This is my first time visiting Athens so I take the opportunity to snap pictures even though it is late at night. I got in with a cab driver, asked him where I can take some nice night pictures, and he asked how long do I need, and I said as long as he needs. He took me for a very nice tour around the city, he was a very nice man, he asked where I was from and said that he knew a lot of Saudis and said that Kuwaitis used to come a lot to Greece before the Gulf War but not so much anymore. What surprised me is the friendliness and kindness of the Greeks, a majority of them speak English and those who don’t were very helpful to find someone that does.
It was a nice feeling walking around the city, and driving around at night seeing all these interesting spots. We went to Glefadah which is a nice beach area to snap pictures of the port area at night, then he took me to the parliment building, when I got back to my hotel I can see the acropolis and snapped pictures of it at night. It was 1 am on a Monday night, and I could still here the hotel bar two floors above going, I learned that Greeks do enjoy their nights out, every night.
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I had a quick trip to Greece for a day and half, with some meetings the first day and my flight back the next afternoon. So I took the oppurtunity to walk at night and snap pictures, and next morning to head to the Acropolis. There is a lot I have to say about Athens and Greeks, I wondering why I haven’t come here before, but what astounded me were the dogs. There are so many dogs and stray dogs in Athens, and a huge majority of them are treated very nicely.
Greeks are very humane to most animals, but they are very friendly to dogs. At first I thought a lot of dogs belonged to certain people but that wasn’t the case, these dogs would just tag along with people for a bit then head back. I saw this at the parlaiment building, and then again when I was heading up to the Acropolis the next morning. Its a beautiful city with so much to see, so many areas, and very nice people. All these dogs were very nice, you could easily approach them, some had collars and it seemed they were dogs of a certain location and people were nice to them, it was really nice to see that, there were a lot of jolly dogs.
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27C sunny weather in Dubai with a cool breeze and no hummidity, the weather was really nice for once. I had to go to a few places in Dubai for heading back to the airport, luckily there wasn’t too much traffic. There was some sort of Opec conference taking place but not that much traffic, passed by Dubai Mall for a bit. It seems they opened a new theater company in that mall called Reel.
When coming in my E-Gate pass just expired on the 8th, so I went to the counter to renew at the arrivals. A few people in line, wasn’t sure if I could renew it at the counter during arrivals. When you register you pay 200 Dhms and you need your passport with you which I didn’t have. When it came to my turn I said I wanted to renew, she told me it was 200 Dhms and thats it, just updated a few details on my account and took the finger prints of my left and right index fingers. I had a new E-Gate pass valid for two more years renewed in under 8 minutes, it worked right away at the E-Gate passport area, every thing went smoothly. Its really worth having that E-Gate pass even if you don’t go to Dubai too often.
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I had a meeting to get to, organized the next day in Dubai before I even looked at the timing of the flights, luckily Wataniya Airlines flew early enough and I booked on the 7 am flight. I didn’t realize that 7 am would mean that I would have to be up by 5 am to take my time and get to the airport by 6 am. I got to the airport and boarded my flight, it was still dark outside. My flight back was around 6 pm so I had a few meetings get it done, then a bit to eat and head back to Kuwait. Took a few episodes of Supernatural with me on the flight, I am addicted to the show so I have a few episodes with me. I do enjoy flying Wataniya Airlines but I hate the Marhaba lounge in Dubai Terminal One, its uncomfortable and tacky but landing at Sheikh Sa’ad Airport makes up for it.
On the early morning flight I was the only person sitting up front, it wasn’t that full in economy either. I wonder when these flights do get full during the week, but on the way back it was a little more full. Had a couple of arabic coffees to keep me awake, I almost ran out of battery that time in the day but still had a few things left to do. The best part of landing is walking out so quickly, and out to my car to head home and relax for a little while.
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I got my Wataniya Airways mileage card after using it once, it starts off at purple and heads up from there to silver and gold. The best part of overall is that there really is a lot of bonuses with the mileage, other extras such as using the lounge, having a large family with transferable miles and you can buy more miles online. I talked about the card services in detail in this previous post, but right now I’m going to take advantage of it during my trips.
I called and asked, they also said you can claim trips after October 1st, since I have a few round trips I’m going to claim those for these trips. I might have enough to bump me right to silver based on my works trip, I do enjoy when you can really take advantage of these mileage cards. You can easily sign up online with the link below.
Link: Wataniya Airways Diwan
The best time of the year to be in the desert is during winter, these are the areas just by the Wafra Farms Road. I needed a break away from the routine, so this trip came up perfectly, lunch in Wafra with family and friends. I updated my iPod, putting a couple of new playlists together with some good old school and fun songs, and working on one new one. The best time to listen to songs is on a nice long drive, and Wafra is a relaxing drive, I was in no hurry, ample time to make it to lunch.
