A Samuel Becket Day

In the play ‘Waiting for Godot’, nothing very much happens. And it carries on not happening for quite a long time. Samuel Becket’s play could well have been set in the visa section of the Saudi Consulate in Dubai, where I spent most of today.

Yesterday, we had our visa applications typed. But, for reasons best known to the Consulate, you have to wait till the next day to apply for your visas. So today, our P.R.O. took all three visa applications to the Consulate – where he was denied admission. According to the notice outside, with effect from 25th January, visa applications must be submitted in person or via one of their authorized service providers. Pointing out the fact that this is only the 19th January did not seem to impress them at all. So Sheila, Lee and myself had to drop everything to trek down to the Consulate, arriving around 10am.

There we met James Thomas of Team Saluki, who had already had the visa stamped into his passport the previous day. But there was a problem. The visa stated (in Arabic) ‘by air’, whereas, like us, Team Saluki are trailering their race car through the road border at Silla. So we queued, and waited. And waited. Time in the visa section passes slowly. Paint drying would be the cause of almost unbearable excitement. But eventually we reached the counter, where the official informed us that our visas would only be granted for air travel. We pointed out that this restriction would prevent us from participating in their prestigious international motorsport event, so what were they going to do about it? After some discussion, we were asked to return at 1.30pm to meet the consul and explain our problem to his excellency.

It being already noon, we decided to indulge in another extended period of waiting, and at 1.30pm we were waiting outside for the doors to open – after which we enjoyed another hour of waiting to be served, while the will to live slowly ebbed away. Finally, and without meeting said consul, we were informed that our visas would be processed for road travel, and James’s would be amended. But, since the bank counter only opens in the morning, they couldn’t accept our application as we couldn’t pay…so we should come back again tomorrow, between 9am and noon. And then, of course, come back again in the afternoon after 1.30pm (OK let’s be realistic, 2.30pm) to collect the visas.

However, after the frustration of wasted hours in the Saudi Consulate, things could only get better, and they did. Gareth turned up from his base in darkest Ras Al Khaimah with our trailer! Unfortunately, this silver lining had its own cloud – our towball is 2” diameter, whereas the hitch is 50mm. The 0.8mm difference is just enough to stop it fitting, so tomorrow the towball takes a turn on the lathe of our local machine shop. Oh, and we can’t get a 7-pin socket for the trailer lights here – but after a quick call to Team Saluki’s Mark Powell, their tuning guru Mark Adams has been dragooned into bringing one out from the UK tomorrow.

Team FJ’s Dave Mabbs will be up at the Consulate tomorrow – but we’ve made sure he knows how to avoid the road-trip issue. Because, although there’s rivalry, there’s also a great deal of camaraderie between the three UAE teams heading for Hail.