There is a curse that strikes terror into the most intrepid traveller's heart. A hoodoo so poisonous that steely-eyed explorers turn to quivering jelly, and veterans of the toughest journeys on earth beg for their mummies. One simply whispers in their ear the dreaded incantation, "Dubai stopover".

Then you see the panic in their eyes: nightmare visions of being trapped in glittering shopping malls where simpering salesmen in Pringle golf cardies whisper: "This way, my friend, the Katie Price perfumes await …"

I thought I knew what I was letting myself in for when I accepted this, the toughest assignment of all: the search for a genuinely satisfying travel experience in the air-conditioned consumerist wastelands of Dubai. The truth is, I had no idea how things might turn out.

The evening ride in from the airport was ominous: the streets full of shiny new cars, nobody on foot, immaculate lawns lifted straight from the covers of golfing magazines. At that prestigious haven of consumerism, the Dubai Mall, I wandered past the vast aquarium where sharks as sleek and muscular as Toyota Land Cruisers drifted along a few feet from the crowds of shoppers. Locals were visible (though much in the minority): the ladies wearing Versace sunglasses over their veils, the men in long white dishdasha, ready for desert life, Allah forbid that it should ever resume.

This was everything I had expected. I strolled out on to the plaza beside the Burj al-Khalifa, at 828m the world's tallest building, then stood on a pastiche of the Rialto bridge to watch a synchronised fountain display set to Puccini. People of a hundred nations watched from the outdoor restaurants and bistros. The Indians did not fight the Pakistanis; the Iranians and Afghans did not clash with the Americans; the British did not fight with whoever the Americans told them to, or throw up in the gutter.

Everything in Dubai seemed to be smart and shiny and perfect, like a gorgeous showroom super-car. Behind the engine grilles of this growling Ferrari, however, throbs the raw power of a Honda Civic. There is no inebriated laughter, no boorish behaviour, no graffiti, not even a token Coca-Cola can bobbing in the broad shimmering lagoons at the foot of the Burj. This was like a fresh, pure draught of safe, undemanding anodyne pleasure: Arabia Victoriana.

Dropped back at the hotel, I began to panic. Maybe Dubai is exactly what it says on the tin, I reasoned. Maybe there is no "other" Dubai, and beyond the facade of floodlit international brand names lies only a lifeless, empty desert. A drive the following day to "the mountains" did a little to assuage my fears. For a start, I was surprised to discover that Dubai has mountains that are not composed entirely of plastic bottles. The trip also involved the unusual step of passing through a second country – Oman – before arriving at Hatta, an enclave of Dubai that contains the original village of the Dubaian royal family. Out here, among the occasional grove of date palms, you won't find a Dubaian farmer – they are all Pakistanis, impoverished Sindis brought in to tend the artesian wells. Neither does Hatta old village contain any genuine Dubai folk, although there were a couple of stuffed soldiers pretending to defend the old mud fort. I rode back feeling glum.

It was my hotel that gave me hope at that moment of crisis. The Orient Guest House is an unusual place in the Dubai scheme of things. Although heavily restored, it is at heart a merchant's house of the 19th century, a place of cool courtyards and breezy wind towers. Here Persian traders came to settle in 1894 after the local emir, Sheikh Maktoum, had the bright idea of making his sleepy saltwater creek a tax-free haven. (Ever since, trade has been Dubai's lifeblood, rather than oil, which makes up less than a tenth of GDP.)

All around are other, similarly restored, old houses, some now museums, some spectacularly romantic restaurants such as Bastakiah Nights (bastakiah.com). Saeed al-Mulla, who runs that particular restaurant, was determined to prove to me that this sliver of Dubaian heritage was neither fake, nor dead. We walked through to the creek, a waterway about as wide as the Thames at Tower Bridge. It looked busy on the far shore and lights moved out on the water. He led me to an open courtyard where men were playing cards and dominos while smoking hookah pipes. "This spot has been a local meeting place for hundreds of years – a kind of parliament – where the men discuss important issues."

We sat with them, chatting. One told me how the area was saved. "The houses were beautiful but dilapidated," he said, "and the government wanted to knock them down. It was Prince Charles, on a royal tour, who pointed out that the old wind towers and coral architecture were worthy of preservation."

That seemed like a point in Dubai's favour to me. After all, it's seldom that ageing unemployed tourists have such a profound impact on local planning procedures. But what about living traditions, I wondered. Impressive though these mud-walled buildings are, there were no Persian merchants piling up their camels and dhows with silks and spices.

"Go over the creek," said Saeed. "Take a shared water taxi, an abra, from the jetty up there." He waved airily down the waterfront. "Cross to the Deira side and look around. I don't think you're going to be disappointed."

It was past 10pm, but along the waterfront and in the lanes behind, the hustle and bustle showed no sign of abating. I had wandered into the cloth market, a warren of small shops filled with bolts of vividly colourful textiles, and a cacophony of languages and dialects. A Chinese trader was shouting in Urdu at an Iranian buyer; an Indian family were negotiating in English for slippers from Lahore; a Russian couple were haggling with a Kashmiri over an outrageous belly-dancing outfit.

