Work trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates - 28th August to 1st September 2006

I had wanted to go to Dubai for a while, and now I know why. The place is absolutely incredible. A huge city that has risen (and is still very much rising) from nothing out of the desert, and a testament to people who are not interested in the established view of what is possible and impossible. The audacity and ambition (always successfully fulfilled ambition as well), of the city as a whole, is on a scale that the world has never seen before, and is unlikely to see again.

We know some of the stats - something like 17% of all the cranes in the world are in Dubai. Having seen part of what that looks like, it is an awful lot of cranes. The photo above, taken from my hotel room window, is of a part of Sheikh Zayed Road. Fifteen years ago, there were around half a dozen buildings here, all unremarkable. Now, there are dozens of huge towers, almost all architecturally brilliant, lining both sides of the road (looking the other way is much, much more impressive than this photo). More than the dozens of towers that are there now, are hundreds being built there and across the city. There are probably at least 10 times as many buildings under construction as are actually finished here.

Anything that is supposed to be impossible to build and achieve, is being done in Dubai. A building which will be the world's tallest. Five hundred skyscrapers being built in Jumeirah, where you can literally watch a megacity rising from absolutely nothing at all. The massive Palm complex of lagoons and artificial islands, all built out of the sea. The World complex, even more audacious, just down the coast. Each of these (and many, many more where that came from) are massive undertakings for any country or city, and they are all happening in the same place, at the same time. Truly amazing.

Of course, all of this is not without costs. The huge bills are presumably being footed by the bottomless pit of oil money in the area. But nature has given a very strong message about this place - don't live here! It is a desert, with almost no fresh water, temperatures which regularly hit 50 degrees, and all in all not an ideal place for millions of people to try to live. Because of all this, you get the feeling that it is all trying to cheat nature, and you wonder if that is really sustainable in the long term (especially when the oil runs out). The skyscrapers are being built by an army of poor immigrant labourers, mainly from Pakistan and India. In the evening, on the way out of the city, you pass (literally) hundreds of buses full of workers, being taken to god knows where they sleep. An economic miracle, certainly, but one does wonder where it will all end.

The heat in Dubai really takes some getting used to - it was 48 degrees on the last day I was there. When it is 35+ in London, and really humid, it feels similar - except that this is just extreme heat, with no humidity. Similar stifling feeling, your glasses steam up when you go outside, and then you realise that you are actually cooking yourself when you stand outside.

All in all, the place is very much like Singapore, which also rose as a city from nothing in a short space of time. It is all gleaming, but lacks a certain character - it all seems like a newly-constructed Disneyworld city. The other comparison is with California - with unlimited land, uncontrolled development, and a culture where nobody does anything other than drive around, it feels like a very spread-out city - rather like Los Angeles.

Of course, all the hotels are five-star (apart from the iconic Burj Al-Arab, which has seven stars). Mine was incredible, certainly the most amazing place I have ever stayed. The final surprise was the airport departures area, which is basically a huge shopping mall, that happens to have a few planes taking off and landing occasionally. Looking at this picture, you can't even tell where the actual gates are (there are about 10 of them in this view, just very hard to make out), it is to all intents and purposes a large shopping mall.

In 15 years time, Dubai will be absolutely full of places like this, gleaming skyscrapers, hotels, offices, malls and apartment blocks. It is not even half finished by the look of the place, but they are literally building a massive promised land in the middle of the desert.

Unless it all goes wrong.