Took me about an hour’s drive and I wasn’t sure which exit it was but managed to find it with a few phone calls with directions. Then I got on the road and it was 10.5 kilometers in a straight line, then make a right and drive 3 kilometers into the desert and I will find the camp site. It was a lot of fun to drive the Landcruiser on the sand, I was having more fun swerving back and worth, it feels like your driving on a slushy material with just enough loose traction to enjoy sliding around while maintianing traction, and some points I sped up to take small jump off a couple of hills. I avoided really wet spots, because I knew that if I slowed down too much I would sink and I didn’t want to get the car too dirty, just dirty enough. Some of those spots look deceiving and could possible suck a car in completely, I kept my joy ride at a safe level until I got to base camp.
A lot of people were there from the night earlier, some who got there earlier, and a few people who were still on the way. There was a variety of off-road capable cars and a few surprising sedans at the camp. The best part was the large tent and the duwa in the middle, tea being made on the coal is probably the best possible tasting tea. I saw a BMW GS 1200 parked to the side of the tent that I kept eying, it had all the bells and whistles with all the right options, I gave it a once over and asked Bu Zaid if I can take it for a spin later.
20 minutes after I arrived lunch was served, and I was hungry after all that time. When I’m hungry I head towards the dish that will satisfy me the most, and so I found my spot as I entered the tent. 25 minutes later all I wanted to do was remain stationary for a while, the food was fantastic, and every body was satisfied. The perfect time to have a nice hot glass of tea in this cold weather.
Then I took out the BMW GS 1200 for a spin in the desert, it had street tires and this wasn’t the adventure version so I knew it wouldn’t be as easy to ride in the desert and this is a heavy machine. I started it up and started going be I almost fell over because I slipping, of course all the guys started laughing their heads off, I regained my composure and new that I need some speed before turning and couldn’t put my weight down, so I got some speed and took wide turns. This is one extremely capable machine, I was taking big bumps as if it was only a crack on the road, I was navigating around once I had the right momentum and kept it up, I kept it between 1st and 2nd gear and not shifting around too much, took it for 20 minute ride, and rode up to a camel at a top of small hill which eyed me as I was riding to him. I got of the bike, took off my helmet and took out the camera from the rear compartment. That camel walked up to me as I was walking to him, I find them to be beautiful, funny, and friendly creatures. I always pictures camels to be intelligent and thinking about us as annoying creatures that they have to put up with based on their facial expressions. After taking a few pictures, I got back on the bike and took off, with a little sliding going on and my feet still down to glide on. I headed straight back to the camp, which didn’t take more then 2 minutes to get there since I took a straight line to them this time instead of driving around.
Just as I got there I parked the GS 1200 and sat at the benches where they were working on the fire pit. I sat at that fire pit for over an hour mesmerized by the fire before decided that it was time to head home, I would prefer to make it home before the sun sets, it would make the drive that much more fun.
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Took the Wataniya Airlines flight to Bahrain at 7:50 am for an 11 am meeting, landed around 9 am and rented the Primo Limousine car service to take us around for the two meetings and then back to the airport but for a late night 10 pm flight back. Every time I go through the Bahrain Immigrations I enjoy how nice they are and they are always joking around, this is the one airport they are nice to everyone coming through.
We headed to the Ritz since our meetings were two minutes away from it by car. We had some tea and check our meeting point and presentations before heading in. Also the Ritz is a rip off, a 2 hour internet card is 10 BD which is ridiculous, plus the standard room with tax was for 200 BD which is insane. We headed to the meeting, then lunch at the Indian restaurant in the Ritz then the second meeting. Then off to the airport after some relaxing, we got there around 6:30 pm and I assumed it would be open by 7:30 pm but I was mistaken they only open the check in counter for Wataniya an hour and a half before the flight and so we were waiting with those going to Hajj until it opened. But by 8:30 pm we managed to check in and went to the Dulan lounge which is the first time I stay there and I have to say its amazing, probably one the best I have seen. One thing I do enjoy is that Sheikh Sa’ad Aiport is very easy to enter and leave from without any issues, and as soon I did I got my car out of the parking and heading home.
(I almost never drink coffee but I was only on a few hours of sleep so I had a tea cup filled it with Arabic coffee to wake me up)
This is the one thing that Wataniya Airways have been missing and its a frequent flyer program, now they have finally launched their service I was looking at the details. They have really put an effort into catering this frequent flyer program to the families in the Middle East, you can register up to 8 family members including 2 domestic servants, and managing the account as head of the family for all the members so you can share your awarded miles and tickets between each other.
Purple:
You get this when you sign up!
Silver:
Automatically recieveds a 25% extra on all mileage when booking your tickets with this level
Priority Check-In @ First Class Counters
Access to First Class Lounge
Gold:
Automatically recieveds a 50% extra on all mileage when booking your tickets with this level
Priority Check-In @ First Class Counters
Access to First Class Lounge + 1 Guest
Guaranteed seat in Economy even if the flight is full and you book it 72 hours before the flight
Bonus Mileage:
50% extra miles with Premium Economy Flexible
150% extra miles with First Class
200% extra miles with First Class Flexible
You can get your Gold or Silver membership for a long time if you keep it for over three consecutive years at that level.
