Saturday, June 30, 2007

A nice little Salik scam.

I came across an interesting detail with Salik today.

We went to have a look at the newly-opened Lulu Hypermarket in Al Barsha, just behind Mall of the Emirates. There are no signs, so you take a guess where to go - eventually I found it.

After we'd finished looking around we headed back to Dubai Marina. Again I had to guess the route, got back into MoE, around the flyover signed to Umm Suqeim and took the far left turnoff onto Sheikh Zayed Road headed towards Jebel Ali.

Less than 100 metres and I passed under the tollgate, the one that charges you when you leave the freeway toll section. Had it been tomorrow I'd have paid Dh4 to travel less than 100 metres on SZR.

There were no signs to warn of the tollgate, so plenty of people are going to get caught.

4 comments:

faiq said...

good info...thanx
living is dubai is all about to aware of these scams.

Keef said...

Yupp, the positioning of the Barsha gate means that (if I were staying, and if I used SZR) I would have to pay twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon for taking my wife to work in Umm Sequim. I actually had to take her in this morning - July 1st - and used Al Sufouh Road. A total SNAFU, as expected.

i*maginate said...

I read this post first ages ago, when you had first written it.

Needless to say, I never returned to LULU hypermarket.

And surprisingly, after what you wrote about how difficult it was to reach the place without any signboards, haven't you as yet gotten used to the fact any signboards mislead, and the lack of them should be helpful?

It helps, being in the desert, to have a good sense of direction. Reading your post inspired me to head towards those horrible neon-green lights signalling the arrival of LULU hypermarket. And guess what, I got there first time around.

And guess what, I won't be going back again any time soon (puke)

Seabee said...

But i*maginate, a sense of direction doesn't help in Dubai any more. It used to, but now you get stuck on dual-carriageways and on monster interchanges where you can see the place you want to reach but the roads take you off in other directions!