Those of you that follow me know this trip to Dubai is no holiday and the aim was to sort out an off shore bank account and secure an off ramp out of crypto by visiting Pallapay. Yes one could do this Pallapay part online but I have so many questions it makes logical sense to combine this part over the coming days.
Last night we boarded the Emirates flight to Dubai with the hope there would be seat or two spare having booked economy. I rarely sleep on a flight so a relatively medium length flight of 8 hours was never going to be fun times. I knew how much I was saving per hour by sitting in the cheap seats and this helped later on when I was cursing myself why I never had a more comfortable seat.
Last night I was quick off the mark asking one of the hostesses if I could go and find another seat once the doors had been closed in preparation for take off. She was a great help and took me to this row of 4 empty seats. The photo I quickly snapped was a sneaky one as I did not want to be too celebratory as I am sure a number of others had been eyeing this up only to see me take their one last hope away. I could not take 4 seats because that would be ultra selfish so I bagged two ,but in reality 3 or 4 seats would have made the difference. This mini upgrade helped, but I still could not sleep as I need to be horizontal and I am no yoga master even though I did attempt certain positions that were never going to work.
We arrived in Dubai being met by depressing heat of 42% and this was 8am so one can imagine how bad this was going to be once we hit mid day. 3 showers later and this is no longer a joke because the heat is so draining along with 50% humidity. The screen shot above was from 10 21 pm tonight being 33 degrees, but feels like 46 degrees and this is no exaggeration.
What I did learn today is how big Dubai really is and what may look just around the corner is actually a 50 minute taxi ride. The taxi driver bought us to the wrong hotel this morning as who would have guessed the same name has been used by one hotel group. They were pretty decent about it and the upgrade we received was rather significant. This hotel is more of an apartment hotel overlooking the sea and the one we had originally booked was over an hours drive away. Why they use the same name is beyond me and what causes the confusion.
Now I have a 3 bedroom apartment all ensuite, a lounge and a complete kitchen and all I wanted was a normal hotel room. Now I do not think it makes much difference where you book a hotel as nothing is close by.
The bank on the map showed it was close by in the same area name and EU or UK then it is very simple. South Africa is regarded as high risk due to money laundering and racketeering by the government officials. Funny really as the crooks with money who are laundering can have access to accounts due to the size of their deposits.
I will talk about this more tomorrow as I have been offered an account and not the $1 million or $500K they tried to sell me. I am not allowed a normal savings account and have to take a service from the bank first as I am then using their services. This could be a short term investment policy and will discuss this further tomorrow as so much was discussed within the 3 hour meeting. I have hope now what looked like dead in the water within the first half hour and now we are close.
I am exhausted and will go through this tomorrow plus Pallapay who I am seeing in the morning. This to me is the ultimate crypto off ramp and having a Dubai bank account along with Pallapay is worth getting.
