Tales from the Desert

Run visa run!

It’s a bit like going to visit your favourite relative, twice-removed on
your great aunt’s side of the family. You arrive and they give you the
warmest welcome this side of the equator. ‘Stay as long as you like!
Mi casa es su casa!’, they beam at you.
Some time passes, and the glossy veneer on their bright smiles
is starting to wear a bit thin. They haven’t replaced the once fresh
sprig of flowers in your room for days.
Then one fine morning, you wake up, stretch out and go down to the
breakfast room, expecting to find the smell of freshly baked scones
wafting towards you. Nothing. The beating heart of the house is
suddenly still and there seems to be a chill in the air.
You pick up the hastily scribbled note on the kitchen table.
‘Such a pleasure having you here for the past few months.
We feelthat it might be good for you to resume your travels now.
Please leave the key under the doormat on your way out,
and feel welcome to come stay again any time now, y’hear?’

And THAT is what a visa run is. It means quite simply that you have
overstayed your welcome in your host country, and to get back on
the good side of the family, you need to leave the country and then
return with a fresh stamp in your passport.

It incidentally does not involve running of any kind, rather a whole lot
of sitting, either on the plane, or car, or waiting for official-looking
people to stamp important-looking papers.

I went to Doha in Qatar for my visa run. I flew there with
Emirates airlines and their perky air hostesses tried to serve me
some tired sandwiches. The flight was so short, that I couldn’t even fit
in a whole episode of Friends. I arrived at Doha airport, disembarked
the plane, walked in a semi-circle through the airport, sat down for
5 minutes and boarded the very same plane again. I was offered
the same tired sandwiches by the same perky air hostesses.
I finished watching the episode of Friends, and clocked up some
frequent flyer miles.
All in all, not bad for a day’s work, huh?
I felt like an international jetsetter of note, well, except for the fact
that there isn’t really that much happening in Doha. Yet.

So I have now entered the UAE on a working visa as opposed to a
visitor’s visa, and this is valid until the18th May, at which time
I should already have my 3 year residency visa. At which time
Doha might be well worth a second visit, don’t you think?