By For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Nargis: single, middle-aged (a woman never reveals her age), and looking to have the best time around town. My best friend is Tina who I have been stuck with since our primary days – she might be featuring in a lot of my adventures, so might as well introduce her now (plus, I know she’s dying for a shoutout). My friends and family are constantly bugging me to share my ideas and opinions – naturally who else will give such great advice? So I thought what better time to start giving back to my community than right now. Today I am going to tell you about my first time travelling in the pandemic:
Uff what a week haan? Lockdown, curfew, and worst of all Dubai’s ban on Pakistani travellers? Don’t they know how safe I’ve been?! Haven’t socialised properly in months! Now toh all I can do is reminisce over the last time I had the chance to travel. It was around January/ February and what a trip. Of course Tina was with me for our much needed girls trip, but let me tell you, getting there was not as fun and easy as it used to be. Mask phenna for so many hours – meri toh saans ruk gayi, but what to do, better to be safe than sorry! Plus everyone should be wearing a mask right now.
Firstly, Tina read the time wrong and we ended up at the airport much earlier than we needed to– for me this meant listening to Tina’s bak bak for an extra two hours, as if the car ride wasn’t long enough already. I was ready with my gloves, mask, face shield, sanitiser and my trustee cleaning wipes. Finally we started boarding and my God the rush! It was like a fish market getting onto the plane, thank God everyone had their masks on, but naturally I waited till the crowd settled a bit. With my luck I was squished between a newlywed couple, and Tina that traitor got herself upgraded – aise dost hotay hain – she didn’t even offer her seat. Shukur hai I fell asleep in a wink and when my eye opened we had landed.
My advice: don’t take the late night flight. Getting through the Dubai airport was a nightmare, it was around 4 in the morning and packed. Flights from what seemed like everywhere in the world had apparently landed at the same time. And don’t forget this is travelling during the time of a pandemic, so we have a new checkpoint and have to get a covid test. Again my luck is so great that after already waiting a good thirty minutes in a line that refused to move, we found out the entire system is down so we had to wait another two hours to be tested. Meanwhile Tina had started chatting up the other people in line as if now is the time to socialise. This woman, I can’t take her anywhere.
Then as I’m next in line for my corona test, I see Ranbir Kapoor’s look alike waiting for me with a Qtip. Tina out of jealousy said he looked more like Tushar Kapoor just because she had Miss Trunchbull waiting for her. Khair, I just wanted to be over with it. Martay martay we finally made it to baggage claim, picked up our bags and with a sigh of relief stepped out into Dubai!
Stepping into the city felt like everything was normal again…almost. Mein ne toh Tina ka mask glue kar ke chipka diya tha after hearing about the fine; she should be wearing it anyway, magar fine ka sun kar tou aur bhi dar lagta hai. Anyways the khaana was phenomenal and jo hamne shopping ki, sari calories burn off ho gayin. But mera sab se favourite part was watching Tina insist she’s a pro skier, jo ye girri saari bachon ke samne in Ski Dubai I’ll never forget. Khair, I’m just dying to go back now, Dubai ka mazza kuch aur hi hai!
Disclaimer: This is a personal account and is not representative of Mashion or its views. If you choose to travel during the pandemic, please follow all SOPs and be safe.
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