by Stieve Adams
fishing village where we land there are no authorities that can ask questions about the boat's identity, passports and other inconveniences. Jens walks to land and takes advantage of a local ability to reach Josephine's city by a local fishing boat.
"See you at dawn," he claims.
I try to persuade him to accompany me, but I'm sure I would not melt into the environment.
After a hard day it's time to drench. Most of us have some scratch marks and bruises, but Valerie has plagued us in a very excellent way. She has a certain degree of medical education as well. Although I have known her for a long time, she has not really told me so much about herself. Even though she talks a lot, I do not know much more about her now than when I met her.
"I take the first guard," said Randolph. He is the captain on the ship and has taken command, it seems like. No one can be happier than me. Five minutes later he wakes me brutally. It's actually not five minutes later, it just feels like that. It is five o'clock in the morning and Randolph has not slept all night, he says.
I stumble on the deck on stiff bones. It's calm, even birds and hippos are asleep. It is hot, sticky hot when there is also no refreshing breeze. Disgustingly hot. I go down the galleys and get ice and cold water. Good boat, this one. The mosques are less aggressive out here on the water. Have I eaten my malaria medicine?
With ice, cold water and knot shotgun I put myself on the dark deck and try to look into the dark blue darkness. We are located 100m from the beach and everything is quiet except some occasional praises in the trees on the beach.
Suddenly I hear leaping steps on the beach, someone throws himself in a canoe and walks frenetic to us. Despite the darkness, our silhouette may look towards the mouth of the river. I grab the shotgun but relax when I hear Jens.
"We have to go away fast as the attic, they discovered us but we managed to get through the woods." Josephine was also in the canoe and they quickly agreed. Randolph was not allowed to sleep for a long time, now it was time to go out to sea and take courses at Medan.
Our nerves were not really trimmed for such experiences. The engines went on the lowest lap and were then really quiet. No lanterns were lit until we were out on free water. We are following the coast to the north and hope to avoid grains and driftwood that could make it for us.
Everything goes according to the drawings and we land in the port of Medan. Here are authorities in the form of customs and passport control that we can not overcome. We get a sense of insecurity, thais may have mutate government officials here to keep an eye out.
We actually have our passports with us but Randolph gets unexpected worries when he tries to explain why he has an English flag in the stern of a boat from Cyprus. When we thought we were smart when we painted the yacht we did not think of such problems.
While Randolph invited the customs officer on strong and cold drinks on the boatwe took things and paddled inland. Josephine took the lead finding a taxi that could take us to the airport. That is, Josephine stopped to help Randolph while trying to leave the country as soon as possible.
Thanks to Josephine's fine preparation, we were able to take a seat in a scary Honda taxi and arrived at the airport without any hassles. There we quickly discover that the natural road to civilization goes with Sil Air via Changi Airport in Singapore where we would change plans to move on. We did not feel like changing plans in Singapore but instead choose to fly Boeing 737 to Kuala Lumpur. There we should be able to change without being caught. We also do not have to stop in Bangkok, another place we do not know.
26. Dubai
Each plan has its weaknesses. Reality often has the ability not to follow planning even if it is in itself an excellent planning. We come to Kuala Lumpur and land there without any major complications. Those who are now in KL with me are the main character, Jens, who knows where the treasure is buried, his wife Josephine and my excellent co-host Valerie.
We are now planning to return to St. Kitts to excavate the treasure. I feel pretty sure we fooled our pursuers. That is why we book on the nearest flight to the Caribbean, via Paris and Air France. However, there is a lack of space so we are beautiful waiting, flying with different planes I do not seem to be particularly practical. The airport in KL is big and messy like all major airports. We slide around to shop for new clothes, visit a hairdresser and some other things that make us feel like we were civilized again.
After a few hours, the departure of our plane to the west is approaching. Suddenly Valerie comes running with his breath in his throat:
"Jens has disappears !", She hears.
