After the demonstrations and displays about Abu Dhabi's tribal and nomadic past, I set out to absorb authentic, living culture between the stalls of the city's storied Central Market, where haggling is a beloved art and spicy shwarma is around the next corner.

Ambling through the rotisserie-lamp heat of Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al-Maktoum Street (commonly, Airport Road), I passed ancient-looking shops, venerable domed mosques dwarfed by ultra-modern skyscrapers and at least a half dozen streets that should have led me to the old souk, but that were blocked by a large-scale construction project.

Finally, after trudging a complete circuit without finding an entrance -- and having random thoughts about spontaneous combustion -- I ducked into a Pakistani grocery and asked.

The owner smiled. ``Central Market is no more. All gone. Gone for one year.''

Why? The plan is to build an upscale shopping mall called Central Market, he said, and he pointed at the giant construction pit I'd just spent the past hour walking around in Abu Dhabi's springtime 98-degree afternoon.

No problem, I thought. I'll just come back next year and see a demonstration of the old place at the Cultural Foundation.

DUBAI

Only the wisest and most learned experts have any idea if a camel is going to pitch forward or back when kneeling. If they collapse their back haunches first, you're looking at blue sky and are easy prey to gravity's will. If it's the front legs, you're in a small plane barreling into the ground at 45 degrees. The trick is guessing which.

This wouldn't be an issue if we had been riding, say, a goat or a large pig. But when the beast trying to sway you off wears a saddle 7 feet off the ground, you start to wonder how soft the sand is.

Because we had spent a couple days in Dubai before the cruise, we opted for an excursion inland, specifically a jeep tour through Dubai's signature orange dunes, ending at a ''traditional'' nomadic Bedouin encampment.

After our caravan of white SUVs trekked into the desert east of Dubai city -- and then turned right and rolled around, over and astride the mountainous waves of sand (I passed out half a bag of ginger candy for motion sickness) -- our driver delivered us to the encampment. It was a tiny Arabian theme park, complete with camel rides, henna tattoo artist and hookah booth -- an easy, palatable (if somewhat shallow) entry point for the travelers into a foreign history and culture.

After a brief excursion atop a camel wearing a tea cozy on its snout (probably to hide its laughter at the tourists), we learned a bit: that henna tattoos don't work well on hairy arms; that smoking shisha is just a really good excuse to do nothing for a while; and that nomadic Bedouin tribes stock Red Bull.

After a buffet of traditional Arabian delicacies, a belly dancer arrived and shared more sacred rituals, such as balancing a curved sword on any portion of her body that could act as a shelf. It was about this time, the crowd from the ship started to appreciate the whole culture and heritage thing.

During the late-night ride back to the ship, I considered cultural rituals and seemingly bizarre practices and wondered how they get started. Then I considered that later on I might end up among a gyrating mass of Europeans, using my body in a ritual spelling out the sacred mantra ''YMCA'' during '70s night, and decided it was a topic best left alone.

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