the Al Majaz Waterfront of cheap fast-food chains, a favourite promenade for South Asians. Here you can also hire a kayak or flag an half-hour abra tour of the bay. Every night the Al Majaz Water Fountains dance in colourful light to stirring music, and through the curtain of water you can make out Al Noor Mosque lit behind.
From here the Corniche sweeps past the Al Majaz Amphitheatre, which hosts all kinds of performances, and onto the peninsula that fans out left and right to create a pair of large inlets in the Downtown coastline. Much of this is a still a building site, but it does house some impressive government buildings including the Department of Culture and the Finance Department. The standout is the Sharjah Court, which has the dhow harbour on one side and the container port on the other.
About 7km south-east of the Heart of Sharjah is the cricket stadium, a little venue that produces a big atmosphere thanks to the vast numbers of South Asian fanatical fans who live around here. The ground has gained fame for hosting the Sharjah Warriors in the International League T20 tournament, held in January and February every year, as well as various Indian Premier League games, many One Day Internationals, and several Pakistan Test Matches whenever Islamabad is considered too unsafe; tickets are available on Platinumlist though many are free. It has also gained infamy from numerous accusations of match-fixing.
A little north of here, past the Consultative Council grand edifice, is Culture Square. This is a huge roundabout with a giant Qur’an statue in the centre, bordered by a number of stately buildings, the most impressive of which is the Culture Palace.
Around 15km east of here is the easy-to-use little airport that is often a better option for regional trips than Dubai. On the other side of the E88 is a monumental oblong park, holding the gargantuan cream buildings of various universities, institutes and academies. At one end is the House of Wisdom, designed by Norman Foster and opened in 2020, flanked by the Sharjah Culture Capital of the Arab World Monument and the Capital of Islamic Culture Memorial. At the other end is the Martyrs Memorial, which looks like a giant corn-on-the-cob composed of little gold Tetris pieces; given that neither the UAE nor Sharjah have been involved in military conflict for years, the martyrs in question are anybody who has sacrificed their lives for the good of the country.
Another 15km east is Sharjah Mosque, the largest in the Emirate and a beautiful landmark put up in 2019 at the junction of the E611 and the E102.
To the east of the city are several minor forts; the pick of them is at Al Dhaid, some 60km away and dating from 1820. This is not far from the beautifully located local branch of the small chain of Al Bait Al Qadeem restaurants.
Nearby is the Mleiha Archaeological Centre, built around a restored Umm Al Nar tomb dating from the Bronze Age. This tomb indicates that a settlement must have existed here as far back as 130,000 years, evidencing the journey of humans – and horses – from Africa across the Arabian Peninsula to begin populating Asia. The whole area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which can be visited only with a tour guide, who needs to be booked through the Centre at least twenty-four hours in advance. The Centre can also arrange trips into the desert, partly on eco-friendly spray-on roads, including to Jebel Mleiha and Fossil Rock, in a land cruiser or on quad bikes.
There are a couple of interesting exclave university towns over on the Gulf of Oman coast that you may pass through if you go to Fujairah. The smaller is Kalba, 10km south of Fujairah City, where the principal attraction is its 300-year-old mangrove shoreline. This is rich in bird and sea life, and notable for the rare Arabian Collared Kingfisher as well as world’s largest population of loggerhead turtles. The Khor Kalba Mangrove Centre (open all week apart from Friday mornings and Mondays) is supposed to help protect the area while facilitating public access.
Some 40km north, the other side of Fujairah City, is Khorfakkan. Off the bypass there is a lovely 6km twisting loop up 600m into the mountains to the Al Suhub Rest House, from where there are good views over the beach, the port, and along the coastline. In the town itself, home from home for Russian holidaymakers, apart from the mock-Roman amphitheatre next to the rather pretty artificial waterfall, there is some decent diving. The main sites to ask for are Hole In The Wall and Martini Rock, both a ten-minute boat ride out past the port. The only dive shop is Coral Creek, run by Hassan, which is in the only hotel, the Oceanic, which has a spaceship control centre on top housing the gym. Things are set to change, however, as the whole sandy front is currently a building site for a coming huge resort.
Ajman
The smallest of the emirates, covering just 259km2 or 0.3% of the landmass of the UAE, Ajman is a coastal enclave surrounded by Sharjah, the city of which feels largely like a suburb of the city of that. A substantial harbour, lined by a Free Zone of industrial units, cuts right through the middle of Ajman. Saleh Souq, part of a Heritage Path that leads from the Corniche to the Fort, is about the best of it for visitors.
