Deira

Had to venture into the Depths of Deira to drop off Calum's phone for repair.
I wonder how long this sign has been there as I found a news article from 2008 saying people selling paan in Dubai would be deported!

From Lonely Planet & Insightguides
‘Deira’ popularly describes the sub-districts lying immediately north of the Creek. The area feels like a cross between Cairo and Karachi. Dusty, crowded and chaotic, it’s a world away from the slick and sanitised city across the Creek, along Sheikh Zayed Road and in Dubai Marina. Along the Creek, colourful wooden dhows engage in the time-tested trading of goods destined for Iran, Sudan and other locales. Nearby, the bustling souqs are atmospheric ancestors to today’s malls, where you can sip sugary tea and haggle for bargains with traders whose families have tended the same shop for generations.

It was here that some of the first barasti (mud and palm-frond) settlements sprouted, that Dubai began to carve its career as a trading centre, and that people from all across the Earth began to settle. It’s also here that you get to glimpse Dubai’s fascinating underbelly: old rather than new; East versus West; past versus future and labourer versus lord.