Catch 22

By Nick

Just arrived in Dubai and given that it’s 1.00 in the morning it’s pretty busy, in fact very busy. I have a free internet connection - but why in the UK do we insist on charging for stuff. Birmingham didn’t even have “the cloud” or Openzone. Which is PANTS.

Emirites - finally someone had a forward cam for take off and landing, not the best quality but interesting to see. Not so good in the dark though when you’re crossing the gulf.

Films -
Transporter 3, classic boys stuff with Jason taking his shirt for the ladies.
Bolt - Funny animation, but a little scmultzy in places.
Quantumn of Solace - better the 2nd time around, but still not as good as the first one.

Pete asked me what I did on trips like this so I’ll try my best to jot down what I do. At the moment I’m looking at what the best thing to say to the guys at Jakarta airport who will try and wheel my bags away. I need to find just the right words which say “look fella I fly in to this airport all the time and today you’ve caught me without a penny to my name so even if you did push my bag to the taxi rank I would not be able to pay you”

and finally.. Jenni.. thanks for the party. Anyway off to find my gate.

So arrived in Jakarta and nearly got chucked out before I even got into the country. Handed the immigration guy all my stuff and he told me I had to have a print out of my return ticket, which I didn’t have. My copy was with my luggage, can’t get the luggage without the paper, can’t get the paper without my luggage.

Catch 22

Wasn’t worried at first, all I needed to find was a printer, bosch out the laptop and hey presto sorted.

Finding a printer was tricky but we sorted one at a random service desk, ummm RS232 doesn’t fit into Macbook. So we had try and pull my details of their “system” which they eventually did but then the printer would print anything but backwards and reverse (and I wasn’t going to hand the immigration guy a mirror) anyway finally put the paper in the right way and took it down to the immigration guy who then told me that my ticket was open so I couldn’t use this piece of paper. Nothing else to do than go slow and hold up the queue while I fired up the laptop to show him that I was definitely going home. Eventually he waved me on.

Driver picked me from the Airport, no drama there and I’m now in the hotel which is dead. A bit tired and my leg is still giving me jip so not really in the mood for going for a walk. Tomorrow I’m off (flying) to one of the garment factories. Going there looks ok but if I come back in a afternoons thunderstorm it’s going to fun.

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