Dhow Wharfage

Lonely Planet review

Dhows are long, flat, wooden sailing vessels used in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, and they've docked at the Creek since the 1830s when the Maktoums established a free-trade port, luring merchants away from Persia.

The dhows here now trade with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Oman, India, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, and you'll see all kinds of crazy cargo - air-conditioners, flat-screen TVs, mattresses, kitchen sinks, clothes, canned food, chewing gum, car tyres, cars, even trucks - almost all of it re-exported after arriving by air from countries like China, South Korea and Singapore. Try to chat to the sailors if you can - if you find one who speaks English, you'll learn that it takes a day to get to Iran by sea and seven days to Somalia, and the dhow captains often earn as little as $100 a month, the stevedores even less. If your sailor friend is in a chatty mood, he may even regale you with real-life pirate stories. The gangs of thieves that stalk the waters off Yemen and Somalia sometimes make life very tough for Dubai's hard-working dhow sailors.