Nowadays, Dubai has become a major holiday destination. New direct flights from Dublin with Aer Lingus from this March will undoubtedly contribute further to its appeal.

The emirate's skyline has already become a Manhattan of the Gulf, the hotels are among the finest in the world and investment plus imagination is creating entirely new islands. Every visit to Dubai is like watching a child grow up, and is always an engaging experience. The location that seemed half-asleep when I first discovered it is now a city that never sleeps. Yet it is still a place on a human scale.

The human face of Dubai begins at the airport. When I turned up in the early hours at the tourist information booth, the man behind the desk not only found me a hotel, but managed to get a reduction on the nightly rate on my behalf.

The next morning, I wandered down to the geographical feature that made the emirate the Gulf 's prime marketplace:

Dubai Creek, the sparkling waterway that slices the city in half. Beyond the river's edge stand the financial institutions . . . banks on the banks, if you like. Much of the waterfront is high-rise gleam. The finest arc of the creek, however, is occupied by a splendid palace. Any suggestion that expense might have been spared in its construction is refuted by the glitter of gold from every surface. Yet only a few hundred yards away, children scamper around a neighbourhood of ancient sandstone and modern breeze block, with alleyways carpeted with sand.

Dubai is never routine, but by now I have established one . . . a strategy that seems remarkably resilient despite the everchanging shape of the city. Who needs an airline arrivals lounge when, within 10 minutes of stepping out of the airport, you can be undergoing the closest of shaves in a barber's on Al Mussalla Road?

Eating three good meals a day is generally a good idea, but in Dubai I try to squeeze in a couple more. On the north side of Baniyas Square, I always call in at Raoff, probably the finest kebab shop on the planet.

"There is a bus system of sorts which is used almost exclusively by low-paid workers and is not recommended, " one 1980s guidebook insisted. If it was wrong then, it is even more wrong now. Dubai's excellent public transport system is fast, efficient and ridiculously cheap, and offers access deep into the hinterland.

The first time I ventured into the desert, it looked as though the sun had melted the earth into a grotesque and beautiful crumple. Just when I was thinking "all this needs to complete my mental image is a camel or two", a hump heaved into view, then another and another. Gradually the dunes gave way to bare, lunar hills resembling Tolkein's Misty Mountains . . .

except that the haze here was generated by heat.

On the way back, the bus paused for a refreshment stop at one of the implausible settlements that rise randomly from the sands like 21st-century oases.

A lot of people see Dubai as a place to change aircraft and flex the credit card, but to be so close to such a multicultural, multifaceted destination and not to visit it seems a waste. A shop window advertising its multifarious self as 'The General Fix-It Contracting Co' sums up what Dubai is for me: a can-do destination, where most things are possible, yet somewhere that still maintains its human face.

Aer Lingus begins flying Dublin/Dubai direct from 28 March, with flights three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.