Dubai City Tour: Old & New, Abra Ride, Palm Island, Souks

4.84

(1745 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

The first thing I remember is the smell—cardamom and something sharp, right as we squeezed into the narrow lanes near the Dubai Spice Souk. I was still half-asleep from the early hotel pickup (they were right on time), but our guide, Imran, handed me a tiny cup of Arabic coffee before I could even think about complaining. It was hot, sweet, almost smoky. He grinned and said something about “waking up Dubai-style.” I tried to copy his greeting in Arabic; he laughed, not unkindly. The city felt like it was just shaking itself awake too—shopkeepers rolling up metal shutters, that gold haze over Deira creek.

I didn’t expect to like the abra ride so much. It’s just a wooden boat taxi really—nothing fancy—but gliding across the water with locals heading to work made everything else slow down for a minute. There was this breeze off the creek that cut through the heat (it was already climbing by 10am), and you could hear gulls fighting over scraps behind us. Imran pointed out the wind towers on old houses along Al Fahidi; he called them “Dubai’s ancient air conditioning.” I tried to imagine living here before all the glass towers.

After that we zigzagged between worlds: photo stops at Burj Khalifa and that wild sail-shaped Burj Al Arab (I still can’t believe people actually stay there), then out along Sheikh Zayed Road where every building tries to outdo its neighbor. The Palm Jumeirah drive was surreal—six kilometers on a palm-shaped island built from nothing but sand and ambition. Atlantis looked like something from a movie set. We didn’t go inside but honestly, seeing it from outside was enough for me.

I liked how Imran kept things real—he told us not to bother shopping at the souks during the tour (“You’ll get ripped off if you rush!”), but let us smell perfumes at a little museum instead. There was this one scent that clung to my sleeve all day. At some point we stopped at a Majlis for dates and more coffee; everyone sat quietly for a minute, just soaking it in. Maybe it was jetlag or maybe just being in this strange mix of old stones and new glass—but yeah, I still think about that view from the Dubai Frame photostop sometimes.