Sharjah (الشارقة) is one of the United Arab Emirates.
Cities
Understand
Sharjah is an emirate geographically contiguous with Dubai, with daily traffic streaming to and fro creating long traffic jams at rush hours. People will generally live in Sharjah and work in Dubai because the cost of living is cheaper in Sharjah, but the best jobs are in Dubai.
Unique amongst the Emirates in that it has coastline on both the West and East coast of the peninsula. This is by virtue of being split into exclaves of Kalba, Khor Fakkan, and Dibba Al Hisn.
Talk
As in the rest of the UAE, Arabic is the official language, with most residents actually speaking other languages entirely - particularly Hindi and Urdu. English is widely spoken in shops, souqs, and hotels.
Get in
Most people will arrive either via Sharjah International Airport or Dubai International Airport. Sharjah centre is around 15 kilometres from Sharjah Airport and 20 minutes taxi ride from Dubai International Airport (dependent upon traffic).
There is no bus or shuttle connecting Sharjah international airport to Sharjah centre or Dubai. The only way out is to take a taxi. There is a 20 AED starting fee for taxis, which are taken from the airport. If you want to save money, walk towards the mosque and the road around there. Instead take the taxi from there.
If your final destination is Dubai, take the taxi to Rolla station in Sharjah, it will cost 25 AED. From there take a minibus to Dubai. The buses are going to Deire or Bur Dubai so ask before hand. It will take one hour or more to reach Dubai depending on the traffic.
Get around
There is no public transport in Sharjah, which means that visitors will need to have their own wheels or rely on taxis. Sharjah's taxis have historically been unmetered, and although some of these remain, several new companies operating metered taxis have become operational. They are similar in quality to Dubai's taxi fleet.
Taxi Drivers, although mostly courteous, do have the tendency to refuse passengers if the time of travel coincides with rush hour traffic. It is advisable to plan your travel well, allowing for traffic jams which could take upto an hour/hour and half to get out of.
See
The emirate itself has some middle of the road beach resorts in addition to having the reputation for being a center of Islamic education.
The public buildings in the Emirate were all designed by the present Shaikh (a qualified architect) and make a nice visual change from the usual fare of skyscrapers in the other Emirates.
The "Blue Souq" (Souq Al Markazi or Central Souq) is an interesting, if slightly shambolic, shopping centre hosting around 600 shops in two wings. The ground floor shops tend to stock gold and expensive designer clothes, with the upper level containing shops stocking carpets and curios from as far afield as Afghanistan and Tibet. Haggling over prices in the upper-level shops will frequently attract massive discounts. A...
