The fifth Dubai Desert Rock Festival didn't quite live up to its billing this year.

"We are here to celebrate rock music in all its hedonistic, sex-and-drugs-and-rock'n'roll glory," wrote John Clarke in The Times.

"But this is also a Muslim state. There are breaks between sets for prayers. The audience and bands are advised not to remove their T-shirts or engage in 'any public demonstrations of affection'. No 'offensive hand gestures' are permitted and crowdsurfers face immediate ejection. So not quite Iggy Pop country then."

Briton Michelle Palmer, 30, has now discovered that 'public demonstrations of affection' really are frowned on in Dubai - she faces up to six years in jail after allegedly being caught having sex on a beach.

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• British woman faces six years for sex on Dubai beach

It is the latest in a series of brushes between westerners and the emirate’s penal code, which is based both on Islamic Sharia and British civil law.

Dubai is getting more and more popular - there were 799,582 British visitors last year - and more and more are getting into trouble. According to one leading travel agent, Dubai is also turning “chavvy” as mass-market tourists overwhelm the emirate.

“Dubai is quite chavvy. Everyone has been there,” said a Trailfinders spokesman. “It is overdeveloped and colonised by Premier League footballers. But even they are beginning to move on.”

Apart from the hotels, there is only one public bar - inevitably, an Irish one - where visitors can drink. The rapidly growing number of expatriates have to apply for a licence to drink at home. Many don't, and rely on contacts with The Heineken Man, as the importers are known.

But it doesn't matter - as long as you don't get caught or openly disrespect the laws. Prostitution is rife but purveyed in hotel bars, not on the street.

Homosexuality is also illegal. Rob Harkavy, of gay travel company Respect Holidays says that he would refuse to take a booking to Dubai on principle.

And sex on a beach is definitely a no-no - as are drugs.

Drugs is the frontline between Dubai tolerance of western behaviour and feeling the full legal weight of disapproval.

The 200,000 expatriate Britons living in Dubai are well aware that drugs are one perceived Western social ill that the UAE authorities will not tolerate, even if others – such as prostitution – have taken root. Four years’ imprisonment is a common sentence for drugs possession, and trafficking carries the death penalty.

In the most high-profile case to date, Radio 1 DJ Grooverider, real name Raymond Bingham, 40, was jailed for four years in February after two grams of cannabis was found in his luggage when he tried to enter the country.

In the same month, Times Online reported the case of a Swiss man imprisoned for 'possession’ of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow.

Among substances banned by Dubai are foods containing poppy seeds; melatonin, which is taken to ease the effects of jetlag; codeine, a common ingredient in pain relief medication, and any trace of drugs such as cannabis, however small.

The Foreign Office advises all travellers carrying any prescription drugs to take a doctor's letter detailing exactly why they need the medicine and the exact dose.

You can get a letter covering any non-prescription drugs at the same time, or buy them when you get to your final destination. You can check them against the extensive list of 374 banned items.

Note also, that all medicines should be carried in their original packaging.

Even if you are only in transit in Dubai, if your luggage is being unloaded and sent through security scanners it would be wise to adhere to the rules. The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing also recommends looking at this link, which has details on rules governing what can be carried in hand luggage.

For more information, see Fair Trials International, the UAE Embassy site, which now has a list of approved medication, clickable to from the middle of its home page.

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