King at us!

Tourist sees it? Mike Peake lifts the lid on the city as seen from the other side…

Walking back through

Deira’s souqs, the streets filled with Africans,

Arabs, Asians and a handful of

Europeans, I realised that I had not

found the ‘alternative’ Dubai that

I had set out to find. Far from it. What

I had discovered was the real

Dubai, the ageless trading entrepot

where Orient and Occident meet. The

location has changed over the years:

in the 1950s it was Aden, in the 1920s

Shanghai, before that Constantinople or

Alexandria. But for now, without a shadow

of doubt, that colourful vibrant role

belongs to Dubai, and for that reason

alone it is a place worthy of a traveller’s

interest. Kevin Rushby, The Guardian, December, 2010