A friend with custom docked in this part of Asia (3,5)
I believe the answer is:
abu dhabi
'this part of asia' is the definition.
('Abu Dhabi' is part of 'asia')
'a friend with custom docked' is the wordplay.
'friend with' becomes 'bud' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'custom' becomes 'habit' (habit is a kind of custom).
'docked' means to remove the last letter (to dock can mean to remove the tail of an animal).
'habit' with its last letter removed is 'habi'.
'a'+'bud'+'habi'='ABU DHABI'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for abu dhabi that I've seen before include "in Middle East" , "M East country" , "Arab state" , "'UAE capital (3,5)'" , "Asian capital" .)