Dubai Day Two

Today we start out with a more modest start time of 8am. We head again close to the airport, by which time I am wondering why we're not just staying there. Our first meeting is in the foyer of a very swanky hotel. We hop straight from taxi to inside so avoid the heat.

Our next meeting is in Abu Dhabi. The drive there takes over an hour. We travel at speeds of 120-150km/h along a three lane highway, either side of which are high fences the entire distance and beyond them desert. The fences are apparently to keep camels off the road. Outside of Dubai it's rather grotty, many miles of construction sites, industry, and power plants, substations and the like with pylons heading every which way.

We have a little time to spare, so pop in for a visit to Emirates Palace, the most expensive hotel in the world. This is just so massive, and expensive, and fancy, see about it here and see the official promotional video here. I thought I'd seen it all in places like Las Vegas. This far exceeded anything I've seen. High ceilings, bigger hotel, real marble and gold, unbelievable even standing inside there. No tourists in here, just rich folk well dressed. I feel out of place even wearing a suit and tie. The money required to build such a showpiece is unimaginable.

After that we head to our meeting. That wasn't so bad, but we then foolishly walked about 10 minutes up the road to another building for a brief visit, then back again. The heat was approaching 45 degrees by this time. By the time our taxi driver returned, we were medium rare :-)

The drive back to our hotel was a tad boring. Once you've driven the road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, it gets old pretty fast.

The remainder of the day was chewed up with more chatting in the hotel, and a little work on the laptop, followed by dinner in the hotel. Safest to stay within the confines of the air conditioning.

I got to sleep about 11pm knowing I have an early start to return home the next day alone, leaving Stuart behind for another day.