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“That flag-pole is so tall that they had to make an extra-large flag for it. But then it was so heavy that it never flapped in the wind, so nobody could see the Dubai colours,” the guide tells me. “So then they installed a wind machine!” he finishes triumphantly. The flag does indeed fly stiffly horizontal, blown by some invisible giant hairdryer in the same direction ad eternam. This apt metaphor for Dubai spells out the reality of the booming emirate where bling often comes light-years before function and aesthetics, let alone culture.

Yet in 2005, some five million visitors flocked here putting five-star hotel-rooms at a premium, so something must be right. It may have to do with the bedazzling gold and diamond market, the shopping-malls of designer labels, cheap electronics, trade fairs, a bizarre reality like Ski Dubai (where people don gloves to ski indoors while outside it is scorching) or just the sycophantic hotel service by armies of well-trained, underpaid Asians. But with Dubai’s ambitious developments growing daily, can you avoid sleeping next to the 40,000 or so cranes, roughly a quarter of the world’s stock, which currently creak over the skyline?

The answer is yes, just. However the downside of this unprecedented growth is the struggling infrastructure, although things may ease in 2009 when the first 38 miles of metro are scheduled to open. Until then conditions are testing, despite the massive amounts of money available to this burgeoning oil-fuelled economy. Young Emiratis parade their Lamborghinis and Ferraris at night while by day, gas-guzzling four-wheel drives are the norm (easy enough when petrol is less than a quarter of the price of the UK), and in high summer even the zoo is air-conditioned - chimpanzees do not take to 115°F it seems.

Yet as cars creep from one jam to the next, superlatives are taking shape around them; the world’s largest building site, fastest-growing city, largest airport (Jebel Ali, still under construction and designed to take the mega-aircraft of the future) and the tallest tower, Burj Dubai, where 200 floors should be complete in 2008. This is not to be confused with Burj Al Arab, the world’s tallest hotel whose white, sail-like design has already become Dubai’s emblem. Rates here bounce between $1000 and $23,000 a night, magnetising footballers like Beckham and Rooney plus respective WAGs who are nonethless beaten in the profligacy stakes by Russian oligarchs; one is rumoured to have run up a $3 million bill during an extended stay of 18 months. And he has not left yet. Russians tourists are in fact number one in Dubai, followed by the British, then the Germans, with Eastern Europeans on the rise.

Until now, views from Burj Al Arab have swept across the building site of The Palm, Jumeirah, a futuristic resort cum residential development of manmade islands forming a palm-tree, dubbed the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. With the exclusive villas on their private beaches nearly complete (footballer-owners again feature, although Beckham is alleged to have benefited from a massive discount as a cunning marketing ploy) the next trophy, the 1500-room Atlantis hotel, is about to start. More noise, dust and cranes.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so why not go next door to plunge into the Middle East’s largest swimming-pool at the Madinat Jumeirah, a self-contained resort of three hotels? This 1000-room complex boasts its own air-conditioned Arab-style soukh (no smells, sounds, hustle or bartering) where, if you want, you can have your name written in Arabian sand, snap up a fur-coat or sip a Costa cappucino. Outside, an attractive network of palm-lined canals and small artificial lakes is overlooked by restaurants, cafés, night-clubs and children’s facilities. Guests are transported through this Arabian fantasy-world in electric boats (no diesel, no noise).

Over a century ago, Dubai’s inhabitants were pearl-divers, then came trade helped by tax exemption for foreign traders in 1894 and, in the 1950s, by the establishment of the gold souk. The big addendum was of course oil. Dubai has not looked back since. So, if you want to avoid cranes, head for the Creek, the heart of ‘old’ Dubai. About 30 miles east of the Jumeirah developments, it is a sea inlet where, between downtown highrises, some of the Gulf traditions are palpable.

Along the wharves of the creek are the multi-decked, wooden dhows that have plied the Gulf for centuries, sailors’ laundry flapping in the breeze (no hair-dryer necessary here) as they rock gently at their moorings. Beside them are walls of cargo, from sacks of Basmati rice to boxed electronic goods from Malaysia or fridges from China. Chugging past are abras (water-taxis) that spirit workers across the water to where a mosque, a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurudwara stand side by side, symbolic of this cosmopolitan, albeit wildly inegalitarian society. Apart from living in tough conditions, immigrant workers earn £100 - 200 per month; locals doing the same job would earn 500% more.

On both banks of the estuary, a grid of souks announces Dubai’s original raison d’etre. Narrow streets and covered walkways are monopolised by gold, spices, saffron, heady perfume and endless textiles. As women veiled in black clutching Chanel handbags peer into shop-windows at 24-karat gold, men in white dishdashas (shirt-robes) and classic checked headgear stroll, sit, chat and chain-smoke. At last, the speed of business Dubai is entirely absent. Then, at nightfall, things come alive. Neon signs vye with glittering jewels and the streets throng with locals and foreigners from pretty much everywhere. Meanwhile coverted dhows garlanded with lights offer the best creek views as they chug up and down, their decks full of polyglot chatter. And where to bed? Overlooking the creek of course, where there are no cranes, just dhows and their shadows.

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