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Dubai was not the most obvious place to find a ferry.

Being just a short visit, we aimed to stay in the north of the city not too far from the airport, yet still within range of the main sights of the emirate. So we ended up in a room in the Al Seef market overlooking the Dubai Creek. A good location, but probably the most spartan room in any hotel calling itself a Hilton.

On one side of the creek was the Al Fahidi historical neighbourhood of Bur Dubai, and across the water was the old district of Deira with several souqs. So we were in the more historically interesting part of Dubai, although much of what was there was “restored”. The oldest building in Dubai is the Al Fahidi fort, within easy walking distance of our hotel but undergoing major renovations and I had to struggle to take any photos of it through a major construction site.

On our second day we took a long ride south on the metro and trams which thrust us through the middle of the mega-high rise Dubai—the Dubai of money, and excess and yet more money. But on our first day our jet-lag kept us close to base and we enjoyed crossing the creek on a water bus between the Al Fahidi and Deira Old Souq Marine Transport Stations, and then wandering around the spice and gold souqs.

There are two public transit ferry systems crossing the creek in that area. The abras are simple boats of a traditional design with up to about 20 passengers seated in a central bench looking sideways and running pretty much constantly all day on two routes; payment is a direct cash to the operator—a bargain at 1 dirham per trip. Our route used slightly larger boats, required a ticket and cost 2 dirhams (or you could use a transit pass) but was still a bargain. The water near the Deira Old Souq dock was a frantic scene of abras and other boats constant arriving and departing. There are about 150 abras in the fleet.

With 9 hours time difference and a 14 hour flight just behind us we were not able to enjoy the creek as much as we’d like. But our hotel room did overlook it and we were able to veg and watch the constant boat traffic, especially the dhows. In the evening the converted dhows cruised back and forth feeding and entertaining tourists. In the morning the working dhows headed out to sea fully laden with cargo.

Our metro and tram trip was interesting being mainly above ground and taking us right through the city—so many skyscrapers! Our intent was to connect to the monorail out onto the Palm Jumeirah. But that was closed, so we ended up having to make do with the JBR beach, dipping a hand in the waters of the Persian Gulf and looking at the Palm in the distance. Dubai offers so much, but we did find quite a few things "closed". We stopped on the way back to get close to the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building. It was impressive, but the memories we have are of the sheer number of ultra-luxury cars driving (or queued) in the area,