Abu Dhabi

Tuesday, 28th March 2023

We wake up at 6:00 AM to catch the 7:00 AM bus to Vienna. Our Wizzair flight to Abu Dhabi departs at 10:35 AM. We arrive in Abu Dhabi at 5:35 PM, with the local time being two hours ahead. Air India has rescheduled our flight by 23 hours. We tryed to find an office to see if we could catch today’s flight, but it was in vain. So, we book a hotel in Abu Dhabi and try to figure out how the buses work here. You need to buy a card for 10 AED, which comes with a 10 AED balance. The trip to the city costs around 4 AED and takes about an hour. We drop off our things at the hotel and finally go out to eat. We found a Filipino restaurant and ordered kottu. Jozef had chicken kottu, and I had one with egg. Jozef’s was better, mine was too spicy. Exhausted, we go to sleep at 11 PM.

Wednesday, 29th March 2023

In the morning, we planned to go to the beach, but the travel had worn us out, so we slept until 11:00 AM and then checked out of the hotel. We headed towards the markets (fish, fruit, dates), but the sun was already quite strong. The markets turned out to be just large warehouses, so we found an Indian restaurant and had lunch instead. We didn’t feel like walking back, so we took the bus. The bus we were on broke down, so the driver transferred us to another one. They have air-conditioned bus stops here, and there are “ladies only” sections on the buses.

We then headed towards the beach. I wanted coffee first, so we tried to find a café. The only one marked on the map was Arabica, located in a skyscraper filled with men in ties. We decided to go a bit further and found a café in a smaller skyscraper.

There were no prices listed, and the place was empty, but we still ordered coffee there. We regretted it when we got the bill—10 euros, which could have covered two dinners. We should have asked first. Afterward, we finally went to the beach, which had pretty good showers, so we went for a swim. You can only swim in a small designated area, so I went into the water twice, and Jozef only once.

We showered and started moving closer to the bus stop for the airport. We searched for a place to eat. Everywhere was offering Ramadan packages for pickup, so it took us a while to find a regular meal. We had shawarma and chicken with rice. After that, we grabbed some snacks and headed to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, so Jozef did some work.

We went to check-in since it couldn’t be done online and had to be completed at the airport. At least they seated us together. It was the only row without a window, but that didn’t bother us since we were planning to sleep anyway. We were the only two Europeans on a full flight of Indians. During the 4-hour and 25-minute flight, we tried to sleep, but it wasn’t easy. They gave us water, a muffin, and some savory pastries. As we were landing, a child had a screaming fit, making the experience quite memorable. We were the only ones who had to go through immigration. They had some nice retro chairs, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures. The process was quick, though. The officer at the counter was friendly; we gave our fingerprints, signed some forms, and were good to go.

India is another 1.5 hours ahead, making it a 3.5-hour difference from Slovakia