Dinner on a Dhow

Dubai is like a tardis. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and it transports the visitor to radically different places in matter of moments, depending on traffic. There is the high-rise government office area focusing on high tech answers to complex geo-political problems. There is the romantic Bedouin history area where a past of grit, mystery and majesty is imagined in dark cool rooms. There are the construction sites full of temporary workers lined up to get on busses to go home to a single room they share with six to ten other guys all sending money home, if they can. And then there is the creek.
Creek? What is that word doing here? Dubai Creek? Who advertises a creek? What miscreant called a big honkin’ estuary a creek in English? In Arabic it is Khor Dubai. How is a 24 kilometer long, 50-100 meter wide body of water a creek in anybody’s definition of creek? I asked a tour guide from Kerala who spoke German what word he used in German when he told German tourists about the Khor Dubai, and he said “I say creek because there is no word in German for creek.” I was quite unsatisfied with this answer. I am sure Frau Page can think of six options. Gentle Reader, it is not a creek by any stretch of the imagination. It is an estuary, and it is big, and it is full of many kinds of boat traffic. (photo to come when wireless becomes an option).

We have interacted with the Khor Dubai in three ways. First, if you are in a taxi, you have to get around it. So we have driven up and down it. It is cheaper, evidently, to take on of the water taxis across and then re-obtain a taxi, but we only found that out later. Still, it was a nice drive. Secondly, we walked down to it with the mad dogs and Englishmen at about 5:00 (real people come out at about 7:00). It is really pretty, and we walked along the walk that follows it until we couldn’t stand the heat any longer and dove into the shaded streets again.

Our third interaction with the khor was on a dhow. Our program directors had booked a dinner cruise on a dhow. It is the exact, exact I tell you, exact experience of booking a dinner cruise in Cincinnati on the Ohio River. The only difference was ethnicity. We got to the dock at about 8:00 to board the boat. Evidently, this is the thing for South Asian families to do on a weekend night (the weekend here is Friday and Saturday). We were the only a) adults unaccompanied by children and grandparents, and b) people of northern European descent. So, we joined our South Asian friends for a drive up the khor (you can’t get me to call it a creek). The brisk waiters cast off and we began our “cruise”. At once the Indian music was turned on and up. It was so loud! But the music had a purpose: it was to accompany the magician. He was wearing a black suit that was drenched with sweat as he was working hard for a not so appreciative crowd. He also wore a battered top hat that was made of crushed velvet and had a red bow tied to it. He did a long series of magic tricks that involved burning tissues and pouring water from one pot to another, but I paid more attention to the passing sights after he had poured water from one pot to anther several times. His narrative was slow, and I lost interest.

The shore was very interesting. As we went up the khor, the buildings got smaller and more populated. At 10:00 at night, there were lots of children out with their parents all sitting and playing and enjoying the evening. There was a positive fleet of dinner boats out on the khor, all lit like christmas trees and all blaring Indian pop music. However, the barges that carry merchandise had only two lights on them, sometimes, one green, one red. I was entertained and alarmed that these running lights appeared to be intermittent. So here is the mini-fleet of dinner boats hooting and sparking up and down the khor, and then these huge shadowy hulking barges navigating between them as the khor narrows and widens. It was amazing to watch this weighty water waltz. In the brief hour and a half that I observed this negotiation, it seemed to work. Surely, there are accidents….