My dear Steem Friends,
Off we go! The twenty-five hour journey from Prague to Denpasar seemed somehow even longer after the New Year’s Eve festivities. It all started at the Vaclav Havel Airport in the early afternoon of the first of January. After checking in and getting a coffee, we were finally sat on the airplane to Dubai, our first stop. The flight was nice and comfortable, except for the occasional turbulence (which somehow managed to be even more unpleasant on the day after New Year’s Eve). Landing safely in Dubai at around one in the morning local time, we took a short bus ride to the terminal. Even though it was late, we decided to go out and explore the city. What seemed like a straightforward task, proved to be quite the challenge.
We had become frustrated by the long, barely-moving lines at passport control. At one point, we overheard a lady from the adjacent line complaining about the inefficiency of the whole process to a guard. “Half of the booths are closed.” She said. “There are three people at each open booth, and only one of them actually completes the check; the other two just sit there. Now you’ve assigned two lines per booth. Would it be possible to have one of the three go and open another booth?” All those around her nodded in accord. The chief policeman was called to deal with the “issue.” When the lady tried to make her point to him, he demonstrated the typical stereotype of how Middle-Eastern men treat women. “What does it matter to you if you stand here for two minutes or two hours?” He said. “It’s none of your business.” When the poor lady tried to respond, the chief just barked: “Don’t talk anymore!” Then turned around and left. We all stood there in awe. “We’re not in Europe anymore.” Someone said.
“WE’RE NOT IN EUROPE ANYMORE.”
After that jolly episode, and slight passport troubles, we were finally standing out in the humid Gulf air. The big question now was: how do we get downtown? As a group of eleven, taking taxis was impractical, and the Dubai metro was already closed for the night. As we stood there, trying to figure out how to find an adventure during our long eight-hour layover, a miracle happened. Out of nowhere a man approached us and asked us whether we wanted a tour. Obviously, we said that we wanted one, but none of us could have expected what was to happen. The miraculous man, our trip-saver, directed us toward a town bus. Apparently, we were to get a whole bus just for ourselves, with our own driver who would take us around Dubai for several hours; all that for a price of a taxi ride from the Prague Airport to the downtown.
Sounds like it’s too good to be true? We thought so as well. But the evening; well, morning, really (after 2 am by the time we got through immigration), ended up being even better than a private tour on a private bus. Our driver, who was the kindest and friendliest man, told us all about the city, broke parking regulations in order to get us as close as possible to various attractions, and took photos of us wherever we wanted. That’s how we found ourselves posing in front of the Burj Khalifa, Burj al-Arab, or the Atlantis hotel. Things got even more interesting when we mentioned we were a little hungry. He quickly told us to get into the bus; he said he would take us to his favorite place. A few minutes later, the bus driver—Mohammad, I believe—was pulling the bus off to the side, parallel-parking it next to a little Egyptian bistro. We were so full of excitement and a sense of “is this really happening right now,” that we just got out of the bus, without asking any questions.
We were greeted by a group of Egyptians, who it felt like, had opened the restaurant just for us. The menus seemed to be never-ending, so we just asked what the staff and our bus driver recommended. “Don’t worry,” they said, “we prepare traditional Egyptian dinner for you.” A couple minutes later the two tables we had joined were stuffed with different plates and platters. Falafel, hummus, and Egyptian version of pizza everywhere—and I mean everywhere. No matter how much we tried, we weren’t even close to finishing all of the delicious food we were given. Whatever we didn't finish we had packed, and gave it to Mohammad to take home to his family.
From there, it was only a quick drive to get back to the airport, where, after saying our good-byes to Mohammad, we waited for a couple of hours before getting on our flight to Denpasar, Bali. The food vouchers we had been given by Emirates for our long layover in Dubai were rendered useless by this point—we still used them though, for coffee and other refreshments for the long 10-hour journey. Again, not a very eventful flight, except for a slight turbulence here and there.
Landing in Bali was accompanied with an enormous sense of excitement. Some of us danced, some just laughed, but we were all ready to start this big adventure so far far away from our beloved palace in Prague.
Is there a way to summarize our journey to Bali and, specifically, our adventure in Dubai? Yes. No matter how much we would have tried to plan this beforehand, it wouldn't have come even close, in terms of pure awesomeness, to what we experienced in those 25 hours.