I drank coconut-water at a stall and then jumped on an abra, a flat-decked wooden boat with a central bench seat where up to 20 passengers sit. They depart when full, chugging across the dark choppy water, dodging ornamental tourist dhows and less well-lit working vessels. The number of the latter took me by surprise: big old booms and buggalows with stacks of ornate decks, hand-painted in sky blues and whites. As I jumped off the abra on the Deira side, I could see hundreds of these wooden ships tied three and four deep along the creek, all hand-built from vast tropical timbers on the beaches of Gujarat and Sind.

And on the quayside was stacked tons of cargo: secondhand cars, oil barrels, boxes of shirts, milk powder, cooking oil, even a pallet of Nutella. Stevedores were busily loading the ships by hand, ferrying boxes on their shoulders, or using small cranes and nets. It was now past 11pm, but things were in full swing.

"Where are you going?" I called up to one sailor.

"Somalia."

"Aren't you afraid of pirates?"

He laughed. They were an Indian crew from Surat, making handsome profits supplying a country that is lost to "normal" merchant shipping. "It takes 15 days from Dubai," he shouted down to me. "And we stay on the ship when we reach Mogadishu. Six days to unload, then we come back."

For a mile up the quayside, all the way past the National Bank of Dubai, I heard the same story. Somalia. But then the boats got smaller, less well-kept, and the sailors looked more wiry and piratical. This proved to be the Iranian section: boats taking the shorter voyage across the Persian Gulf.

At this point I turned back, heading for home and bed. I was excited though. Maybe Dubai had something completely unexpected to offer: a waterfront of unique interest, a living museum of Indian Ocean maritime trade. Jumping off the abra on the Bur Dubai side, I got in a taxi. The driver was Indian and had been in Dubai for 20 years. "The creek was not always so busy," he told me. "Five years ago, you would have not seen any of these wooden ships."

The Somali crisis, it seems, has unexpectedly made profitable what appeared a dying maritime tradition.

Next afternoon I was back, talking my way on board some of the ships, drinking tea with the captains, the nakhodas. Unlike a modern container ship whose bridge resembles that of the USS Enterprise rather than a boat, these had just a wheel and a compass. "We know the route," laughed one captain when I asked about GPS and radar.

"Do you take passengers?" I asked, unable to resist the fantasy of joining the voyage.

He shook his head. "Maybe another boat – we are cargo only."

Instead of the dubious pleasure of a 15-day all-inclusive voyage to Somalia, I signed up for a "dhow dinner cruise" – not quite so adventurous, but better food. Thanks to all the ships, the cruise was totally fascinating, chugging slowly past the entire fleet before swinging around in the harbour mouth where Creek meets Persian Gulf.

After disembarking back in Deira, I wandered into the souks that stretch back from the quayside: the spice market where every rare ingredient from the entire Indian Ocean littoral is lined up: South African rooibos, vanilla from the Comoros, indigo from Bangladesh, and hundreds more. Soon spices gave way to gold, then to clothes, tools, electronics and watches. There were simple restaurants too – places where you could get a Keralan thali dinner for just over a pound. I wandered into a shop and ended up buying an alarm clock that sings the call-to-prayer, then headed for the fish market.

This remarkable institution is well worth a visit, even if you don't have access to a kitchen. Every species of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean is on display: bonito, kingfish, tuna and sardines were familiar, but not the strange crabs, the metre-long swordfish lookalike, the gargantuan sharks laid out in the car park outside.

Next door was fruit and veg, equally fascinating. Sellers hand out samples: "Try these – very good Saudi dates!" "You like figs? These are Syrian." "Have one of these tiny, sweet bananas – from India."

In the corner was a workers' cafe, a gem of an eating house where fried fish and rice with salad and drinks came to less than £3. The man at the next table was Indian – 45% of Dubai's residents are – and I asked if he liked the place.

He nodded. "Yes, I love it."

"Why?"

"I make money. I meet people from all over the world. It's peaceful and there's very little crime."

"Will you ever go home?"

"This is home."

Which is a problem, perhaps, for the future, because those millions of guest workers who have started to like this place are all on impermanent work visas.

"What about you?" asked the man, staring at me over a cup of sweet, Indian-style milky tea. "Do you like Dubai?"

And to my own astonishment, without hesitating, I answered, "Yes."

Walking back through Deira's souks later that night, the streets filled with Africans, Arabs, Asians and a handful of Europeans, I realised that I had not found the "alternative" Dubai that I had set out to find. Far from it. What I had discovered was the real Dubai, the ageless trading entrepot where Orient and Occident meet. The location has changed over the years: in the 1950s it was Aden, in the 1920s Shanghai, before that Constantinople or Alexandria. But for now, without a shadow of doubt, that colourful vibrant role belongs to Dubai, and for that reason alone it is a place worthy of a traveller's interest. Next time, when I hear those words, Dubai stopover, I will smile in expectation.

• Arabian Adventures (arabian-adventures.com) offers half-day city tours from £25pp, Up the Wadi (Hatta tour) from £55 and Dhow cruise with dinner on the creek from £25. Orient Guest House (+971 4351 9111, orientguest house.com) rooms from $275 per night. Expedia offers three nights B&B at the Orient Guest House plus flights with Emirates Airlines, from £489pp (0330 123 1235, expedia.co.uk). Dubai Tourism: 020‑7321 6110, definitelydubai.com