Al Fahidi is Dubai's oldest surviving neighbourhood — coral-and-gypsum buildings with traditional wind towers that cooled rooms before air conditioning. We walk through it with a historian's eye and I tell you which families built which houses and why they came to Dubai.

Across the Creek by traditional abra boat, through the Spice Souk as it's been for 200 years, and to a café in Bur Dubai where Emirati and Indian traders have eaten together every morning for three generations. Breakfast here costs 8 dirhams.

The Gold Souk at dusk is genuinely extraordinary — 300 shops with every shape of gold jewellery ever imagined. Then dinner at an Emirati restaurant in Deira that was opened for local families and has never needed to market to tourists.