Delays and Dubai

My travel to Uganda has not been 100% smooth as my first plane was delayed by so long that I missed my connecting flight in Dubai. When I arrived in Dubai, I had to get a boarding card printed for my next flight by the air Emirates service desk. The chap I had been sat next to on the plane (Jessie, a multi-lingual bleach-blond first-year student, who was planning to revise for his university resits in Thailand) managed to get me to the front of the queue for first class passengers (some people have all the charm!) and I hoped that this swift service might help me get on board in time. Sadly not. So I hugged Jessie goodbye and was sent with a hotel voucher to the Copthorne Airport hotel as the next flight to Uganda isn’t until tomorrow. The man in front of me in the queue for hotel vouchers is migrating to Singapore. All his possessions arrive today in a container, while he will now be arriving tomorrow. This reminded me that my problems are small. The man behind me in the queue was on his way to New Zealand to teach rugby, he was issued a voucher to the same hotel as me so we strolled off together, and were presently allocated rooms on the same floor.

I did my best to send a message ahead to tell the organisation I'm working with about the delay but it was a real struggle because I was fighting to stay awake. Both the rugby teacher and I decided we would take naps until lunch. Although the bedrooms were very standard (I thought everything was done to excess in Dubai?!) the lunch buffet was glorious. The piece de resistance was that there was baklava for pudding (and lots of salad mum, don’t worry). There are lots of restaurants  and bars in the hotel including an English bar called ‘Biggles’ which I was very intrigued by – I’ve always wondered what international people eat at English restaurants. Turns out they eat shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, roast meat and curry. There’s that lifelong mystery cleared up. We had a couple of drinks there and I learnt that my companion (Will) not only went to Hoe Bridge School but lives in Woking and studied at Southampton.

In the afternoon we went for a walk. It would be a shame to be here after all and see no city. However, see no city was what we felt like we did as we couldn’t find anything particularly significant looking to see. Not even a sky scraper (how can a sky scraper hide?! I heard that there was meant to be one a mile high here). Nevertheless, in order to encounter all this nothingness we did have to venture out in the sweltering heat. It wasn’t long before we were both shining with sweat – not a good position to be in without a change of clothes. I dipped my feet into an office water fountain and even the water was warm! Presently we were offered a welcome interlude by the discovery of an ‘Irish village’ which needed some investigating and turned out to be a series of Irish pubs. Rather than being a non-smoking pub, or even a pub with a smoking area, we were seated in a small cordoned off non-smoking area of an otherwise smoke-friendly pub. How odd!

Before dinner there was time for showers.  I was a bit cautious in mine not to wash under my arms in case my deodorant was the type that lasts 48 hours. I can’t remember if it is, but it’s worth a chance. These are desperate times! My deodorant is in my hold luggage and so I won't see it again until I arrive in Uganda.

This evening we’ve been to a pool bar where we were served no drinks but had a lovely chat with the Egyptian bar man. Apparently Dubai offers him a much higher quality of life than Egypt does as there is “100% no corruption here”, one is safe walking in the streets and he is very pleased to have moved – you never hear that side of the story do you? I was always told that Dubai’s many migrants were an abused underclass.

The other interesting thing he told me was that he had a great deal of respect for David Cameron for resigning because in many parts of the world leaders hold on to power for grim death and never recognise that it is time to hand over the reins. That too I found very interesting since the only opinion I’ve heard voiced in the UK is that Cameron (and every other leader who has resigned recently) is abandoning Britain in her time of need. When you look at most other countries around the world the UK isn’t doing so badly really even if it does currently feel like it’s falling to pieces.

I’ve got to be up at 6am in the morning to catch tomorrow’s flight. However, I think this hotel is in league with Emirates airline (I found their logo on one of the doors to lend support to this theory) as breakfast starts at 5:30! They cater to every culture here and so serve dinner (incidentally featuring another type of baklava) until 00:30am just for the night owls. The chef must never sleep.

After the bar I feigned excess tiredness (difficult considering that we were 4h ahead of the UK time zone) and left Will to watch his hotel room TV by himself. But before I went to bed he gave me his number so that once my travels are over I can contact him in the UK and let him know how it all went. How sweet.