Old City Deira in Dubai - Trading Industry

When you get off from the Dubai Creek port, make sure you take a walk around the old town Deira. You will be taken back in time because you will find many poor locals working here.

This sight is quite stunning as we see Modern Dubai port with tourists and the old Deira Port for the poor locals busy managing the shipping industry.

The Modern Deira Port for tourists:

This woman here is nicely dressed to get on the Modern Port.

These boats at the port all have a Dubai flag there!

It is very tempting to go on these luxurious ferry rides at the modern port.

The old town Deira Port

We actually went on the local Abra to mix with the locals to feel their life style. From the photos you can tell the difference from the 'rich' and the 'poor' and these ports are just next to each other.

These traditional Abras have been around since the 1700s and the local Dubai people still love this old world charm. Actually when I saw them, I was quite attracted to them too. Life looks very simple here. Not like the tourists charm which is all external.

The local Dubai residents use these Abras as their daily Dubai transportation method. This is a real authentic experience as you truly feel the old Dubai and walk back into history sitting on these wodden Abras crossing from Deira to Bur Dubai with these local people.

It's all men there. I was the only woman there in the boat.

But they didn't stare at me as if I was the odd ball out.

Life just continued on as we rode to the old Deira port.

And at the old port pier, there is a police officer checking the local men's IDs and papers as they get off.

Because we went on the local old port, we got stuck in the long queue. What an experience. After 10 minutes or so, all of a sudden, the officer raised his eyes and saw us in the queue. Normally no tourists take these Abras as they usually go on the tourist ferries. So when the officer noticed that we are 'tourists', they waved at us and we jumped the queue so that we could get out quickly.

From this, we realize that these officers are trying to catch illegal workers here.

This is the custom office where they had to go through the paper work.

Deira, Dubai's Old City

Once, Deira was the commercial center of the city. Today, it still plays an important part in Dubai's trading industry.

Take a stroll here and you feel that you are taken back to 50 years ago as you watch hard working men loading and unloading goods that are bound for India and Iran.

You can't imagine people carrying heavy stuff like this on their shoulder today.

There is still a lot of cheap labor among the locals in Dubai.

Seeing these men remind us of years ago when we were in Calcutta where we saw men carrying fridges using their heads.

You never imagine the 'head' can hold up such heavy weight.

The scene of this Old Dubai is very different from the modern business center of downtown Dubai. What an eye opener to see this primitive life in parts of Old Dubai.