Dubai 08

We were glad to leave the snow and cold behind. Yet, little did we know what was awaiting us in Dubai. What we knew: we missed the connection to Christchurch. We also knew already that there wasn't any way that we could just hop onto next day's connection to New Zealand. In actual fact, the Emirates chap I talked to on the phone reassured me: "No problem - your ticket is still valid - the earliest flight I can put you on is on the 20th February, wait-listed of course."

Now, this is certainly not what we had in mind. At our arrival in Dubai we got the next surprise. After waiting in a long line at the immigration, in a humid heat, with two cranky little girls, we were told that the visa of Atena was not valid and that she couldn't enter the country. The Iranian travel agency who did the visa application for us did a very shoddy job indeed!


The skyline of Dubai!

There we were, stuck in between the runway and the immigration counter. Not only didn't we have a visa to enter the country, we also didn't know when we could leave Dubai again. We couldn't tell when our connecting flight was leaving, and we could get at most a 4 day transit visa. Our tempers started to run even shorter when the transit visa was only offered in a multipack together with a hotel room, for hundreds of dollars, even though we already had a prepaid room arranged.



Since we didn't have any choice, we went for it, praying that somehow we would find a way out of the mess soon. After talking to the travel agent the situation presented itself as follows: either wait for weeks until we get a flight (stuck in a hotel in a very expensive place), or pay $10,000 for a new ticket. What a choice!


Not an Egyptian temple - a shopping centre!


Here a view from the outside of the Shopping temple.


The Arabian Park Hotel, modern, functional and boring.




In anticipation of another long air journey ...
As it sorted itself out, we got a business class ticket via Hongkong that took us back home only 3 days later than originally planned.