One of the consequences of traveling cheaply, with basically complete freedom over when you need to arrive and depart, is that you end up scheduling weird flights. I’m currently in the Dubai airport, waiting for my flight to Delhi.

When I decided to spend a month in India, I took a look at the flights and discovered most of them go through Dubai. Lots of cheap flights go in and out of Dubai. So I bought a ticket from Dubai to Delhi, and a ticket from Mumbai to Dubai, and figured I’d figure out how to get to and from Dubai later.

All this is by way of explaining why I booked a cheap hotel at Gatwick Sunday night,¹ and why I woke up at 4:30am to catch a flight at 6:25am. I booked a morning flight to Sofia,² then a afternoon flight to Dubai, and now a noon flight to Delhi. Then I intend to sleep for a week.

I got to my hotel in Dubai at 10:30pm, and had to be up at 8am to get to the airport, so I haven’t exactly had much time to see the city.³ It’ll be fine; I’m spending the day when I return from India before my flight back to Europe, so I’ll get at least a chance to check it out then.

A bigger issue, and one you’d think I’d have figured out by now, is all the time changes. Yes, I was out with friends at the end of the larp convention on Sunday, and the hour trip from downtown London meant I didn’t check into my hotel at Gatwick until 11pm. And so I was lucky to get 4 hours of sleep before catching my morning flight. I slept a lot on the plane.

But what hadn’t really hit me was the realization that my 12:15pm Dubai flight is, effectively, at 08:15 GMT. Meaning I wanted to be at the airport at 06:00, so I wanted to get up at 04:30. I’m looking forward to just getting to my hotel in Delhi and collapsing for a good couple of days, just recovering from the stress and the travel and the holidays. I need a nap.

So if I have any complaint at the moment about my lifestyle, label it that. The hotel room at Gatwick was tiny, but had a very comfortable, serviceable bed. The hotel here in Dubai was even better — king-sized, crisp clean sheets, firm mattress with just enough give to relax into, a bushel of pillows. I desperately want to stay another night, or two, or three, just sleeping and swimming in the pool⁴ and looking, at a distance, at the city.

But even without a schedule, I’m on one. I suppose I could just buy same-day tickets, decide every evening whether to stay one more night or leave, go wherever the cheapest flight out will take me. Maybe eventually I’ll have seen enough of the world that that’s more appealing than what I’ve got now. I’m not there yet.

Next: Delhi to Agra
Prev: London (LGW) to Dubai (DWC)

Footnotes

¹ Literally at Gatwick, as in in the terminal. It was a two minute walk from my hotel room to South Terminal security. I discovered at midnight I was leaving from the North Terminal. Oops.

² I have no idea what Bulgaria is like, but it deserves a nicer airport. I feel comfortable saying that because, having spent a couple hours there, every place on Earth deserves a better airport. Volcanic oceanic vents deserve a better airport than the one in Sofia.

³ Much to the dismay of the passport control officer, who angrily demanded — I assume in jest — that I spend more time enjoying Dubai.

⁴ Did I mention the pool? Did I mention the disappointment of arriving too late and leaving too early for at least one swim?