The most bizarre travel experience ever (part 1)

Where to start?

At the beginning. 4:00am, Tuesday, 16 April 2024, Bungendore, NSW, Australia

I wake early because I was too shagged (lazy) to pack last night. Plus my hip is giving me grief – sharp pains, spasms. Scans are ‘inconclusive’. Lucy is snoring away – deaf to the world in her content-Keplie way. I make a home-made coffee. Seriously disappointing and wonder what time Woodworks Café opens. Log-on to work, knock over the final bits and pieces.

12:00pm, my Out-of-Office is on! Time to get real. Chuck some items of clothing into a case (borrowed from friend). Gloves for UK, mozzie repellant for Singapore. Put some extra thought into carry-on. May need a change of clothes at Dubai – clean undies – toothpaste so I can freshen up before being picked up from hotel for tour at 9:00am on the day I arrive.

Pack the dog’s bed, food, treats, leash then drop her off at the dog sitters. The dog sitter isn’t home. Lucy looks at me from the porch as I drive away. Confused. Breaks my heart. I have a little cry, try not to look back. Finish packing, water plants.

Had a strange premonition the night before … that there would be a delay on Bungendore Road. Sure enough, a truck has spun out on the HQJOC roundabout. Debris and earth-moving machinery have been flung across the road and the verge. The cab of the truck has landed on its roof, crushed, the windscreen smashed. A man stands in the middle of the two lanes, guiding cars past the wreckage – including a metal pole that has been hit and is now laying across the road. He indicates to me to ‘slow down’. It is a seriously bad smash. Has only just happened – emergency services not yet on the scene. As I continue my way to Queanbeyan, a flurry of police cars go past me at-speed on their way to the crash site. Shortly the road will be closed. Startled and sobered, I drive in silence to Nicola’s.

Nicola drops me at the airport – gives me a huge hug and sends me on my way with good vibes (and her loaned suitcase). A small glass of sparkling in the lounge to celebrate. Check Melbourne-Dubai boarding pass. I’ve been given a shit seat right down the back of the plane. Ring Emirates, no chance of changing it, flight is full. No worries. No harm in asking.

Flight to Melbourne delayed. Will still make connection.

90 minute flight, arrive in Melbourne, race to the lounge to get changed into flight-activewear – including super sexy compression socks.

Have a last minute thought to make a sandwich to take on board. Sometimes they don’t serve enough food on these long hauls. And the last thing we want is a Hangry-Abbie at 5:00am in Dubai. Whip up a salad sandwich – skip the ham so I don’t go to halal-hell, wrap it in some napkins and head down to join the throng at the gate. All 600+ of them. My neighbours are a young, well-behaved, polite German couple. We exchange pleasantries then settle in for the long haul. Depart 9:05pm, Tuesday, 16 April 2024. Happy happy happy.

I work on my crochet and watch some mindless comedy until I am finally overcome with sleep. I find sleeping difficult on planes, trains, automobiles – I take what I can get – which is usually between 4-6 hours on these stretches. Not ideal but enough to ‘function’.

14 hours later we are approaching Dubai Airport. Captain announces there will be a wait. A long wait. Massive backlog of air traffic. Out the window we can see dozens of planes circling at various altitudes. It seems to go on forever. Circling, circling. Out over the desert. More time passes. Finally, the engines gun and we pick up speed. The young chap next to me says “we’re not going to Dubai International Airport”. WTF? “We’re going in a different direction”.

And then the nightmare begins.

The flight tracker shows us heading away from Dubai International. No announcement. 600 very confused passengers (and cabin crew). A short flight later we land. There is literally tumbleweed and sand floating across the runway, grass growing through the cracks. We have absolutely no idea where we are – what airport, what country even. Can see some cargo planes in the distance. Still no announcement. It’s getting seriously weird.

We didn’t know if it was a terror event or something equally as sinister. We had no idea about the floods. The rain began in Dubai late Monday, 15 April 2024, The storms intensified about 9:00am on Tuesday and continued during the day. By the end of Tuesday, more than 142mm of rain had fallen over 24 hours. An average year brings 97mm of rain. Here’s the thing, we departed Melbourne 9:00pm on the evening of Tuesday, 16 April – which would have been 3:00pm in Dubai. By then they should have known how bad the situation was and either diverted incoming flights (we were in the air for 14 hours so ample time) or, delayed the departure. Instead, they allowed flights to keep heading to Dubai – even when there was nowhere to put them. The way Dubai Airports and Emirates handled it, was exceptionally poor.

