Dubai Creek

When I look at the archive of, of HSBC and the UAE, uh, many amazing milestones.

Going back to the '50s, we helped finance the, uh, Dubai dredging work, uh, Dubai Creek, um, and that is when all the ships, goods, and the level of activities followed.

In the '80s, we introduced the first ATMs into, into the country.

Interestingly, back then, uh, people thought that ATMs would replace cashiers and tellers.

And there's really only one in Dubai, and that is the old Souk.

This is a traditional market in Bur Dubai, which is actually along the Dubai Creek, and it was originally created as the textile souk, so you're getting lots of things from textiles and gold and spices and perfumes.

There's also a remarkable spice and gold souk directly, which is across the creek, and so that whole area is really something you need to explore.

There are some culinary alleys that you can get wares and cooking utensils, and then there are other alleys that are filled with spices and flavors and things.

The modern Dubai has really been built in the past few decades.

One of the most interesting parts of the city is Dubai Creek, and this is where the Dubai as we know it today really grew up as a trading settlement.

It was a very important waterway.

If you go there now, you still get a little taste of what it must have been like a few decades ago.

I guess I too had believed, had, I'd bought into these preconceived ideas about what Dubai was, that it was just a land of shopping malls and highways and nothing else.

Of course it's not true.

Nowhere can be just that, right? And one of the first things I did was I went to Dubai Creek and I took one of those boats and I went to a little cafe and I went to an art gallery and I realized that there was a lot more substance to this city, and that I was gonna find it.

Yeah.

Actually, Iranians were one of the, from what I've read, there's a great book talking about this, how they're the second largest migration to Dubai after the Dutch in like 1908.

500 moved here from Bandar Abbas to Dubai Creek.

which 500 is not a big amount, but the population of Dubai back then was 10,000, right? And so the Dubai Iranians are very much here in large populations.

And so even here you have it a lot, but still they're speaking English.