It turns out that Valerie, of pure coincidence, saw Jens walk off to a street far from ours. Before she arrived, Jens was on his way into a plan destined for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
"Have you seen Josephine?" I ask of course. The answer was no, either she was in front of him aboard, or she had taken another stop.
"Follow that planet!" I exclaimed.
We will book us on the next Emirates Airline that will light a couple of hours later. This planet goes to Sharjah, another of the Emirates, which is half an hour's drive from Dubai. The Sheiks do not care so much about rationalizing the resources between themselves, if the Sharjah Sheikh wants a huge international airport, he builds an independent of whether or not it is necessary. On the other hand, the region is growing enormously. In twenty five years, the oil has made the emirates and the other surrounding countries stormy. Here roads and houses are built at an unprecedented pace.
Earlier this was known as the pirate coast. The coastal inhabitants lived on pearl fishing and piracy. The British got some order here 100 years ago. In order to protect their shipping, they succeeded in establishing peace between the emirates, who then struck each other. British shipping got through peace in the area of protected ports and trading venues.
When the oil began to flow in the area, it was first American and British companies such as BP and Esso who handled exploration and production. The Arab states, however, wanted a larger portion of the cake and managed to nationalize oil production. They also wanted to raise the price properly. Production costs may be $ 5 a barrel, but they sell it at least $ 15-30 per barrel depending on what OPEC oil-producing cartel can agree.
This is the reason why Dubai is called the Middle East Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, the largest of the Emirates, called Middle East New York. Thus, there is a modern building, world class skyscrapers and especially in Dubai, a center for free trade. For example, the Duti Free Dubai open is the name of the tennis tournament that is part of the ATP series.
But that was one thing we did not think of. This requires a visa to enter the country. Here no one is released that does not work right. Apart from tourists who can stay for two months, one must have a guaranteed job to get in. And you can not change employers when you're here, but have to go home and get a new visa if you want to switch to a new job. But Britons do not need a visa. I came in but not Valerie! Even though we tried to get the duty to accept that we argued that St. Kitts was part of the British Commonwealth. St. Kitts participates in the Commonwealth Games in Cricket, for example.
Valerie had a beautiful stay on the other side of the wall and had to take another flight somewhere else. We agreed that she would go home to St. Kitts and monitor the events from there. Once upon a time she could easily obtain a visa and find out if she needed here in Dubai.
The night was late and I took a yellow taxi to Sharjah Hilton to sleep a couple of hours before I could start looking for Jens. The search began by trying to get Björn by telephone. He might know if Jens had any contacts here in the Emirates. I managed to easily get to the port office but they had not seen Björn in a couple of days. He had some private mission with the tugboat, it was said. If they got him through the radio they would hear.
The next step was to try to find out if Jens arrived in Dubai or maybe flown on. He did not have a visa? I'm not a dancer to the profession, I'm selling computers on the international market. Since I did not have someone to cont
act, I asked at the front desk. Almost all staff at the hotels come from India and Pakistan. Indians, like the Chinese, are spread all over the world and are good businessmen. The nice Indian girl at the front desk had contacts with a travel agency, maybe they could take a look at the flight bookings.
Clearly smarter than going to the airport. I therefore took a taxi to the travel agency to meet Indira. But she was not Gandhi. She had a friend who had access to the passenger lists and she really found Jens on the flight passenger list. Thus, it was not certain that he had entered the country.
Access to Passport Control's visa list was much more difficult. Passports are not Indians, they are usually Arabs and India's network of contacts did not extend so far. Instead, she offered to contact a colleague who had been and met a businessman on the flight. He drove a limousine and sometimes picked up people on the flight to drive them to conferences, businesses or hotels.
"You know someone who keeps a sign with your name and then takes care of the transport," explained Indira.
He was heading somewhere in his big car but we caught him by mobile phone. After some discussion, we found that someone who was probably Jens was picked up by someone from Al Bustan, a major hotel chain in the Emirates.
"How can he enter without