Finally the Captain announced we were at Dubai World Central Airport and would be here indefinitely. No, we could not leave the plane. He had no estimate of how long we would be there.

3 hours later he advises they have re-fuelled and have a new flight plan. Just waiting for ATC to give us the go-ahead. Next to us is parked another Emirates A380, another next to that. And another …

Before leaving Australia I had purchased an e-sim for the UAE. 1 gig for 4 USD. Everyone near me was transiting through Dubai, I was one of the few who were staying (though that time was rapidly ticking away!) As such, they had not activated roaming for the UAE. One of my neighbours had spent 12 pounds making a call to the UK to let her partner know what the situation was. 

Bring on Basil Brush! I enabled my hot-spot to my new EK407 friends so they could get some comms out. A woman a few rows ahead used my phone to WhatsApp her partner in Austria, another used it to email her husband. Others used it to check status of outgoing flights. There was no chance they would make their connections – we didn’t know then, just how insane the situation was at Dubai International.

2 hours later the passengers of EK407 are getting restless. An aussie-aussie-aussie asks the obvious question: can he have a drink? No, given we’re in the UAE, they can’t serve alcohol. Which is actually just as well as having people getting drunk in this situation would not have ended kindly. Everyone was trying their hardest to keep cool but we were all exhausted, frustrated – it could have all unravelled very quickly if someone had kicked off. Credit to the cabin crew for making that call.

After 5 and a half hours the plane starts reversing. The Captain announces we are cleared to fly to Dubai. Will take 10 minutes flying at 4,000 ft. Big cheers from the passengers. The upside of this rather odd flight was, we had a 20-minute aerial ‘tour’ of Dubai. It became apparent how severe the floods were. Submerged cars, roads blocked, complete chaos. There are claps and cheers when the plane touches down at Dubai International. A (massively) untimely survey pops up on our screens asking us to ‘rate’ our journey!

There are a few puddles near the runway but nothing that would indicate a catastrophic event had passed through. Crew announces we’ll be waiting for a gate. How long? Don’t know. We’ve run out of water, food. Passengers are resorting to  Guerrilla tactics to scavenge food from the galley – mini chocolate bars and nuts. We find some bananas – these are given to the kids. An Indian woman gives me some sweet snacks, I inhale them quickly before others get wind of this new food source.

2 hours later, we're still waiting for a gate. We have now nearly clicked over 24 hours sitting on EK407.

Finally we taxi for what seems like kilometres to some far distant gate. On the plane cameras we can see we have arrived but there is no staff to activate the sky-walks. Waiting waiting. We were due to arrive at 5:00am, it is now 2:55pm. The first photo I took upon embarkation (fancy word) was taken in Melbourne at 8:49pm, 16 April 2024 (AEST). The photo to the right was taken after disembarkation (even more fancy) at Dubai at 8:55pm, 17 April 2024 (AEST).

By the time we disembarked, we were in a fog. No one knew where to go or what to do. Everyone had either missed their connection or their flight had been cancelled. I was ‘fortunate’ to have a hotel booked. There was no baggage as there were no baggage-handlers to take the luggage off the aircraft. We were told to “go to your accommodation” and return to the airport in 2 hours time to collect. This was the first of many bullshit stories fed by airport staff / Emirates. The hotel I had booked for one night had a shuttle service. Find shuttle bus stand. Wait an hour and a half. No bus. Ring hotel. No bus. Ring hotel again. No bus. Check out Google maps, it is a 45 minute walk. I am shattered, my feet swollen, cannot do it. Need to rest. A driver of another shuttle takes pity and offers me a bottle of water – so welcome. Another hotel shuttle bus – who has been around twice, also takes pity on me and offers to drop me at the Millenium on his way. Two kind gestures after a day of weirdness and stress.

The hotel staff are stressed too. The hotel is booked out – thousands of passengers are clamoring for accommodation. The pool is not able to be used due to the flooding (sewage etc.) They are short-staffed as many staff are unable to get to work – the metro is still not operating, there are no taxis, some roads are still impassable.

