The Agrinautica

   Continuing the book. Recall last time I had just left Australia (the first time) to go do some projects in Africa.

Escape from Dubai

I didn’t expect it to be so hard to escape Dubai.

Dubai, 05:20am [2013] - After walking what feels like literal miles through the shopping-mall-like Dubai airport I arrive at the in-terminal hotel. It’s accessed from an elevator from the main terminal concourse and with no access to the outside feels like it’s in some kind of in-terminal pocket dimension. The Organization had booked me in for my 24 hour layover, unfortunately somehow managing to book me as “Kenneth” Fricke but that is apparently close enough.
   “If I leave the airport terminal will I be able to get back in?” I ask the girl at the front desk.
   “Probably?” she says. I notice she’s wearing a “trainee” tag. With this ringing endorsement I set out to wend back through the shopping mall terminal to the airport exit.
   The raised light-rail connects right to the terminal and ticketing is easy and simple. Where to go now? I’ve been hearing about the Dubai MAll like it’s the Eighth Wonder of the World (there’s an ice rink!), so lacking a better idea I head there. As the train approaches the mall, the massive tower of Burj Khalifa looms up larger and larger. It stands just beside the mall, looming over it.
   And the mall, well, it’s just a really enormous mall. Yes there’s an ice rink full of hockey players, and a giant aquarium full of sharks, neither of which admittedly the Mission Viejo Mall has but I was getting hungry and the restaurants I could find were Subway, Baja Fresh, Johnny Rockets, McDonalds, Starbucks, Cinnabon, I might as well be in a small town American mall. Finally I eat at a French style bakery named “Paul” under the misapprehension that it’s not a chain, only to find numerous other instances of it in other places throughout the day. Does Dubai have a rule against non-chains?
   To go up in The Burj would cost $30 and is already fully booked for the day so that is out. I find a map of Dubai posted on a wall and look at it for ideas as to how I might find something worthwhile here. The area just beside the mall is labeled “Old Town”, but, while it is full of some impressive palatial buildings, fountains and man-made lakes but it all looks thoroughly modern, basically a luxury mock-up of an old town. And here’s another Paul bakery.
   Maybe the Dubai Marina will be more interesting. I take the metro rail there, where I find another grove of skyscrapers. Just off the coast the sail shaped “7 star” hotel can be seen on one of the many man-made islands. I was hoping to see some crazy megayachts as I walked along the waterfront but they must live elsewhere. Not that any vessels in evidence were anything less than swanky, but this is boring swanky. There’s a beach of white sand with small waves, crowded with beachgoers. Bikini-clad European tourists mingle with local women clad head to foot in black robes, expensive sunglasses obscuring even their eyes. Camels amble past, mounted with tourists, and just offshore a nearby little skydiving airport on yet-another artificial peninsula periodically sends its patrons buzzing up into the sky to be cast out and float down like colorful dandelions in the breeze. I take off my shoes, roll my pants up and waded into the warm ocean water up to my waist.

   In one more attempt to try to find something authentic in Dubai I scrutinize a map and see an area marked “Old Souk” in a bend at the mouth of Dubai Creek. Logically this is where the town would have started from, and Souk means market, so I head back that way on the train.
The sprawling bazaar situated between bends of the river is filled with local people in traditional robes, and almost devoid of tourists. Unlike the bazaars I’d previously been to in Turkey and Egypt, no one seems interested in hassling passersby to come in and purchase their wares. Bored shopkeepers instead sit on the front steps of their little shops idly texting away, a truly timeless scene. The lack of being hassled makes it quite pleasant to stroll through canopied alleys and narrow labyrinthine streets of the bazaar. Here in the one place all the advertising doesn’t seem to be pushing anyone to go, I have found what I was looking for!
   On the riverfront, dozens of interesting cargo vessels are lined up -- about the size of small fishing trawlers, but made of wood, with wide bodies and huge deckhouses, the front section loaded with heaps of boxes or bails of everything from boxed televisions to fruits or tires.
   Prior to this trip I had bought cheap off my cousin, who shipped it to me in Australia from Ireland, a Nikon D200 DSLR, the kind of camera with a big lense on front you focus by turning. In capturing various authentic scenes around the Souk, I am pleasantly surprised to find that while when taking pictures with a phone people tend to stop what they’re doing and smile in a very posed manner, with the more serious looking camera people either keep doing what they're doing or at least pose in a serious looking manner.
   And finally, an authentic restaurant! By the river there is a likely looking place, a large boxy building with an arcade of arches along one side, a sign proclaims it to be "Barjeel Al-Arab's Guest House." I enter and take the stairs up to the restaurant on the flat rooftop. Opening the menu I behold a list of delicious sounding local food: “marinated minced lamb with cinnamon, pomegranate syrup, flakes and pistachio nuts, coated in a grain crust and deep fried” (for $7.63!), “marinated tender chicken morsels with yogurt, onions, and seasoning and char grilled,” camel meat, and whatever “cheese samboosek, spinach fatayer, fried kibbeh and meat samboosek” is. As I dig in to my delicious meal the sun slowly sets into the hazy horizon over the sea.

