A Place I Would Like to Go Back To
Smugglers' Creek by Charlie Kulander
I won’t even get into the surreal futuresque mirage that is modern Dubai. Instead, what intrigued me the most while staying at the Hilton Dubai was the view out my window of a chaotic harbor full of rickety dhows, those ancient ships that have been plying the Arabian Sea for centuries. I’d watch these diesel-powered dhows come in from Pakistan, Iran, India, Oman — who could tell?– and jockey for moorage among the boats loading and off-loading their exotic cargos. Later, I strolled down to the harbor for a closer look at the wooden-hulled ships with their cargo nets, their hammocks slung among the rigging, their forward decks chock-a-block with tarp-covered pallets. Customs inspections are practically nonexistent here, and this part of the Dubai River is called Smuggler’s Creek for a reason. It’s an unrestricted point of contact among Middle Eastern nations. You’ve got Iranian arms traffickers, Arab jihadists, and Indian mobsters. Taliban traders come in on these dhows to turn their opium taxes, paid in gold bullion, into laundered dollars at Dubai’s unregulated gold market just downriver. Walking among these dhows is probably the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like a CIA agent. (if Bin Laden ever gets caught, it might be while jumping into the harbor from one of these dhows,) This harbor has the intrigue, history, and sense of adventure that is so missing in the imagineered paradise of Dubai. It’s a place I would like to go back to.