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In my opinion the best way to arrive into Dubai is by their own airline, Emirates. They win hands down for providing good old fashioned service and lots of leg room.

Arriving into Dubai before 6am on a November morning, it was already hot. Dubai airport has a 24 hour duty free shop which is vast, one of the world’s biggest. We managed to check our luggage straight through so we had 10 hours in Dubai completely free of luggage. If you choose to stay at the airport and your connection is longer than 4 hours they give you a free meal but I wanted to see Dubai!

We were told that we could get a bus to the Creek from the airport, which indeed you can, but we had to wait ages and had a long walk down a dusty motorway when we got off. We discovered later on that taxis are very cheap, plentiful and convenient from every part of the city and in shopping malls. They charge by mileage and not by time, so despite the notorious heavy traffic, I would recommend a cab as the best way to travel into town or Jumeirah.

With only a few hours to spare, we thought the best way to explore Dubai was by the open topped 'Big Bus' tour. In Dubai this takes two routes; red and blue. Red is a city tour and blue, the Jumeirah Beach tour. We decided to combine both as much as possible. Our tour began in Wafi City, where we passed Wonderland, where there is also a huge health complex being built. We proceeded along the creek, which is lined with Dhows and ferries which run between Creek and Deira and along the river. We passed Dubai Museum in the old part of the city. Dubai Museum is a reminder of how Dubai was before they discovered oil. In this area, there are souks, bazaars and local restaurants. Next we passed Sheikh Saeed Al Makhtoum House and Heritage Village before reaching the Gold Souk, onwards past Spice Soukh and Abra station with trading houseboats and where the Dhow river cruise goes from. At Deira City Centre there is a crossover point where we could pick up the blue tour and go to Jumeirah, thereby missing the last two stops but saving half an hour.

There is also a monorail being built from the airport straight to Jumeirah, due to open 2008. We started to hit heavy traffic as we travelled down the beach road to Jumeirah. Even with the heavy traffic it is still only about half an hour from the airport, Wafi City, and Deira and even less from the Creek to the city end of Jumeirah. We passed the spectacular Jumeirah mosque, one of the most photographed mosques in the world. We passed Dubai Zoo which is being rebuilt as one of the world’s largest. Mercato Mall is at the start of Jumeirah Beach. We passed the new housing development all along the Jumeirah road which is now complete. We also passed Jumeirah Beach park and the construction of World Island, before seeing the unique and unmistakable Burj Al Arab, the world’s only 7* hotel, towering over Dubai in the distance with its helipad in the sky clearly visible. Bur Al Arab more or less overlooks the construction of Palm Island and is also closer than I realised to Jumeirah Beach hotel and Wild Wadi waterpark. We passed a few more familiar hotels before going back along the parallel Sheikh Zayed road and Emirates Mall and Ski centre. We also passed the construction sites of Dubailand and the new sports complex. Here we decided to get off and get a cab rather than risk being late for our flight. Our journey back to the airport took about 15 minutes and cost about £6.

This was definitely a whistlestop tour of Dubai but we managed to see the Creek, Deira, the Old City and Jumeirah so I think we did pretty well.

Getting back into the airport was a doddle and much quicker than getting out of it. If you do want a quick meal and a pint before you go, The Irish Village has a good atmosphere and isn’t too expensive.