THE SECOND-TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD (is more than twice as high as Mount Obama)

Being number two is not much better than coming in last.  How many people know that the second-tallest mountain in the world is the dismally-named “K-2?”  Quite a few, no doubt, but everybody, literally everybody, knows that Mount Everest is the tallest.  But do you know what the tallest building in the world is?  If you don’t, then you should, because it’s something truly incredible.  It’s called “Burj-Khalifa,” it’s in Dubai, UAE, and at 2717ft/828mt, is more than twice as tall as the Empire State Building, for years the world’s tallest, and to this day, still the second-highest in the US; more than twice that height, one hundred sixty-three stories.  That’s hard to imagine until you see it, pointing like a dagger up into the sky, with its serrated edge silhouetted against the horizon.  It’s ungodly… but hardly surprising in a country that has four of the tallest buildings in the top twenty.  And yes, they compete, they really do.    

Only China has more, with six, eight if you count Hong Kong.  Do you know what’s number two?  Ever heard of the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel?  No, I didn’t think so.  I suppose it fills up during the Hajj (Makkah=Mecca).  It was only completed within the past year, and at 1971ft/601mt, almost one hundred meters higher than the next tallest, Taipei 101 at 1670ft/509 meters.  From there on down, the next twelve tallest are all within a hundred meters of each other.  That’s all about to change.  “Sky City” is already on the drawing boards and at 2749ft/838meters, is taller than the Burj.  It’s in China, of course.  They wanted the tallest, scrapping previous plans for a building 666 meters high, mark of the beast, to be sure. 

You’ve probably never even heard of the city—not Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen, but the unlikely city of Changsha, Hunan, with only seven million inhabitants, a village by Chinese standards, and with scarcely a tourist in sight.  Maybe that’s why they’re building it.  Even more incredible is that it’s scheduled to be built in a lightning-fast three months by the unlikely-sounding Broad Sustainable Building company, using prefabricated materials, and with a budget one-third that of Burj-Khalifa, in far less than the five years it took to build the Burj.  Do you want to be the first one to test the elevator (gulp)? 

Or, to give another perspective, that’s higher than the highest points of Mauritius, Micronesia, San Marino, Burkina Faso, Belgium, Benin, Senegal, and twenty-six other countries!  That’s more than twice the height of Mount Obama in Antigua and Barbuda!  The highest point in eight countries don’t even have names, not surprising I guess, when those highest points are ten, five, or only two meters as in the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu or the Maldives.  Only seven feet high?  If I wore a funny hat, I guess I’d be the tallest point in the Maldives.  Do they have trees?  I guess I’ll have to go see.  I guess I better go soon.  Unfortunately the Maldives doesn’t have any hostels yet, but Changsha, Hunan, China, does.  It will be listed with full specs and contact details when the Asian edition of Backpackers & Flashpackers comes out.  Stay tuned.