FROM DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

(click on thumbnail images to enlarge)

Unexpected Dubai Visit

(Sorry about the slightly blurry images. It's entirely my fault.  Not expecting to use my camera anymore after Singapore, I had forgotten to reset it from the long aperture setting)

DUBAI, Mar 24, 2007 - Indeed, we landed in Dubai shortly after 1AM local time after about a 7-hour flight from Singapore.  The temperature was a balmy 26C (77F) even at this time of night.

I debated whether or not to stay on board, but decided to disembark after hearing the stopover was 1.5 hours.  Little did I know what that would mean... one hour fighting the airport crowds and half an hour recovering from it in the airline lounge.

Nearly all arriving flights have to park on tarmac, like ours or this Royal Brunei jet.  The passengers are then bussed to the enormous terminal that serves as crossroads for many Far East and Australia destinations or returns.

When we disembarked from the bus, we faced a regular mêlée inside the terminal building.  It was the first time ever that I had to go security UPON ARRIVAL in a country.

Once we passed security, this was the scene that awaited us inside the terminal... a regular zoo.  I asked the staff in the lounge later on if the place is as busy all day long.  They said it was not; only between midnight and 5AM when most transit flights arrive.

During a long walk through the terminal building to the lounge I saw people sprawled everywhere... on the floor, on the benches, practically hanging off the walls.

From what I could see, Dubai is quite a modern city.  That is also evident from this airport billboard with its impressive skyline.

But Dubai is also home to some of the finest Arabian horses, and has a rich horse breeding tradition.  The owners of last year's Kentucky Derby winner, for example, the late Barbaro, are from Dubai.

And on that note, our flight is being called, and I have to head back to the airplane for our 5.5 hour-hop to Moscow...

FROM ON BOARD THE FLIGHT TO MOSCOW, Mar 24 - I was interested to see how we were going to be routed, since a straight line northeast from Dubai to Moscow would lead over Iran (see above map). 

As I suspected, that was not to be.  Our flight path took us along the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, across Saudi Arabia, safely skirting Iraq's western border, so as to avoid even that troubled spot.  We then flew over Jordan, Syria and Turkey, crossing the Black Sea into Russia.  Traveling in troubled times is never on a straight line.  

During my June 2006 trip around the world, for example, we also had to avoid Iran on a flight from Singapore to Frankfurt.  But that time, we flew north of it over Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.  And in the 1990s, we also dipsy-doodled [sic] around the former Yugoslavia when flying to and from the Orient, and again, had to avoid Iraq and its 'no fly' zones in the aftermath of the Gulf War I, and the UN sanctions that followed.  Travel and politics seem closely intertwined.

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