Leaving Iran
We woke at 0445 as we have a morning flight from Esfahan to Tehran to connect on to Dubai. Kim had a bad night sleep and had been fighting a cold. We collected our passports at reception and set off for the airport at 0530, arriving there at 0600. It was another half hour waiting till the check-in counters opened at 1h prior to our 0730 flight.
It was a short 30 min flight in reality, compared to the scheduled 55 min. On board this flight and all previous Iran Air domestic flight, there had been a non-uniformed man by the flight deck door. I asked the female flight attendant about him and she said “I don’t know” then “I cannot tell you…” and then added “but you can ask [perhaps to the purser] if you like”. I reckon he is an onboard security officer.
Despite the short flight time, the crew served tea and a snack box of roll, cream, cheese, butter and crackers. The cabin crew ran to the rear jump seat seconds before we landed and the flight purser a split-second before touchdown.
We had arrived at Terminal 6. We walked to Terminal 4 so that Kim could ring his sister in New Zealand and then took a taxi to Terminal 2 (which was next to Terminal 1). We had to take our baggage with us as Iran Air cannot interline luggage to Emirates, our next airline. In fact, for domestic-to-domestic connections, people had to reclaim their baggage and re-check.
We had waited for our Emirates check-in at the wrong place. After realising our mistake, we still managed to check-in and go airside in good time for our 1130 flight. That’s not bad for a 3h05 self-connection that required a taxi ride between terminals. Luckily, there had been no flight disruption!
[Edit: Looking back, now that I’m a more experienced traveller, I shudder at the thought of that self-connection with only 3h in between. So many things can go wrong.]
Thoughts on leaving Iran
Some thoughts on Iran from first visit of ten days. I really liked it. The sights were interesting and varied, sometimes spectacular. People were hospitable, food was delicious and everything was very affordable. I can’t wait to come back. It’s that simple.
For some people, dress code may be an issue. I don’t like wearing long pants in the heat but it is a small price to pay for an insight to such a special country. Prospective women visitors shouldn’t have to worry too much about the headscarf as many Iranian women wear as little as possible on their heads and are always pushing the boundaries of the dress code.
In Dubai
We had another delicious flight on Emirates. Minced lamb kebabs like the ones we didn’t get a chance to try. Three strips on rice with some sliced courgettes.
Upon arrival at 1300 it was a long walk to exit to the taxi rank. The World Trade Centre Hotel was nice enough. We napped for about 1h30 to recover from the early start.
We started our exploration of Dubai with a trip to the Bur Juman Shopping Centre using a free shuttle bus. We had an Indian dinner, window-shopped and got a few groceries for breakfast to avoid the expensive in-house food at the hotel. Some breakfast options by room service was half our room rate! I guess that’s because our room rate was one-fifth of the full rack rate. We also caught up on email at an internet café.
We walked back to the hotel because the bus stop was about half the distance of the walk. With the early start, we both slept very well.