Agree with that. My mother in law worked there for five years...she liked Oman and Yemen (this was before 9/11; don't know how much they like Westerners now)

Also agree with the poster above who said that there was nothing in Dubai 30 years ago...the "real Dubai" would be a sparsely populated sandbar! Abu Dhabi is less liberal than Dubai, and Sharjah doesn't even allow alcohol sales. Can't remember the other 4 Emirates...something like "Umm al Kawein" and Ras Something, but none of them are over 50,000 people, vs. Dubai/Abu Dhabi's millions.

It is kinda cool to walk along the Creek and look at the Dhows, though. They're lateen-rigged wooden trading vessels that go between Dubai and the Indian Subcontinent. Unlike Western wooden ships, the planks are stitched together with some kind of rope, which is then covered with pitch. Western wooden boats have the planks nailed, screwed, or glued to the frames. They range in size, getting up to 90' long, if I had to guess. If I had to guess, I'd guess they werre made of teak, which is very durable and rot resistant.

The cool thing is seeing them loaded from everything from machine tools to sacks of rice and 55-gal drums of something. And it's always the little, 5' 2", 90# guys manhandling these ridiculously large loads around.

I think it would be a neat adventure to book passage aboard one of these ships to India, if you had a guide to translate. Pretty basic (sleeping on the deck, eating whatever) but fun nonetheless.