I think this is a fantastic program, really giving out rewards and making sure that people have different ways to benefit from the rewards program and see some results from it. I already signed up for it, and it was very easy, now I’m signing up the rest of the family.
Now this was an interesting trip, we had some meetings to take care off and we have postponed them for a while. We had to go to Sudan and so after some time we arranged it, three of us to go to the meeting. Only one of the three has been there before, I didn’t know what to expect and the funny part is that we were required to get a visa to go to Sudan, I honestly don’t know why.
Two options we had for flight were Emirates or Qatar Airways, and so we decided to go with Emirates since it was a shorter lay over. As we got to the connecting flight, the plane was one of the oldest I have seen from Emirates, an Airbus A330-200, even my seat rattled during take off and the guy next to me brought two bags of McDonalds to bring to his family as a gift. We landed after about four hours of flying, turns out the airport doesn’t have any tubes that connect to the plane, you take the stairs to microbuses that they pack full of people and herd them off. Immigrations looked like Friday market, people were piling up and some of these guys were pretty funny. As soon as we got in, we had our bags with us, and we walked out. We had dollars with us that we exchange for the Sudanese Pound, then we headed out, the parking lot is basically a dirt lot and nothing more, we drove to the hotel, took us about 10 minutes we saw nothing on the road. There were a lot of foreigners at the hotel, we decided to stay, eat and sleep because of the meeting the next morning.
We woke up, had breakfast, and went to the meeting. The first thing is that you can not find your way around Khartoum, the city has no main streets and traffic lights mean nothing, you have to take a crash course in tactical driving. We had our meeting, then met a friend from Kuwait who just got married, and one thing that we were amazed by is that Sudanese are some of very nice people. There aren’t a lot of towers in the city, one or two are being built and most buildings are one or two floor buildings, the streets are basic, the only paved one is in front of the government buildings over looking the Nile River. All I knew about the Nile was that its a very dirty river in Egypt, but in Sudan its a beautiful glimmering river, an amazing view with very nice people. When talking to a few Sudanese they were telling me that the reason people don’t seem to know how to drive with rules because cars have only been recently been made easy to purchase from the general public and they have made a truce in the south. An interesting people, they seem to be very nice, things have improved and they have learned to live with their embargo, it doesn’t help that their government has some issues but I’m not even jumping into that.
When we took off at the end of the day it was probably one of the worst experiences I have had in an airport in a while. They check you in, check in your bags, check that your on the flight, pretty much everything else manually, they manually do everything on paper, that took a while to do, I didn’t realize that it would take so long to check each person in, and you had to pay a fee to leave the country which I found to be pretty funny. After we were in, we waited in the Business/First Class lounge which wasn’t too bad, but when they called us it was like organizing a huge herd. When you have one security machine to go through and over 300 passengers to go through was a disaster, then they called another flight which also flood the security machine from the side and that turned into a shouting match. We got on the plane, I was thankful to be on the plane and heading back, it was an interesting trip and met some interesting people, if it wasn’t for the airport it would have been a pleasent trip. Khartoum is a very green city with beautiful natural views in all directions, but I was happy to be heading home.
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I had a one day trip to Jordan took the night flight, I had a choice of Jazeera, Wataniay or Royal Jordanian. I don’t like Jazeera, and Wataniya timing didn’t work for the meetings I had so I decided to take Royal Jordanian, their General Sales Agent in Kuwait is Al Sawan Co so I decided to book through them. Everything went smoothly, I got my tickets from the company and took off to Jordan. Spent the night at the Four Seasons, got really late check out from the same travel Agency, instead of a 12 pm check out they got me a 4 pm check out which was fantastic. And the hotel was very nice and clean, the staff was friendly. We even went to this restaurant called Reem Al Bawady and had mensef which is a dish which includes meat, rice, and yoghurt and its so good it puts you to sleep. It was a short trip and we flew back the same night as the meetings for work the next morning, landed in Kuwait around 1 am.
Overall, I really liked Royal Jordanian:
- The RJ staff are very friendly on the ground as well as the one on the plane
- They let you keep your brief case or hand bag next to you without having to shove it under the seat in front of you
- They know that an iPod or laptop won’t disrupt airplane electronics so they didn’t bother me during take off or landing, I kept watching my show forgetting that we were landing, she asked me just to put it away afraid that it will become a flying projectile upon landing which is a reasonable request but I kept playing Madden on my iPod
- The food was pretty good, not wow but not bad at all
- The price was reasonable, just a little cheaper then Wataniya since we booked it short notice 234 KD vs 217 for business class seats on those days