Dubai

Dubai rose out of a sandy coast in fifty years and it kept a taste for excess. The Burj Khalifa reaches eight hundred and twenty-eight metres, taller than any other building on earth, and at its foot The Dubai Fountain throws water a hundred and fifty metres into the air several times an evening. Offshore, an island shaped like a palm tree, Palm Jumeirah, lines up hotels and beaches. White sand runs along the city itself at Kite Beach and Jumeirah Beach, right below the towers. The old town has not vanished: the coral-and-gypsum houses of Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood under their wind towers, the wooden boats that ferry people over Dubai Creek for a few cents, the gold and spice of the souks. A driverless metro glides above the avenues, and the desert starts twenty minutes out, with red dunes and the birdlife of Al Qudra Lakes. For sheer improbability, Dubai Miracle Garden grows millions of flowers in the middle of the sand.