Day 154: Dubai – Day 2
Our flight to Beijing wasn’t scheduled to leave Abu Dhabi until 9:30PM, so we requested a late check-out from our hotel to give us time to explore a few more sights in Dubai. While we were up and ready to go early in the morning, we discovered that the souks (traditional marketplaces) in Old Dubai don’t open until 10AM, so it was unfortunately already ridiculously hot and humid when we exited the subway and started wandering around the open-air markets. After an hour of trudging through the heat and constant shouting of the pashmina & jewelry hawkers, we escaped to the creek, hoping for a cool ride along the water. We paid 100 dirham (USD $27) for a 45min private boat ride up and down the creek, which was a bit too slow to be refreshing and a bit too dull to be much fun. By then it was noon, and we decided to call it a day, returning to the hotel for much needed showers and fresh clothes before hitting the highway back to Abu Dhabi where we were looking forward to pigging out and raising a few glasses of wine at the *international* terminal lounge.
We bravely leave the comfortable air-conditioning of the ultra-modern Dubai subway to take a walk in the blistering heat of the Old Dubai Gold Souk – a marketplace full of…GOLD
Window-shopping in the Gold Souk in Old Dubai
A fast-talking salesman quickly lures us into his shop as soon as we enter the Spice Souk, and rapidly guides us through the dozens of spices he has for sale
Beautiful potpourri, a fortune in saffron threads, and aromatic menthol shavings. When the salesman put some menthol on a hot incense holder and literally blew medicinal smoke in our faces, Igor was hooked and promptly bought a small jar of menthol for 50 dirham (USD $13.00)
Wandering through the many outdoor souks in Old Dubai, where aggressive salesmen keep shouting, “Where are you from? Germany? England? Australia?” Surprisingly, they never guess the USA.
Exotic atmosphere in Old Dubai
Taking a slow boat ride up and down the Dubai Creek
Old fishing boats moored next to modern high-rises along the Dubai Creek
Retreating back to the fancy, air-conditioned subway. The cars are packed during the lunch rush-hour, so Lindsay rides in the relatively empty women-only car while Igor suffers sandwiched between a crowd of sweaty men.
Driving back to Abu Dhabi
Flavors of Dubai: mosques every few miles, and we saw billboards of this guy everywhere. Unfortunately, the signs never had English translation so we still don’t know who he is. The Prime Minister maybe?
You’d think in a country where 85% of the economy is dependent on oil, it would be easy to find a gas station to fill up your rental car before returning it to the airport, right? It took us a good hour and a half to finally find the nearest state-run gas station, which was 20min away from the Dhabi Airport, which had a half an hour line. Guys, you’re doing it wrong.
Relaxing (a bit too much) at the executive lounge in Terminal 1 – a good 15min walk (and 3min sprint!) to our gate in Terminal 3
We were glad we left Dubai so early – even though we had over 7 hours before our flight and traffic was good, finding gas was a nightmare and killed a good 2 hours of our extra time. Still, check-in and Immigration went smoothly, and we arrived at the executive lounge with several hours to spare. When we presented our boarding passes to the lounge manager, she warned us to keep an eye on the time as our gate was in a different terminal and there would be no announcements. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Lady, we’ve been on the road for almost half a year now, we know what we are doing.
Famous last words.
Did you know that the time difference between Nairobi and Abu Dhabi is only 1 hour? Since we had been so busy in the last 2 days, we had barely opened our computers and had forgotten to update the time zone. Since we knew we had “plenty of time,” we didn’t think it suspicious when we reached for our third glass of wine and the clock still read 7:50PM. At 8:15PM, about 10min before we planned to get up and walk to our gate, Igor got a phone call from a UAE number. Normally he screens calls that he doesn’t recognize, but he couldn’t figure out how a UAE telemarketer could have gotten his number, so he picked up.
An annoyed voice on the other line asked him if he was Igor, and if he was in the airport. “Yes, why?” Igor asked suspiciously. “Because, sir, it’s *9:15PM* and your flight is closing. You need to RUN to the gate immediately.” FUCKFUCKSHITSHIT, HOW DID WE LET THIS HAPPEN? We frantically threw our laptops in our bags and ran like mad through the airport. When we arrived at 9:20PM (10 minutes before departure), the agent tells us the captain has already started deplanning us. “I’ll radio the captain and see if he will allow you on board, but already rejected that woman over there who arrived before you, so I doubt it.” Seriously?!? You knew we were in the airport, you called us and knew we were running over, and you couldn’t hold the plan for 3 passengers? Wouldn’t it take longer to find our baggage in the cargo area and remove it than to just let the three of us walk onto the plane that is SITTING RIGHT THERE? “You are adults, it’s not my job to babysit you and make sure you arrive at the gate in time.” Smug, useless asshat. Why bother calling us at all?
“I’m sorry, the captain has already deplanned you.” Our hearts fell. What the FUCK are we going to do now? “The next flight to Beijing is at the same time tomorrow – you have to go and collect you bags and rebook yourselves on the next flight.” Still in shock, we made our way back through the airport, and had to explain to the security agents why we needed to go back through Immigration and into the Arrivals area to collect our bag. When we arrived at Baggage Claim, the agent told us we could leave our bag there, since we were planning to take the next Eithad flight. So we exited and returned to the Departures area and starting going over our options with the Customer Service desk.
Unfortunately for us, the next flight didn’t have any Economy seats left – only Premium Economy which would require an additional $550pp charge – that’s the cost of another flight! We immediately started looking at alternative airlines, and found an Emirates flight departing at 4AM that morning for $500pp. If we’re going to be $1,000 in the hole, we may as well not kill an entire day. While Igor booked the flight and tried to contact Expedia to see if we could get a refund on the missed flight, Lindsay navigated her way back down to the Baggage Claim area to pick up our backpack.
We were able to save a small bit of money on the transfer back to Dubai, as Eithad let us take their complimentary shuttle, however, the guy sitting directly in front of us got motion-sick halfway there and puked on the bus floor. Tired, disgusted, and frustrated, we ran out of the bus as quickly as possible when we arrived at the Eithad office in Dubai around midnight. There were only 2 taxis nearby, and we dashed to the second one as if our lives depended on it – we are NOT missing a second flight!
Unfortunately, we had already exchanged all of our UAE dirhams for Chinese yuan in Abu Dhabi, and the taxi didn’t take credit cards. In our first stroke of good luck, the taxi driver allowed us to pay him with an American $20 bill, which was super nice as the exchange rate wasn’t really in his favor. We checked into our Emirates flight (the manager at the counter was very pleased to hear that they had stolen a customer from Eithad), and made our way to our gate. Only after we had carefully verified the correct time and confirmed that we had a full hour before boarding began, did we allow ourselves to go upstairs to the executive lounge, which was thankfully located directly next to our gate. We ate as much of the free food as we could – we now have a $1,000 deficit in our budget that we need to make up somewhere…
Checking in to our new Emirates flight in Dubai. We very carefully confirm the time and gate number of our flight, before cautiously allowing ourselves to grab a second dinner in the executive lounge, which was right next to our gate
Squeezing every penny of enjoyment out of our unexpected $1,000 flight to Beijing