After a whirlwind final day in Dubai, I left with my nerves frayed, my body tired, and my mind split between gratitude and frustration.  Betty — sweet, magnetic, perpetually late Betty — had insisted on seeing me off.  And I let her.   There's that old saying: once you go black, you never go back. Maybe there’s truth in it — not just physically, but in how present she was with me.  She cooked food, gave foot massages, and wanted to look after me in every way possible.  Attentive.  Soft.  Fully there.

But time management wasn’t her strength, and all her delays kept on dragging deep into the day.  The sun had already dipped beneath the skyline by the time we stepped onto the metro toward my Airbnb. She held on to our goodbye, lingering with every stop. That’s always been my paradox: girls who want to spend so much time with me, even when I don’t have much to spare. I’m flattered, of course — but inside, I was thinking: I need space. I need to close this chapter cleanly.

As we reached the metro stop, Betty leaned in and kissed me on the cheeks, then whispered, “We can’t kiss in public. It’s forbidden here, you know.”  Maybe it was.  Maybe it wasn’t.  At that point, I didn’t care. I had a bus to Abu Dhabi to catch and a growing sense that time, once again, was slipping out of my hands.

I ducked into the Airbnb just long enough to gather my things. Alison, my host was a true gem and she greeted me with that warm, intuitive energy only great hosts possess. “I know you’ll be back in Dubai,” she said with a smile. “This isn’t goodbye. Want to join us for wine?”

She always had wine. Always a guest or two. This time it was someone new and the mood suggested that the night was only just beginning.  For a split second, I hesitated.  Damnit.  The timing is always the worst.  But I couldn’t stay.  I had a bus to catch and and a passport renewal to solve.  I had a whole new country waiting for me the next morning, and now I was doing it with a folding bike I hadn’t even used once in Dubai.

The fucking bike was becoming a ball and chain, an awkward, bulky symbol of what I wanted to do on this trip but wasn't doing much of.  In the end, it was just more weight to drag into an Uber, more friction on a day that had already cost me the one thing I couldn’t afford to mess up: my passport.

I didn't say a long goodbye to Alison.  I couldn't. Just a smile, a thank-you, and a quick slip into the night. In a city where everything glitters and everyone lingers, I had to keep moving. 

The moment we arrived at the bus terminal, a big red bus pulled up with bold letters: DUBAI BUS — as if the city was giving me a parting gift.  The guy said "How are you brother?  Just use your metro card to get on the bus."  I walked up to board, thinking my metro card would work just like everywhere else in the Emirates.  But, of course, I had misplaced it.

“No problem, brother,” said the man at the front, a warm-hearted guy from Morocco. “You can buy online.” He helped me scan QR codes and walk through the process on my phone, but naturally, my credit card got rejected.

So now, with a folding bike on my back and all my gear weighing me down, I had to drag everything into the nearby metro station, just to buy a brand-new metro card. It felt like a small humiliation, but I was too tired to fight it. The whole journey had become this strange rhythm of connection and delay, grace and friction.

I finally got back to the terminal and caught the next bus.

For the first time in what felt like hours, I could finally decompress. The city lights faded behind me. The noise, the weight, the emotional aftertaste of Betty’s affection, Alison’s wine offer, the Uber sprint, the folding bike drama — all of it started to settle.

I arrived in Abu Dhabi late at night, lugging the folding bike and baggage into a taxi whose driver, unsurprisingly, had no clue where my cheap serviced apartment was. I’ve come to accept that most of these budget hotels are half Airbnb, half hotel, and half mystery.  Check-in was a slow motion nightmare but once inside, I slept like a king.

Honestly, the best sleep of the entire trip came during my time in the Emirates. It was like my body gave itself permission to stop negotiating with chaos. For a few hours each night, I felt human again.

The next morning, the plan was simple on paper:  grab food, find a print shop, print the forms, submit my renewal to the Canadian embassy, keep the old passport, fly to Kazakhstan, exchange the passports in Bangkok

Tight? Yes. But clean enough in my head.

I found a local print shop just a short walk away.  Already, though, the heat and air quality were turning against me. It reminded me of Shanghai:  choking air, rising sun, and that creeping sensation of your energy being siphoned off one bead of sweat at a time. But the Indian guys at the shop were friendly, helpful, and exactly the kind of quiet efficiency I needed that day.

Then, of course, the hiccup:  I forgot my passport photos.

I scrambled to find a photo shop nearby, printed extras, and grabbed another Uber to the Embassy. I was late, naturally, but they let me in.

Security was routine, but what followed was not.  A smiling Chinese officer, of course, reviewed my paperwork.

She said  “Sorry… there’s water damage on the photo page. We can’t process this renewal unless you give up the old passport.”

I kept my tone polite, but inside I was already unraveling.

I said “I see, but I need to keep this passport. It has valid visas I’m using right now.”

She nodded, still gentle.

“You can write a handwritten letter explaining that. We don’t make the final decision. Passport Canada has gotten very strict about damage lately. When did the water damage happen?”

I said, “I'm not sure. But I’ve used it for years. Dubai immigration didn’t flag it.  Their AI facial recognition gates said 80% match.”

She sighed, still kind but firm.

“I’m sorry.  We can’t process this unless you’re willing to give up the passport now.  If not, you’ll have to cancel and refund the fees.”

I was actually lucky that they would even let me keep it, let alone travel with it again.  

“Are you traveling soon?” she asked.

“Today,” I said.

She blinked. “Today?”

“Yeah. I fly to Kazakhstan in a few hours.”

Her expression said everything: You must be insane.

I thought it was a great plan:  fire off the renewal, keep the old passport, travel to Kazakhstan to see my brother, then later swap it out in Bangkok.But to her? It was cobbled, patched, delusional.

And maybe she was right.  There was something about this water damage that would later be used as leverage.

"You’re always welcome to renew it here in Abu Dhabi!” she said cheerfully, as if I were just another Canadian expat with time to spare, not a man weaving together visas, bike bags, and contingency plans like duct tape on a sinking boat.

For a brief second, I hesitated.  I thought of Betty, the wine at Alison's place and all those gym classes.  I thought of the silk-smooth sleep, the quiet nights, the safety of pausing the race for just a little longer. 

Maybe I should stay. Maybe I should come back to Betty. Maybe I should just renew it here after all.

Then I thought of how expensive it was in Dubai.  It was a firm no.

I’d already begun The Run and The Run doesn’t circle back.