To the south there are very long, very wide, very empty beaches and a Fairmont. To the north the beaches are mostly fenced off and hidden behind development projects abandoned since 2008, though an Oberoi somehow managed to open in 2017. It is all a bit desolate; I have been to the southern and northern beaches a couple of times, and I have never encountered another soul. Honestly, there is nothing to see here.
There are two tiny exclaves of Ajman about ninety minutes east of the city in the Hajar Mountains near Hatta. Each of them has a single little village with an eponymous fort – Manama and Masfout – but it is not surprising that very few people bother to make it out here.
Umm Al Quwain
Umm Al Quwain is the least populous emirate, with only 50,000 residents, most of whom are spread along its 24km of coastline just north of Sharjah. I recommend the Kite Beach Centre, a surf school and juice bar with beach facilities on a lovely little stretch of sand on the outskirts of the eponymous city.
The old town is on the north-west corner of the large and almost totally enclosed bay, within which are seven flat islands each with tufts of trees rising above their sandy shores. Guarding the entrance to the bay is the Al Ali Fort, home to the Emirate’s rulers until 1969.
The museum inside the fort includes artifacts from the ancient lost city of Ed Dur, one of the most significant archaeological digs in the UAE and the largest pre-Islamic site on the Arabian Gulf, where there is evidence of life dating back to the Stone Age. Ed Dur is 25km south-east of the city of Umm Al Quwain, and although there is not yet much to see at the site itself, it is amusing getting to it in a 4×4, through the desert and past roaming camels, once you have to turn off the main road.
About 20km up the coast is one of the main reasons most visitors used to come to Umm Al Quwain, although less so since alcohol has become more freely available in Dubai: this is home to the best and best-known of several specialty alcohol stores that offer a booze-cruise-like regular experience for expats. Set on a muddy beach is the Original Barracuda Bottle Shop liquor store.
Just north of here is the unusual opportunity to swim with camels. Camels are surprisingly strong in the water and once or twice a month a caravan of half-a-dozen or so former racers and their young are led down here to get some additional exercise. You can book a spot to go out with them through the Arabian Desert Camel Riding Centre, which is in fact headquartered in Al Lisailia, 60km south-east of Dubai.
From Barracuda you drive up the E11 for 12km past the private residence enclosed by a large white wall on the left. Keep going until there is a left turn near Marjan Island over the border in Ras Al Khaimah, where you can double back down the E11, turning right onto the sandy track just before the white wall. This leads to Umm Al Quwain Beach Side – a popular place for overnight camping – to where the organisers will bring the camels first thing in the morning on the back of a truck before leading them out to sea. Over about forty-five minutes they then do three or four large laps while five or six tourists cling on to keep up. It is great fun, followed by an Arabic coffee, dates and breakfast on the beach.
Ras Al Khaimah
It takes a couple of hours to drive the 175km from Dubai to reach the most northerly place in the UAE, Ras Al Khaimah Emirate, which is ruled by another branch of the Al Qasimi family that also runs Sharjah. It abuts the Musandam Peninsula, the isolated part of Oman that faces Iran across the Strait of Hormuz. On both sides of this border stand the tallest of the Western Hajar Mountains.
Jebel Al Jais has the highest point in the UAE, at 1,934m, although its summit is in fact in Oman. There are clear signs at the turn off from the main road, from where it is a fabulous 45-minute drive on tarmac with switchbacks and hair-pins that corkscrew past numerous wadis and homes built into the rock face. The only way to get to the very top – for which you do not need your passport – is to have a prior reservation at either the 1484 By Puro, the highest restaurant in the UAE, or the Zipline, which markets its 2.83km span as the longest in the world. Otherwise you will be stopped just short at the street food station where Jais Sledder, a kind of toboggan-on-rails, whips you down a cliff face.
Jebel Al Mebrah, aka Jabal Yibir, at 1,727m is the second-highest point but has the highest peak actually on UAE territory. There are a couple of roads that zigzag up here for an hour; they are mostly rubble and only half-built so a 4×4 is essential. The views of the beige and arid mountains are pretty enough, though not as spectacular as at Jebel Al Jais, but there is nothing at the top except a military roadblock.
