A sporran full of sand

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FINALLY got around to renewing my gym membership and went there after work last night for what was supposed to be an invigorating post-working day workout.  Unfortunately the club was so crowded, I could not get to use a single cardio machine for the entire time I was there (1 hour+) - people were actually 'bagging' treadmills and/or queueing behind users, waiting for them to finish. Weights machines were little different, with the added irritation of 'users' sitting on machines while they called/texted from their mobiles (in true selfish Dubai resident style...)

Two things here : in their greed-driven pursuit of revenue at all cost, Fitness First have just sold (and continue to sell) memberships with no eye on club/equipment capacity (and this is not unique to the UAE; I found the same dynamic at play in FF in Malaysia and Indonesia).  So all the 'benefits' they advertise to potential members are all BS in fact, since you can't access most of the facilities when you actually want to use them (viz, after work) - I have no doubt the place is quiet at (say) 11.30am or 2.45pm, but I'm not a Mirdiff Mum/Jumeirah Jane type and have to earn a living during daylight hours, so that's not an option.

Secondly - what on Earth can be so urgent/interesting/compelling that drives people to tote their mobiles while working out, for God's sake?!  (Personally, I'm glad to be away from mine for an hour or so.) I say ban mobiles from the gym.

Driving to work this morning was the usual madness, spent avoiding the usual Dubai morons with their maniacal driving habits - and causing major accidents as a result. 

During the (normally 15-minute) drive to work today, I saw three major accidents, and driving home I saw five - which is relatively normal here. Most are caused by the typical Dubai driver habits of tailgating (driving too close to the car in front); zig-zagging in and out of lanes without signalling (indicators - an optional accessory here, or so it seems); poor lane discipline; switching on their hazard warning lights when braking (?!); excessive speeding; texting or speaking on mobile phones while driving or simply not paying any attention to the car in front or anything else for that matter. The thing is, roads are great here - most countries can only dream of having highways even half as nice as those in Dubai.

The biggest accident so far was in March last year, when 350 (!) vehicles were involved in a mass pile-up on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway - says it all.

Check out the video on the right - accidents filmed by CCTV cameras in Dubai's airport tunnel - to give you an idea of driving habits here.  Luckily, I am in possession of excellent hand-eye-foot coordination and manage to (literally) steer clear of those with a deathwish - although soon after buying the Land Rover at the beginning of last year, I was rammed from the rear by a woman who jumped out of her (now flattened) Mazda and said (quote) "sorry - I didn't see your car!"  It's a dirty great big Land Rover, woman - did you leave your guide dog at home that day?!

Welcome to Dubai.

...that Emirates is even more inept than previously assumed (see previous post).

Two days before departure, I get a call from Emirates telling me that they are going to cancel my booking as I had double booked (sound familiar...?).  I explained the whole saga (see previous post); assured them I had indeed made a booking from Dubai to Glasgow (and not Brisbane to Glasgow via Dubai); I was indeed who I said I was and had indeed paid for the ticket which I had every intention of using on 22nd December.

So, I show up at Dubai Airport on 22nd December for my flight to Glasgow; present my e-ticket (freshly printed off their website that morning) and passport at the check-in counter...and was duly informed that my ticket had been 'suspended' (huh? that's a new one for me) and was therefore no longer valid. (I should have known better than to assume all would be in order.)

Was instructed to go queue up at the ticketing counter (one staff on duty; queue of about six people; each one with an amazingly complex/difficult ticketing issue requiring much animated discussion/raised voices/flailing of arms), where I would be able to 'un-suspend' (de-suspend?) my invalid ticket...30 minutes later I was still waiting and the queue hadn't moved. Asked one of those officious-looking/walkie talkie-toting Emirates 'manager' types who seemed to be in charge if she could help, since the clock was ticking and I was a victim of Emirates' wrongdoing (after all)...her response was to then move me to the excess baggage counter queue...

Finally came to my turn at the excess baggage counter and the poor guy there had no idea why I was there, what I meant by 'my ticket has been suspended' or how he could possibly help me, given that he was the excess baggage guy. He therefore called over Ms Walkie Talkie and she moved me back to the ticketing counter, which by this time had even more people queueing up.

Long story short - I eventually got to the head of the queue; was asked to pay AED120 (about USD33) for a date change (which bizarrely had never been mentioned during my various 'phone calls with Emirates regarding the 'double booking and subsequent cancellations by them; nor on the 'manage my booking' section of their website, where I'd had to print the e-ticket from, since they'd never actually e-mailed me one...) and only just made the flight - I think I was the last passenger on board.

"Keep discovering" indeed - only I doubt they mean keep discovering new levels of incompetence/ineptitude.

PS: I must say I find it bizarre that, after the multi-billion investment and much heralded opening of the Emirates-dedicated Terminal 3, we passengers still suffer the ignominy of being packed into buses like sardines and bussed on a very circuitous route to the remotely-parked aircraft. Perhaps naively, I thought Terminal 3 was supposed to address all of DXB's overcrowding woes, no?

A week today I'll be headed to Scotland, to spend Christmas and New Year there with my family. I booked my flights a few weeks ago (online, as always) and a couple of days later called Emirates to postpone my departure by one day, due to a client commitment here in Dubai. That went smoothly and all was confirmed.

Yesterday however I realised that I had never been sent an amended e-ticket - although this isn't usually a problem (I've frequently changed flight dates in the past, but so long as the e-ticket shows the booking reference number, it's no problem), I nonetheless decided to log on to Emirates' website to print out an updated copy of the e-ticket.