   After this delightful dining experience I feel quite cheerful as I head back to the airport.
   The uniformed guard looking at boarding passes outside the security area of Terminal 3 stops me.
   “Your ticket says 0500, that would have been 5am, and it's now nearly 7 P M, your flight left over twelve hours ago.”
   “No it’s tomorrow morning look” I point at the date but the guard doesn’t seem able to make sense of it. The person behind me helpfully tries to explain this to the guard in Arabic but it still doesn’t seem to convince him.
   “The ticket stub is nearly detached from itself, you need to go get a new one at the check in desks” he says, changing his tack. My ticket is indeed worse for wear after being in my pocket all day.

   So I go to the nearby Emirates ticket counter.
   “That’s actually an Egyptai ticket, you need to go see them in Terminal 1“
   So I get back on the light rail and ride it down to the other terminal. Try my luck with security again but they too feel I really need a new boarding pass. I go to the check-in area, but find there is no Egyptair check-in desk. So I go back to security, they tell me I should go back to the "Danata" desk, and where to find it.
I bounce around like a pinball for awhile as various desks deny being the Danata desk or claim to be not the Danata desk I was looking for. Finally I corner two girls behind a Danata desk with nowhere left to hide, and they desperately point to a stern looking woman out on the floor and say she is the supervisor and only she could help me.
   "The ticket stub shouldn't be a problem at all, it's not an issue” she informs me after all this. “...but they won't let you check in until three hours before your flight."
I don’t lose my temper but sometimes it's best to pretend one is about to. I do my best to appear I’m about to cause a scene, explaining once again that I have a hotel room booked in the in-terminal hotel and am not going to sleep on a chair outside check-in.
   Finally she relents, or at least decides to let me explode somewhere else – “well I can print you a new ticket but without a doubt immigration won’t let you through."


   I cruise through security with my shiny new non-torn ticket. Next up... Passport Control! I get in one of the many lines and slowly work my way to the front. About halfway through, whereupon I can finally clearly see the officials at the terminus of each line, I begin to seriously regret my line choice. The guy serving the line to my left seems to be having a hilarious time with each and every person going through, whereas my line ends in a dour looking woman with a frown. Should I change lines? No they’d probably think that looked very suspicious., probably automatically qualifies you for a full body cavity search. Plus I’m already halfway through the line, and it took long enough to get here already.
   Finally get up to the desk, poised to be as disarmingly unsuspicious as possible. She takes one look at me, gives me a sour look, and turns around and exits the control kiosk.
   A young fellow replaces her. Excellent I think to myself his mind won't be settled into it yet, he'll be as prone as one could hope for to miss such a detail!
   He leafs through my passport, frowns, gives me a displeased look. "it's wet." he says in a “I’m-very-disappointed-in-you” tone.
   “Uh, yes, sorry." It had been in a lower pocket in my pants when I was frolicking on the beach.
   And with that he seems satisfied he'd done his duty to give me a hard time, stamps it, and waves me through.

   Though it seems unthinkable that the two terminals wouldn't be connected, at this point I’m expecting anything that could go wrong to go wrong, and as I walk what feels like a mile to the other end of Terminal 1, where I hope to find a connection to Terminal 3 (there appear to only be two terminals, 1 and 3?), the complete lack of any signage about terminal 3 begins to alarm me. What if they aren't connected? What if I'd spent all that time getting into the terminal that my hotel ISN'T in????

   But of course they were. What feels like another mile to the end of Terminal 3, and I limp into the elevator up to my room. Ahhh my room at last .... why isn't my key working? Urgh!
   Back to the elevator, down to the lobby and.... nearly hyperventilate when I find the lobby standing room only with what must be 150 Arab persons trying to check in. I wade into the crowd and pounce on a staffmember whom I find momentarily vulnerable. When they look up my account on the computer they ask me "You're not 'Kenneth' Fricke?"
   Anyway they do something to the key and say it should work now. I go back up to my room... door still won't open. Nearly scream in frustration.
   Storm back down to reception. This time they apparently perform some stronger magick and it actually works. Finally get into my room, about three hours after I had initially entered the airport.