The journey to my new life was an interesting one. It began with me starting the packing process a little over a day before I left. Probably not the most ideal timeline considering I was travelling to a camp 4 hours from town, with no conveniences and where I would be living without my own transport. So, if I forgot something, I would be stuck for a month without it. This was probably the first sign that the transition from old to new, from Brisbane to Kafue National Park, would not be as smooth a transition as one would hope. The second sign would have been in Melbourne as I waited for the second flight of my journey. Over 30 minutes after we were scheduled to board, while we sat at the gate, Qantas announced that there would be a delay (a somewhat redundant statement at this point) but that they couldn’t give us any more information. About another 30 minutes later it came to light that our pilot was off sick. The replacement pilot could only arrive three and a half hours after our scheduled leave time. So, with pre-flight checks it meant that we would be five hours late to leave. At this point I realised that, with only one flight from Dubai to Lusaka a day, I had no chance of making it to Zambia on time. I was officially going to be late to work. A whole day late in fact.

 

Upon arrival in Dubai, I was corralled into a line with hundreds of other sleepy, confused passengers to find out what our fate would be. Most people were shuffled onto new slightly later flights. But, as expected, I had well and truly missed my flight and wouldn’t be going anywhere until the next day. I was given a hotel and transfer voucher and sent on my way. By this point I had accepted the delay and was looking forward to a free mini-holiday in Dubai. So, I sailed to the immigration counter happily providing my passport and chatting with the friendly officer. We chatted back and forth and I was thinking that the Aussie immigration officers could do with his friendliness. But then he became serious and silent. He scanned my passport a second time and then called another officer over, and then another until finally there were six officers talking to each other in hushed voices. The hushed voices were pretty unnecessary though seeing as my knowledge of Arabic barely extends beyond common greetings. The confused and concerned look on my face would have given that away in a flash. After over 10 minutes with them I was directed to the immigration office where my passport was taken from me and more stressful waiting occurred. After a while, my passport returned to my sight (with an immigration officer, not on the passport’s own accord) and was compared to official, sealed documentation that was carefully opened and recorded. I was questioned about my name, nationality and how long I had been a resident of Dubai for. After explaining that I had never even been outside of the airport anywhere in the UAE there was more silence. Followed by the questions being repeated. At this point I started to become worried. Thankfully I still had my mobile phone, so I typed a text message to my poor mother. It started with “Don’t be worried but…”. I held off on sending it as I didn’t want to cause panic, but at the same time I was starting to think that someone should know where I was just in case the friendly, but quiet, officers changed their tune. I had just unlocked my phone ready to finally click send when they called my name and gave me my passport back. Then they directed me into the big wide world. They offered no explanation as to the hold-up, but when I asked what the problem was, they said my passport scanned in as someone else’s name. I am not sure what this means, or if it is even possible but I had my passport back to I got out of there quick smart! I have to say, although this was a fairly intimidating experience and one I would happily live the rest of my days without repeating, the Dubai immigration officers were very friendly and welcoming. This goes against very thing I have ever read about them, so I think travellers should take the “Dubai immigrations officers are cantankerous” commentary with a grain of salt.