Perched precariously on the only hill on the plain between the Hajar Mountains and the Arabian Gulf is the cute little Dhayah Fort. When the British took Ras Al Khaimah in 1819, this was the last point of resistance. The road halts at the car park and opposite the winsome Qalat Dhayah Rest House there is a formal entrance to the 239 steps up to the twin mudbrick towers at the top. The view is all the way to the seafront with Jazirat Al Hulaylah Island and the protected lagoon that was once a harbour for fishing and pearling boats, down the date palm gardens in the valley, and up to the mountain range behind.
The centrepiece of RAK City, as it is known, is Al Qawasim Corniche, a pleasant landscape with a cycle lane facing east towards the river with mangroves opposite. There are children’s play areas and places to rent bikes jumbled between the speciality coffee shops and restaurants of world food, some with bean bags and benches under crisp white awnings. The Corniche runs past the huge national flag and little Ferris Wheel, and ends opposite the Grove Village shopping and dining complex.
In town, a key site is the Mohammed Bin Salem Mosque, a nineteenth-century counterweight to the massive and ornate mosques built in the UAE these days. It has no minaret, and its charming modesty is underscored by its intimate columns and arches.
Opposite the mosque is RAK Beach, a wide stretch of sand, home to locals and Asian migrants in burkas, kandoras or suits, playing cricket or football, riding donkeys or jet-skis. There is even more action 6km south at Flamingo Beach, which at weekends is buzzing with local life.
However, those foreigners who currently bother to come to Ras Al Khaimah are largely here for the five-star mega-resorts sprinkled down the coast south from RAK City. All along the E11 here are deep white sand beaches and this entire stretch is being developed into a major tourist destination that will soon be marketed heavily abroad. I would say generally they are for family weekends but not for anyone looking for any kind of cool.
In RAK City itself is a Hilton (nice pool area) and 10km south is a Cove Rotana (not high end but good views from the cliff top). About 7km further on is an Anantara (overwater villas), opposite Hayat Island, where an InterContinental (lovely atrium) is currently the only building open on what is otherwise a massive construction site.
Another 15km, beyond the ghostly remains of Al Jazirah Al Hamra, the historical fishing and pearling settlement that was suddenly abandoned in 1968, is a pair of decent resorts: a Ritz-Carlton (take an abra from reception around the bay to the Shore House bar and grill) and a Waldorf Astoria (recently renovated).
A further 7km leads to the most southerly collection, on the little group of Marjan Islands, all of which are connected to the mainland by short bridges. On a long curve is a series of mid-range and fairly bland chains, the Rixos Bab Al Bahr, the Hilton Doubletree, the Mövenpick, the Hampton by Hilton, the Marjan Island Resort and the Radisson.
The main point of interest here is at the very end of the line, on land that is currently being cleared for a US$4 billion construction. The UAE is in the process of legalising gambling. The loophole is that it is allowed on artificial islands that are not Allah’s land and therefore not subject to the usual rules and regulations of Islam. From 2027, this is scheduled to be the Wynn Casino, cousin of those in Las Vegas and Macao, the very first in the UAE and on the Arabian Peninsula. It is planned to be 305m tall and hold 1,500 rooms, suites and villas, twenty-four restaurants and the all-important gaming rooms.
Finally, one of the best of the RAK resorts is the other Ritz-Carlton, 35km south of RAK City but inland in the desert. On this vast site of large detached villas, all the play things you would expect are laid on just as you would want while uncharacteristically friendly oryx and gazelle roam free all summer, before heading off to the wilds in winter.
Fujairah
On the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula, splitting Musandam to the north from the rest of Oman in the south, the Emirate of Fujairah faces the Indian Ocean. It is an hour north from Hatta, or an hour and a half east from Dubai, on smooth roads cutting through the jagged Western Hajar Mountains, to the city of Fujairah.
Not on the usual tourist route, it is worth coming to this industrial conurbation. For a start, it has the other magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the second largest in the country, inaugurated in 2015 and open to non-Muslims.
Al Fujairah SC is the other UAE football team previously managed by Maradona. Near the little red stadium is Fujairah Fort, the oldest in the country, dating from 1670, which has been carefully renovated. Both are close to the Corniche.
The city’s most notorious spectacle happens almost every weekend in winter, usually on a Saturday, normally at 3pm, though it is worth contacting the organiser, Mohamed Alseridi, on +971 050 779 9959 a few hours before to check it is definitely on. This is UAE-style bullfighting. When asked by a local, “are you Ok with this?” I was not sure how to reply. It is extraordinary it is still permitted, though I did not see any injuries to animals or humans; but as a cultural experience it is second to none.
