Vienna to Dubai and lost wallet - No money or cards

Thursday 25th October (Vienna to Dubai)

Today the lovely Nicola is 8 and the lovely Sue Kenny is (not game to ask!). Rang them both to wish them a Happy Birthday. Off this morning early to see The Spanish Horses in their training session from 10am – 12md. What magnificent creatures. They start training them from the age of 4 and they were amazing. Back to our hotel where we tried once again to reboot our computer. Success, albeit probably short lived! We are now off to the airport for our flight to Dubai which arrives at 1:05am local time. Am looking forward to Dubai – don’t do cold and wet very well! We were told yesterday that last year, at this time, it was actually snowing!! Have the ability to drop our bags into the city only a couple of blocks from our hotel, so we thought this was a good option as we could then catch the fast train straight to the airport knowing that our bags had already been checked through. Did this with ease and then purchased our tickets to catch the train to the airport. Only had to wait a few minutes & hopped on the fast train. It had pulled into the station and was waiting for around 5 minutes before it was due to depart. When we got on board we did the usual cross check of “have we got the airline tickets, passports, camera and wallet”. Alarm!!! No wallet!! Hopped off the train to check where we had been sitting as maybe it was on the seat or had dropped onto the platform. No such luck. It was gone! It contained all the usual – credit cards, money (thankfully only around 40 Euro), licence etc. So........our 15 minute trip to the airport was spent on the train cancelling all our cards. I (Pam) had a separate credit card on me, but as our cards are all linked this meant that mine also got cancelled. The sum total of our money was 4 Euro in silver and we were heading for Dubai! We have worked out that when Paul was putting everything away in his pockets after purchasing our tickets that he may have put his wallet in his pocket or on the seat for 2 seconds and, it was gone. At this stage I was just annoyed, but felt sure that our credit card companies would be able to arrange emergency funds and cards when we hit Dubai. Had been told the shopping here was excellent. We were very glad however, that we realised almost immediately that the wallet had been taken as we were able to cancel the cards within a very short space of time. Arrived in Dubai at 1:05am and even though we were in the fast track lane through customs it still took until 2:45am. Exhausted when we got to our hotel and then spent until 5:30am trying to chase up dollars and credit cards. This proved to be the most frustrating experience ever!

Friday 26th October (Dubai)

Slept till 10am then back onto phone and computer to try and get money and credit cards. Hopeless! Absolute farce. Had advice from Australia about how easy it would be to obtain emergency funds and replacement card but had to end up ringing America anyway. Lass on end of phone had never heard of Dubai, or the Sofitel so that gives you some idea of what we were up against. (Thankfully we had a courtesy bus to our hotel the previous night, but when they asked for a credit card imprint we of course had nothing!) I could go on for hours about this saga (because it did go on for hours and hours with Paul about to kill someone) but needless to say there was not going to be anything forthcoming other than perhaps an emergency credit card in Thailand if we were lucky. To compound the situation, Friday and Saturday is the weekend in Dubai and the banks are not open anyway and on Sunday the Australian banks are not open either. Don’t get your credit cards stolen when overseas and make sure that you have separate credit cards for each of you and keep them in separate places. We eventually realised that Paul’s cousin Marty and Naomi were in Dubai at the same time as us, so we meet them this morning, they bought us breakfast (imagine me without food – nearly suicidal!!) and gave us some money which would tide us over until we got to Bangkok. We were very, very grateful – I guess our next step would have been the Australian Embassy in Dubai if they had not come to our rescue. Anway, we then had a look at one of the expensive malls in Dubai – beautiful stuff and then went back to the Sofitel where there was a more “cost effective” shopping mall called Deira. The Sofitel were very pleased with themselves as they had upgraded us to a 3 bedroom apartment which we did not want or need, but the rest of the hotel was booked out so we ended up staying here. At least if we got tired of each other we could go to a separate end of the apartment with another full bathroom! Marty and Naomi were well over Dubai by the time we saw them today as they had encountered a few problems with bookings etc. Today was to be no exception as they had booked to go on a desert safari ride and stay out there for dinner. When they arrived late in the afternoon to do this the tour company had only booked one of them in and there was no room for 2 so they were not happy campers and wanted to go home early! We all laughed about this and had a lovely buffet dinner together at the Sofitel and then we went shopping again at the Deira until around 11:30pm. Off to bed as we will do some sightseeing tomorrow.

Saturday 27th October (Dubai)

Caught the old favourite (the Red Bus) for a tour around the city going on the red and blue routes, with Marty and Naomi. Stopped off at the Gold Souk – so much gold. You would need a whole day here to compare prices and made an informed decision. We just enjoyed looking. After this tour Paul and I went to Burj Al Arab for an English high tea. We had to book at least 6 months ahead for this 7 star hotel. Unreal! Could not even got onto the premises, let alone into the driveway, without security checks and a booking. Wonderful views and afternoon tea. Hermes perfume and hand lotion in toilets and all toilet seats are heated. I want one! I “borrowed” some toilet paper from here as the other toilets outside the complex do not have loo paper. Reminded me of France. Met Marty and Naomi at the Kampinski Hotel ad Kampinski shops. Did some looking and had tapas for dinner at the Kampinski then taxi home to pack for Bangkok tomorrow night 10:50pm flight. We have to be out of the hotel at 12md but they will hold our bags for us.