Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Dubai & JazeeraAirways - an Unholy Alliance

So the past two weekends placed me in different Gulf states and gave me a different perspective on life in Kuwait.

By far, if I had to choose a place to relocate to, it would definitely be Qatar.

Dubai is overhyped. It is more like Don't Buy. I seriously detested the airport treatment to get a visa. Here is why.

You get there, and you have to go to Room 1 to get a silly form to fill out, you have to go to a special area to fill out the form, then you have to go to the bank to pay the fees. With so many visitors to Dubai, you would think the bank would have more than one teller. You would be mistaken.

To add further insult to injury, the lines move at snail-pace, and they give you a retinal scan before entry.

However, in all fairness, the clerk there was immensely friendly, and we spoke about the team shirt I was wearing at the time.

However, what I do not understand is the nationality segregation in Dubai. You would think they would have learnt their lesson with the assassination of Mabhouh and the letting of Europeans/ Canadians/ Americans in without screening, but no. Its still the downtrodden who remain downtrodden. The Egyptians, the Lebanese, the Syrians, The Bangladeshi's, the Indians.

I was actually standing in line and saying, Hey! If you are of fair skin and hair, go over there to the shorter queues!

My Irish team-mates were waiting for an hour for me to exit.

Then, to add insult to injury, Jazeera Airways postponed the return flight for about 4hrs. On the phone they cited something about flights from Alexandria, then at the airport they said something about a sandstorm in Kuwait. Neither were true.

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