When getting out of the plane we hit another wall: temperature is far above 40C. But quickly unloaded and immigration at the VIP terminal is friendly; and so is the building; looks like money does not matter here. There is an ATM in the room; but not for cash - it is for gold bars! The roads to the city are wide and in perfect condition. We pass spectacular buildings and all seems to be new. The hotel also is unreal: in Europe the lobby would be a hall in a train station! And staff (of course all foreigners) everywhere. The rooms on the 38th floor are astounding and so is the view!! Short lunch in the restaurant on the 62nd floor (what a view) and then on to the city tour with the hop-on/hop-off bus.

The only stop we get out is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque - another unbelievable building! The webmaster has seen a lot of this world; but never anything like this!!! This snowy white mosque - conceived by Sheikh Zayed himself - can accommodate up to 40’000 worshipers and is architecturally impressive inside and out. More than 80 marble domes dance on its roofline, which is held aloft by over 1’000 pillars and punctuated by four 107m-high minarets. Taking design cues from Morocco, Turkey and even India’s Taj Mahal, the interior is a made-to-impress mix of marble, gold, semi-precious stones, crystals and ceramics. You walk on the world’s largest Persian carpet (which took 2’000 craftsmen two years to complete) with seven massive gold-plated crystal chandeliers dangling above us. The nice thing is that we can wander around this palace without any restrictions. And the restroom is probably the most luxurious one we ever did our business.
The rest of the tour is also impressive but it is simply too hot to get out of the bus.
Abu Dhabi has invested heavily in culture, education and environmental innovation in recent years. Slowly, almost stealthily, the latgest - and wealthiest - emirate is emerging from the shadow of Dubai, its glamorous northern neighbor. Looking at the city today, it is hard to imagine that only decades ago, it was little more than a fishing village with a fort, a few coral buildings and a smattering of barasti huts.

In the evening we have drinks with Marlene and Sämi, old friends from the RMF days. Again these experienced ex-pats give us an interesting insight of life here in paradise. And it is just great to see them again after all this time!

Originally the area was inhabited by a seafaring people who were converted to Islam in the 7th century. Later, a dissident sect, the Carmathians, established a powerful sheikdom, and its army conquered Mecca. After the sheikdom disintegrated, its people became pirates. Threatening the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman early in the 19th century, the pirates provoked the intervention of the British, who in 1820 enforced a partial truce and in 1853 a permanent truce. Thus what had been called the Pirate Coast was renamed the Trucial Coast. The British provided the nine Trucial states with protection but did not formally administer them as a colony.
The British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in 1971, and the Trucial states became a federation called the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Two of the Trucial states, Bahrain and Oman , chose not to join the federation, reducing the number of states to seven.
UAE is the third largest oil producer in the Gulf after Saudi Arabia and Iran.