The slick multimedia presentation on the city is well worth catching and includes a re-creation of the Dubai souk as it looked in the 1950s. The highlight of the city's markets is Deira's gold souk , just north-west of the abra dock. It's a fitting testament to the city's smuggling past, and even seasoned veterans of Middle Eastern gold markets are blown away by the scale of the souk, the largest such market in Arabia. If you're in Dubai to indulge in some serious shopping, you're in mall heaven. Cheap electronics can be found in the Beniyas Square area of Deira, not far from the covered souk.
Nightlife is centred around the expensive restaurants, bars and discos in the upmarket hotels.
It ain't cheap, but if you've been travelling elsewhere in the Gulf you'll just be happy that it exists at all - at least until you hear the awful lounge singers who are standard fare in most venues. Founded in 1761, Abu Dhabi became the home of the ruling Al-Nahyan family when they moved from Liwa in 1793. It became a moderately successful pearling centre in the 19th century, but the collapse of the pearling industry decimated the town and it sunk into squalor. Oil concessions were granted in the 1930s in a desperate bid to salvage the emirate. Abu Dhabi is by far the richest and most politically important of the UAE's seven emirates.