It takes place on the Corniche near Box Yard, where Kabab Al Bastakiah offers authentic Emirati cuisine overlooking the bull-ring, which for an hour or more is prepped with water and swept clean while bulls are driven on trucks or led by the nose on foot from all directions. By 3pm, there are sixty or more tied up around the white metal barriers marking the fight site.
There are not many women and I was the only foreigner among hundreds of Emiratis in white kandoras who sat on their car rooves, hung off the fence, or put up their own foldable chairs inside the square. To the soundtrack of an hysterical amateur commentary boomed over a crackling PA system, there then unfolded over thirty battles each lasting 30-60 seconds, one after the other. There are no matadors but the bulls lock horns and butt each other, in the style of Sumo-wrestling. Sometimes sections of the crowd were sent scurrying away as the fight tumbled towards them, and at the end of each bout as the bulls were split with a stick much of the crowd scrambled onto the field to help separate them.
The main reason tourists come out this way is to get to the pretty beaches that start at Al Aqah, a bit less than an hour’s drive up the coast. On the approach to Al Aqah you will pass the tiny Al Bidyah mud-brick mosque, which dates from 1446 and is thought to be the oldest in the country.
The Al Aqah beaches are just off the foothills of the Hajars, which provide a gorgeous backdrop, and house a clutch of five star resorts: the Address, Miramar, InterContinental, Le Meridien and Rotana. About fifteen minutes further north of Al Aqah there is also a Fairmont and a Radisson Blu.
Another fifteen minutes up is Dibba, where there have been settlements around the large natural harbour for millennia. This was one of the last places on the eastern peninsula to resist the spread of Islam until defeat with the loss of 10,000 lives at a major battle in 634 AD. Since 1971, Dibba has been a tripartite town split between Dibba Al Fujairah, Dibba Al Hisn (an exclave of Sharjah) and Dibba Al Baya (in Musandam, the large exclave of Oman at the top of the Arabian Peninsula). The three contain the border, and it is possible to cross into Oman here – the checkpoint itself is on the Corniche – but only to reach the Six Senses Resort 15km away as sadly the road to the north of Musandam is closed to foreigners.
On the UAE side, there is a small beach at Dibba Al Fujairah, and at Dibba Al Hisn there is a pocket-sized perfectly restored castle built on the grounds of a seventeenth century Portuguese fort, which originally gave the town its modern name (hisn = fort). Dibba Bay oysters are served across the UAE.
Apart from the novelty dives in Dubai, the Gulf of Oman along this coast offers the main sites for scuba diving in the UAE. It is not as good as off Musandam itself, never mind the Red Sea, but there are a few rocky islets and even a little bit of coral that attract curtains of small stuff, oddities like frogfish and seahorses, plus black tip sharks and hawksbill turtles, and reputedly even whale sharks in August and September though I have looked for them many times without success. The best site is Dibba Rock, though Sham Rocks, Snoopy Island and as many as ten little wrecks sunk by the Inchcape shipping company are all popular. In summer the water averages 30°C so a rash vest is sufficient, though the thermoclines can be vicious, and even in winter it is still 22°C so perfectly diveable.
Al Boom is the largest operator in the country, with an HQ in Dubai and local bases inside the Address and the Le Meridien. Obviously, they offer corporate package tour diving, so instead I recommend using one of the local niche outfits dotted along the coast. I have tried most if not all and Neptune in Dibba Al Hisn is by far the best. In all cases, you need to show your ID to the coastguard to be permitted to dive because it is close to Oman, so they count you in and count you out.
On the road south from Dibba there is a pretty drive on the half-hour stretch of the E89 down to Masafi. This runs through the most accessible part of the Hajars, where there are several wadi basins that open into excellent easy hiking trails. The simple Wadi Abadilah, about half-way down, is the most popular.
Just south of Masafi, at Wadi Ham where the new giant bridge is being built, if you turn off-road for a few minutes you will find Bithnah Fort, which has been guarding this strategic location since 1745.
Finally, near here is the Al Rafisah Dam that has blocked Wadi Shie. On a hill just in front of the dam is the abandoned traditional village and watchtower of Najd Al Maqsar, which has recently been restored to perfection.
And that’s about all.