So I log on - and I'm informed that my "booking reference number does not exist". I therefore call Emirates' call centre, and I am informed that (a) my booking has been cancelled, as I have double booked (?!) and (b) my flights from Brisbane (?!!) to Glasgow are confirmed as requested?!!  Long story short - turns out there's a guy with the exact same name as me flying to Glasgow on the exact same day as me, only he's in Brisbane and not Dubai.  Bizarre however that it did not occur to Emirates to inform me they were cancelling my flights, or check with me regarding the apparent double booking...

Luckily - after about 30 minutes on the 'phone - I managed to re-book my flights (fortunately there were still seats available) and all is well with the world again.  Just thankful my anally retentive side forced me to print out an updated e-ticket, otherwise I'd be showing up at Dubai Airport next Monday to be told I had no seat on the flight to Glasgow and/or I had already flown from Brisbane.

Well we're now only four days away from the 1st December, which traditionally in Scotland (or at least, in my family) is the date we set up our Christmas tree.  Can't wait!  Funnily enough, after spending the last 23+ years overseas (primarily in tropical SE Asia), I still insist on observing this tradition and at least attempting to create some semblance of Christmas ambience.

Setting up and decorating the tree is of course just the beginning...there then follows the appearance of mystery presents at its base and splurging on 'special treats' just for the festive season (think mince pies; Christmas cake; Lebkuchen; clootie dumpling...!)

Last year (our first Christmas in Dubai), we bought a 2.5m (almost 8') tall tree and it looked just fabulous...I guess some part of me will forever remain the little boy, counting the 'sleeps' until Santa Claus arrives :-)  Meanwhile, I'll be happy just counting the sleeps until we set up our Christmas tree!

As mentioned a few days ago, I was in possession of a new PIN number for the non-existent new credit card...

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well the new card arrived yesterday.  Tried it out in the ATM today : "INVALID PIN".  Tried it twice; same result both times.  Went to the bank's service place on the ground floor - now have to wait another 3-4 days (we'll see...) for another new PIN to be issued.  The ineptitude of this bank is beyond words.

Drove to work this morning in a happy mood (for 8.00am on a Sunday morning), revelling in the fact that the roads were wet following an unseasonal early morning downpour (we normally get two days' rain a year, in January - which was the last time we saw rain here).

I usually park in a large 'sand pit' next door to the office building (along with about 200 other people), and try to get there before 8.30am, to ensure I find a space...which was another reason I was happy, as I'd arrived a bit earlier than normal, hence was fairly certain I'd easily bag a decent spot in the sand pit.

Famous last words : the sand pit is now enclosed with large red and white bollards, off limits to cars.  I guess it'll become (yet) another construction site soon.  I finally found a space at the side of the road, about half an hour's walk from the office. Surprisingly (for once) no parking ticket (not cheap, at AED 200 (about USD55) a pop) when I got back to the car tonight...unlike my first week at work here, when the sand pit was off limits for a week and I was slapped with six parking tickets in five days...bye-bye AED 1,200.

This is the side of Dubai they forget to show you - the complete and utter lack of sufficient/proper car parks in the middle of Sheikh Zayed Road, the main business thoroughfare you always see on documentaries and postcards, with its glistening rows of skyscapers.

Welcome to Dubai.

Ongoing strife with my credit card issuer...the sheer incompetence and stupidity of their 'customer service' (sic) representatives defies description.

First in this latest saga was at the beginning of September, when I arrived in Singapore en route to a two-week holiday in my former stomping grounds of SE Asia (Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur)...the first SMS I received upon disembarkation at Changi Airport was from this bank, informing me that 'due to fraudulent credit card activity in the UAE, all international ATM withdrawals are banned with immediate effect'!  I mean, WTF?!  On the first day of my holiday too...

Anyway, fast forward a month or so and their latest statement arrives on my desk...containing a charge for 100,000,000 (yes, that really is one hundred million) Indonesian Rupiah...ok, so IDR are a bit of a Mickey Mouse currency, but the charge still converted to around AED 42,000 (about USD 11,500).  I of course head straight to their 'customer service unit' (named without a hint of irony, no doubt) which coincidentally is on the ground floor of our building, and immediately file a 'transaction dispute'...and am assured by the guy there that someone will contact me 'within a few days'.

Fast forward five weeks and I still hadn't heard anything...so I went back to the ground floor...from where they called the credit card unit or somesuch...get this : not only did they have no record of the transaction in question, but the outstanding amount still included the AED 42,000 which clearly wasn't of my doing.  One can only make one's own conclusions about security of customer account information at this place.

THEN last week, I get a call from someone at the fraud unit at the bank, telling me that 'the fraudulent charge of AED 39,000' was to be reversed - although the charge in question was AED 42,000!!  Back to the ground floor; the guy there cannot help me since my account has disappeared from the system?!!  He suggests trying to log onto their internet banking site, to see if I can access it from there.

I return to my desk; attempt to register for online banking on their site, but get an error message along the lines of 'registration failed - please contact branch'.  Back to the ground floor.  Guy suggests trying their ATM outside; I do so and (of course) the machine swallows my card.  Back to the ground floor.  Guy tries calling up my account details; no such card number.  He does a 'reverse look up' using my name - and lo and behold, discovers a completely different card number assigned to my name.  He does a bit of research and discovers they had cancelled the card a week previously and issued a new one (never occurred to them to inform me, of course).

And here we are, almost two weeks later.  Still card-less; still no calls from them and still no clue as to when they'll refund the fraudulent charge, or by how much.  They did send me a PIN number, though....

(And this was the short version of the story...)

Rant over.  Until the next post, anyway.