My Dubai experience

When we got to Dubai airport I collectd my bag but forgot that I had also checked in a box. I left it going around and around on the baggage carrossel and only recalled that I had forgotten it next morning. I made enquiries and was told to go to the airport early next day before the flight and collect it at the lost baggage office.

Back at the airport next morning Philippa looked after our luggage (her plane was going an hour after mine) and I went looking for the lost baggage office. I was send downstairs to an empty corridor with no signs for anything. A cleaning lady came by so I asked her for directions.

"Through the heavy doors and first office on the left," she said.
I looked at the lift doors with their extra door for locking quickly in even of a problem and left them reluctently to find the lost baggage office.

The cleaning lady was right. In the office she sent me to there were three large men with military style uniforms and red badges. They talked between themselves but not to me. It was quite intimidating really, though I am sure they didn´t intend to be. A bit like Pakistan. Lost in bureaucracy. I couldn´t understand them so I just sat and waited. Through the door I could see shelves and shelves crammed full of baggage, coats, books and other bits and pieces.

I felt as if I was trapped in a Kafka play.

Eventually one of the men asked me what I wanted and then after some discussion with the others and a bit of coming and going he lead me to another room along the corridor with yet more shelves of baggage. I searched through the boxes from teh last day or two and found nothing. Finally I discovered there was an arrivals lost baggage office in the next building.

At this point I started to wonder if I really needed by box back. I decided I may as well try, so I trotted off to the cellar of the building next door. On the way I discovered that there is a completely seperate entrance and building for first class passengers.

In the arrivals hall cellar I found a very nice fellow who said he would put the package on the plane for me.

When I told Philippa about the seperate hall for first class passengers she said she had seen lots of people with baggage sewn up in hessian but had looked for someone with Louis Vutton luggage without success. So now we know that we belong in the hessian baggage class.

The woman checking us in had lots of difficulty getting the computer to accept the luggage lable a second time, however when I arrived at Hamburg airport, the box was the very first thing off the carroussel. Bravo Emirates. I must say we were both very impressed with Emirates. More leg room, really nice relaxed staff and pleasant atmosphere.

As I write this I realise I must have already been jetlagged, as I remember the whole thing through a haze.

PS I can´t find a spell checker for this program, so you are getting my version of the Ehglish language and it will vary somewhat from the official version!