Day 10 (2023) Abu Dhabi: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque & Yas Bay

14.4.23

Day 10

Visited highlights: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Today we take it easy. We spend the morning at the community pool in the residential complex. There is only an elderly couple and a Filipino nanny with 2 little kids playing in the children's pool. So we enjoy the pool and I play a few rounds of 'Lama' with my son.

For lunch, we get subs from Subway and eat at home in the villa.

In the afternoon, we drive to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque towards Abu Dhabi Downtown. We were last here in the fall of 2014 when it was nearly 40 degrees Celsius. Back then, there were still free robes and garments for women and men, and you could freely explore the entire mosque.

All of that has changed! Big time!!!

While in 2014, the mosque was still a hidden gem, it has now turned into a mass tourism event. Huge parking buildings guide the way to the mosque parking. Underneath the mosque, a mall has been built. The first thing you see when following the official entrance to the mosque is a McDonald's and Tim Hortons 🤔🙄

Shops everywhere: food, drinks, souvenirs, clothes....

We make our way to the entrance, passing tourist groups taking pictures in front of a Bedouin tent wearing robes and veils 🙈

We assumed that we would get robes and garments or headscarves/veils. We don't have anything like that...

Too bad, they don't lend out anything like that anymore. Instead, the sale of robes, burqas, garments, veils, and headscarves is booming. What a business model! The locals have really thought this through. I feel like I'm in Disneyland with a gift shop after every ride 😵

I dig out my bandana from my fanny pack and wear it as a tube over my head. Now I look like a matryoshka doll 🫣😅

The daughter has a scarf with her, which she puts on her head like a pirate scarf. At the entrance, where the outfit is strictly checked (wisely, we all wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts or cardigans), the daughter's headscarf is disqualified because her neck is not covered. Great...

I don't even feel like going into the mosque anymore and offer her my bandana, but the husband is against it. So we have to buy a larger scarf. The cheapest one we find costs 25 AED (about 6€). Okay, bought it, wrapped it around to cover the neck, and hair. Back to the entrance. This time everything fits and we are allowed to continue through the security check to the first of many runways that lead up to the mosque.

If you don't want to walk, you can get driven by a golf buggy. The last escalator going up and we leave the air-conditioned area and step outside right in front of the mosque.

It's a bit disappointing that you can no longer 'step into' the mosque. There is a plastic pallet floor that has been laid out to form a path through the mosque and past the rooms. So the flow of visitors has to march in single file along the boardwalk. You can take pictures at selected 'Photo Stops'.

I stopped between two stops to take a picture and was immediately told by a security man to keep going. Hm. Okay.

At many stops, you can only see phones in the air. The mosque is still beautiful, but somehow this has turned into a mass tourism event. Too bad...

After dinner, we drive to the Yas Bay Promenade and admire the oversized astronauts and the giant diver sticking his head and hands out of the sea. Totally crazy, but very cool to admire the diver illuminated in changing colors. We end the evening with a cocktail at LSB (Lock, Stock & Barrell).