I get to my room. Dump my bag, flick off my shoes and make a beeline for the wonderfully clean toilet (using the toilet on the plane – with no water – after 24 hours – was not a pleasant experience). Enjoy a long, hot shower, take stock.

Need to get back to the airport to collect my bag.

The airport is a nightmare. Masses of people completely confused – there is no one to answer questions. Like no one. I go to the arrival area – as instructed – to find my bag. Nope. A chap in a long white nighty tells me, and the few dozen others, to basically ‘fuck off’ (kind of get the universal gesture). No way are we getting our bags. We’re told to go and lodge a lost-baggage report. I’ve been cool, calm but things are starting to heat up. The lack of information, the mis-information, the outright lies spun by the airport staff and Emirates is astounding. I join a mob of American, Italian, Sudanese, South African men who are determined to get this sorted. No luck. Despite our pleas, the no-fucks-given staff, airport police walk away, no answers, no assistance. One of the American men in our 'posse' has a square tracker in his case. He can literally ‘see’ his bag. Right there, behind the wall! Nope. None shall pass.

Now, I know some of you will be bristling at my comments re. our UAE friends. And yes, I may now be on some security watch list. The truth is, the way Dubai International Airport and Emirates handled the situation was appalling. It was the type of experience you would expect in a poor, developing country without the means to deal with such a catastrophic weather event. When you have a large amount of people displaced, helpless, you need strong leadership, organisation – and most of all, information. Dubai = massive fail. For a seemingly modern, progressive city and the biggest international passenger hub in the World, it stinks.

A few days later I saw an interview with Paul Griffiths, the CEO of Dubai Airports, with a net worth of ~ $24 million – sitting in the back of his Bentley, proudly announcing the airport was now operating at full capacity.

While the floods were unprecedented, the way they dealt with it was appalling. Being fobbed off  – the lack of information, assistance, food (apparently over 75,000 food packs were delivered to the airports but the people I spoke to – some who had been stuck, sleeping in the terminal for 3 days – had seen nothing.) Absolutely disgraceful.

As instructed, I dutifully made my way to the 24/7 lost-luggage office to file a report. It was overflowing. The 3-4 staff at the front were trying their hardest but in truth, there was nothing they could do. We had seen thousands of bags just stacked next to the carousels (and there are a lot of carousels!) There was simply no staff to move them. These 4 poor souls, on the nightshift, were the only ‘face’ of the airport or Emirates. It became clear, nobody there was going to see their bag tonight. It was nearing 11pm and I was hot, hungry, exhausted, my feet were swollen, I could barely stand. Decided to call it a night, head back to the hotel, get some food and sleep.

It was just as well I saved my fighting spirit as I would need it for the next day.

The hotel has a couple of dining options including a ye-olde style pub, a sports-bar, a Japanese restaurant and because it's Dubai, a Mexican restaurant. I take an outside table at Cactus Jacks and order a burrito and a glass of wine. There are a few others nearby but otherwise the evening is quiet. I enjoy the peace, being away from the cattle, the noise.

Until …. she arrives. A loud, brash American women who chose to sit at the table right behind me. Not at one of the many spare tables inside or outside but right. next. to. me. I was not in the mood for conversation. And then it started. Miss USA placed her order which included numerous ‘tweaks’. The lovely young waitress was polite and obliging. Then the complaints started. “Tell the chef there is too much oil in the dressing”. The waitress apologised profusely and offered to replace it. Miss USA said “no, I don’t want this food going to waste”. I was so embarrassed by this woman. I so so wanted to say something along the lines of “you’re here in a middle of a weather, logistical, transport crisis and you’re complaining there is too much oil in the dressing?! Fuck me.” But I didn’t because I simply couldn’t be arsed. That’s a first.

Wednesday, 17 April 2024

I set my alarm for 3:45am – just in case, by some miracle – my 7:25am flight to Newcastle is a goer. Mixed messages come through via text and email. Message sent at 1:00am advises flight has been delayed till 10:00am = a few more hours sleep = excellent. 7:00am, back on the shuttle. The word on the street: don’t go to the airport unless your flight has been confirmed. I have only received advice my flight has been delayed – not cancelled. Ringing Emirates is a waste of time. The only way to get any information is to go to the airport.

