Bastards, luggage and an early return
Well, that’s what you get for trying to bring DVDs and CDs out of the country. Customs insisted that I should have stopped by the ministry of culture to get all the DVDs stamped and pay an export fee. It is the same when exporting books. That’s also why you can’t, just like that, send books out of the country too.
Of course, it’s not like the DVDs already were expensive. On the contrary. The standard price for a DVD is 2 bucks, and it can be even less if you know where to get them. New PS2 games are 3 bucks and audio CDs range from less than 1 to a bit over 2 buck, if you also want a case to go with that.
I had to pay customs off with 40 bucks. The good thing was that it also meant getting rid of all my Afghanis. Still, I did feel a bit annoyed.
Getting there
Dubai only has the impression of being a real airport. To quite an extent, these people don’t know what they’re doing, like in any official Middle Eastern establishment.
I tried to get my ticket changed from flying Monday morning to somewhere on Sunday. It was only at the fifth desk to which I was forwarded, where they told me it couldn’t be done (because I had an electronic ticket). I would have to wait until the morning and then call some service. However, them only opening at nine meant that getting on the eight o’clock flight was going to be impossible.
So I went out of the airport and decided to try my luck at the BA office in the airport, on the other side of customs. An office I wouldn’t have been able to get to if I wouldn’t have left the airport in the first place.
Taking some time finding the office, my ticket was changed within minutes. I wasn’t on the 8 o’clock flight, I was on the 1:45 flight. However, the BA guy told me the Ariana luggage ticket I was holding wasn’t any good for getting my luggage to Amsterdam and he suggested to fetch the luggage myself, from Terminal 2, where I arrived, me now being in Terminal 1, the only option being to take a cab around the airport and come back.
Back in Terminal 2, I stumbled on a Kenyan who had also come from Kabul but was flying on to Nairobi. His had the same problem, as he was being told to pick up his luggage himself. He, however, had to buy a visa to get out of the airport and pick up his luggage. Suffice to say, our luggage wasn’t there as we were told it had already been shipped Terminal 1. We headed back.
I now preferred to obtain my luggage myself and carry it on the flight, so that at least I would have the right luggage ticket for getting to Amsterdam. Not so, the luggage was untraceable, but when I finally arrived at the gate and asked for confirmation, it was claimed my luggage was on board.
But ofcourse, at Heathrow, BA staff looked at my baggage claim ticket as if it was something from another world. And indeed, arriving in Amsterdam, my luggage didn’t come down the luggage belt.