We've sobbed in airports, narrowly avoided lockdowns, done three stints in hotel quarantine, completed mountains of paperwork, lost piles of money through cancelled bookings and watched our toddler get spooked by hazmat-suited staff. That’s the cost my family and I have paid to move countries four times since Covid-19 erupted.
Understandably, many people are not prepared to return to international travel. In their minds, the benefit of a holiday is greatly outweighed by the risk of contracting Covid-19. Not to mention the major hassles of pandemic travel, which I’ve faced while relocating from Australia to Ireland, back to Australia, back to Ireland, and now to Thailand, with my wife and young son.
Many people have told us we’re brave, others rather ambiguously used the word "adventurous", and some have suggested we’re reckless. Realistically, all of those descriptors are accurate. I should emphasise I’m not a coronavirus-denier. My wife and I each have had three Covid-19 vaccination shots, take great precautions when we travel and are acutely aware of the risks we’ve taken in shifting homes repeatedly. Many times we’ve second-guessed those choices.
Our decision to move countries has been motivated by two factors. Firstly, a desire to keep afloat my profession as a travel journalist. Secondly, the far-flung nature of my extended family, who are scattered across three continents, and a wish not to be marooned from them for several years.
When coronavirus emerged early last year, we were living in my home town of Perth and were scheduled to go to Thailand and then on to my ancestral homeland of Ireland for a few months. On January 24, 2020, Wuhan shocked the world by going into the pandemic’s first city-wide lockdown. I immediately cancelled our trip to the Thai capital, which I knew received many tourists from Wuhan.
Instead, we fast-tracked our trip to Ireland and, in mid-February 2020, did a voluntary two-night hotel quarantine stay in Kuala Lumpur en route. This cost me Dh5,000 ($1,361) in cancelled flights and hotels, and earned ridicule from friends in Perth, who couldn’t fathom my fear of coronavirus.
In Kuala Lumpur, coronavirus was being taken very seriously – masks everywhere and the streets hauntingly quiet – whereas in Europe it was a novelty. In Ireland and London, where I travelled for work in March 2020, I received strange looks for wearing a mask at all times.
By the end of that month, however, Ireland went into a strict lockdown and we spent nearly three months trapped in our home. The anxiety and claustrophobia was crippling. Meanwhile, back in Perth, Covid-19 barely existed owing to early border closures, with shops, restaurants and major events all operating.
So in mid-June 2020, we flew from Ireland back to Perth. Dublin airport was eerily empty and my son, then aged 10 months, was terrified by the airline staff wearing full-body protective suits, masks and visors. On arrival in Australia, we were led on to a bus and received a police escort to a hotel where we did 14 nights of quarantine.
What followed was a laid-back 13 months in this gorgeous Australian city, which incredibly had less than 20 community cases of Covid-19 in that entire period. I played competitive sport each weekend, went to the cinema, attended crowded events and took my son to busy indoor play centres.
In May 2021, we had to cancel a planned move to Thailand because of the country’s first major Covid outbreak. By July 2021, there was no end in sight to Australia’s harsh travel restrictions, which banned its citizens from international travel, except in extraordinary circumstances. I had run out of travel stories to sell and, with Europe wide open for tourism, the choice was clear.
My occupation and my Irish citizenship secured us an ultra-rare exemption to leave Australia. I was required to sign a legal document stating I would not return to Australia within six months and that, should I get into trouble overseas, consular assistance would not be provided.
To earn this exemption, I had to spend an entire day collating, printing and checking all the requested evidence, including my Australian vaccination certificate. In late July 2021, we had a smooth passage to Dubai and on to Ireland where, surprisingly, our folders of documents were barely even checked by immigration staff.
From then until mid-December, we had a peaceful stay in the Irish countryside town where my mum grew up and I still have many relatives. Unfortunately, we rarely saw this family because my frequent work trips around Europe meant I was a potential carrier of the world’s new invisible foe. Fortunately, I’ve never contracted Covid-19. Nor have my wife or son, even after our fourth big move in December from Ireland to Bangkok.
This most recent leg of our pandemic sojourn was perhaps the most stressful and complicated. That was owing to the difficulty of securing entry rights to Thailand, problems with passport validity, the postponement of flights, the emergence of the Omicron variant and constant unnerving media speculation about changes to Thailand’s border rules.
By the time we got on our flight from Dublin to Dubai this December, my wife and I were physically and emotionally drained. Then, because of a misunderstanding at Dubai airport, we found ourselves at the gate for the wrong Emirates flight to Bangkok. Two such flights were departing at almost exactly the same time, but from opposite ends of this massive airport.
“I’m sorry, but your flight departs in 20 minutes, and the gate is 15 minutes’ walk from here, you won’t make it,” said a sympathetic Emirates staff member as we tried to board the wrong flight. Instead of giving up, I sprinted with my son screaming in his pram, narrowly avoiding collisions with perplexed travellers. My wife followed, lugging two backpacks.