The airport was total chaos. There were vague queues but really, it was a complete shambles. One man estimated there were 10,000 in the Emirates check-in space alone. So here’s the thing … we’re all there, this confused mass of people, all trying to get out of Dubai … however the check-in counters don’t open until 9:00am. More people keep arriving at the terminal. Nowhere to go. 8:58am rolls around and a sole Emirates staff member takes her seat at the counter. The crowd literally claps and cheers. Then another. It’s actually kind of nice – makes them feel like rock stars.

I can see I’m not going to get anywhere for at least 6, 7, 8 hours. I take turns with my new-queue-friends to visit the toilet. I entertain getting a coffee. I ask a woman next to me where she got hers, apparently she waited 45 minutes in a queue to order then another 30 minutes to get it. There is nowhere to get food. Starving. Living on a burrito. A couple more Emirates staff take their seat at the counter. Hallelujah.

Being stressed, jet-lagged, it hadn’t occurred to me that as I was still the nominated lounge partner of he-who-will-be-mentioned, it might be possible to check-in at the Business Counter. I ask my Pale-Amsterdam and young-London-student queue-buddies if they can mind my bag while I go and investigate. Just getting across the terminal – all of 200 metres takes about 15 minutes – dodging, weaving, pushing. Sure enough, even though he’s dropped down to paltry Gold status, I can still check-in. I hustle back to my queue-pals, say my farewells, wish them luck and battle my way across the concourse again.

First Class/Business check-in counters are heaving. Heaving with slightly more expensive luggage but the queues are still long. I estimate the queue I joined to be about 20-deep, the ones out on the concourse were pushing 200. With perhaps 50 counters? Only 9-10 of which were manned? I stood behind a lovely older couple and exchanged pleasantries. A cheery aussie chap joins the queue – seeing my passport he swoops over to say ‘hi’. Others are less friendly – less friendly than economy. We settle in for the long-haul. Many people make it to the counter only to be told their flight has been cancelled. The only option for them now is to join the queue at the ticketing counter or ring Emirates (ha!) to get themselves booked on another flight. They leave the counter empty-handed. It’s a nightmare. Finally the dear old ducks ahead of me make it to the front. I can’t believe I am SO CLOSE. With relief, they score a Golden Ticket and head off.

On my most polite, calm and best behaviour, I move up to the counter. As I do so, a young woman swoops in next to me asking if she can ask the Emirates woman a question. She is desperate, panicked – as we all are. Feeling charitable, I say ‘yes, of course’. The question then becomes … “and here are our passports and the flight we need to be on”.

Now, those of you that know me know I’m not as innocent as I look. The hobbit-like stature, blonde hair, friendly smile belies a dark creature that will turn on you like a cut snake if you cross her. I shift gear. My calm demeanor rapidly moves to: ah, no – not ok. It was ok for you to ask a question, not ok for you to jump the queue in front of me and the hundreds behind. She shouts at me in a language I don’t understand – but I kind of get the gist. No worries. I ignore her, move my body in front of her skinny white eastern-block arse and proceed to speak directly to the Emirates woman to sort my flight.

Suddenly I am confronted by the skinny white eastern-block-arse’s boyfriend/husband. He is a giant. Heavily muscled, covered in tatts and, to my amusement, wearing his ‘gucci’ sunglasses inside. He bears down on me, inches from my face, shouting in some Slavic language. I tell him calmly but directly “no, you go to the back of the queue”. He raises his hand and smacks the back of my hand – sending my passport and paperwork flying. I am not alarmed, instead I’m just thinking how incredibly stupid he is to strike a person – a woman – in the UAE. I say “you are behaving like a child, go to the back of the queue”. He looms over me. Shouting in ….. whatever. I continue, “if you hit me, you will go to jail. I’m pretty sure jail in Dubai will not be a comfortable experience”. By now, there are numerous male passengers – including my fellow aussie-queue-pal – inserting themselves between me and the thug. No staff, no security, no assistance. The ogre and his bit slink away into the crowd.

Shaking, I turn back to the Emirates woman who hands me a boarding pass. She apologises for the man’s behaviour. I tell her she has no need to apologise, it’s not her fault, I just don’t like it when people jump the queue. I walk away with a Golden Ticket (ie. boarding pass) for flight to Newcastle Upon Tyne. Bring it on.

Nerdy-White-Middle-Aged-Woman: 1

Wankers: 0