Al Shindagha Museum

This guide to Al Shindagha Museum traces Dubai back to 1833, when the Al Maktoum family crossed the desert and settled at the mouth of the Creek. Across the museum's twenty-two historic houses it lingers on the Perfume House, once home to Sheikha Shaikha bint Saeed Al Maktoum, who buried her own blends in the courtyard to ferment before storing them under her bed. You'll also hear about the pearl divers who once worked this same stretch of water on nothing but a rope and a nose clip, and the coral-stone wind towers that cooled these houses long before electricity arrived.