If we missed this flight, not only would we have lost a huge amount of money, but the Thailand entry permits that took so long to secure would have become invalid. This would not be a mishap, it would be a disaster. We would have to return to Ireland.
As it was, we got lucky owing to the misfortune of other passengers. A family who had done antigen tests for Covid-19 rather than the required PCR tests were not being allowed on the flight, which was delayed as a result, buying us time to sneak on board.
My wife and I were both in tears as we approached that gate, certain we’d missed the flight and landed ourselves in a disastrous situation. Onboard the plane, safe and sound, I felt nauseous. Rarely in my life had my nerves been so jangled.
After nearly two years of running the pandemic gauntlet, moving our family across the globe four times, a misunderstanding about a flight number was what had almost brought us unstuck. I don’t think we’ll hit the road again for quite a while.
Company: Instabug
Founded: 2013
Based: Egypt, Cairo
Sector: IT
Employees: 100
Stage: Series A
Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors
Winners
Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)
Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski
Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)
Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea
Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona
Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)
Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)
Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)
Best National Team of the Year: Italy
Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello
Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
Player Career Award: Ronaldinho
Al Jazira's foreign quartet for 2017/18
Romarinho, Brazil
Lassana Diarra, France
Sardor Rashidov, Uzbekistan
Mbark Boussoufa, Morocco
Hotel Data Cloud profile
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 247hp at 6,500rpm
Torque: 370Nm from 1,500-3,500rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 7.8L/100km
Price: from Dh94,900
On sale: now
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
if you go
The flights
Fly direct to Kutaisi with Flydubai from Dh925 return, including taxes. The flight takes 3.5 hours. From there, Svaneti is a four-hour drive. The driving time from Tbilisi is eight hours.
The trip
The cost of the Svaneti trip is US$2,000 (Dh7,345) for 10 days, including food, guiding, accommodation and transfers from and to Tbilisi or Kutaisi. This summer the TCT is also offering a 5-day hike in Armenia for $1,200 (Dh4,407) per person. For further information, visit www.transcaucasiantrail.org/en/hike/
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
City's slump
L - Juventus, 2-0
D - C Palace, 2-2
W - N Forest, 3-0
L - Liverpool, 2-0
D - Feyenoord, 3-3
L - Tottenham, 4-0
L - Brighton, 2-1
L - Sporting, 4-1
L - Bournemouth, 2-1
L - Tottenham, 2-1
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
T20 World Cup Qualifier
October 18 – November 2
Opening fixtures
Friday, October 18
ICC Academy: 10am, Scotland v Singapore, 2.10pm, Netherlands v Kenya
Zayed Cricket Stadium: 2.10pm, Hong Kong v Ireland, 7.30pm, Oman v UAE
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Darius D’Silva, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zawar Farid, Ghulam Shabber, Junaid Siddique, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Waheed Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Zahoor Khan
Players out: Mohammed Naveed, Shaiman Anwar, Qadeer Ahmed
Players in: Junaid Siddique, Darius D’Silva, Waheed Ahmed
England-South Africa Test series
1st Test England win by 211 runs at Lord's, London
2nd Test South Africa win by 340 runs at Trent Bridge, Nottingham
3rd Test July 27-31 at The Oval, London
4th Test August 4-8 at Old Trafford, Manchester
Without Remorse
Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Michael B Jordan
4/5
UAE%20FIXTURES
%3Cp%3EWednesday%2019%20April%20%E2%80%93%20UAE%20v%20Kuwait%3Cbr%3EFriday%2021%20April%20%E2%80%93%20UAE%20v%20Hong%20Kong%3Cbr%3ESunday%2023%20April%20%E2%80%93%20UAE%20v%20Singapore%3Cbr%3EWednesday%2026%20April%20%E2%80%93%20UAE%20v%20Bahrain%3Cbr%3ESaturday%2029%20April%20%E2%80%93%20Semi-finals%3Cbr%3ESunday%2030%20April%20%E2%80%93%20Third%20position%20match%3Cbr%3EMonday%201%20May%20%E2%80%93%20Final%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre 6-cyl turbo
Power: 374hp at 5,500-6,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm from 1,900-5,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.5L/100km
Price: from Dh285,000
On sale: from January 2022
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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The%20specs
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EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
Gulf Men's League final
Dubai Hurricanes 24-12 Abu Dhabi Harlequins
A little about CVRL
Founded in 1985 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) is a government diagnostic centre that provides testing and research facilities to the UAE and neighbouring countries.
One of its main goals is to provide permanent treatment solutions for veterinary related diseases.
The taxidermy centre was established 12 years ago and is headed by Dr Ulrich Wernery.
