Explosions in the sky woke Cory McKane on Saturday, turning a quick visit to Dubai before a friend's wedding in India into a tense, multi-day search for a way out of the United Arab Emirates as the Iran war expanded. Faced with limited options, McKane and his friends eventually drove a rental car to the Oman border, where taxi drivers were charging up to USD 650 to take people to Muscat International Airport. The journey to Muscat took 10 hours but paid off: McKane secured a last-minute flight to India, arriving Wednesday sleep-deprived but relieved. Hundreds of thousands of travellers found themselves similarly stranded in the Middle East after Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Saturday, and Iran struck back on Gulf states as well as Israel. With much of the region's airspace closed and airstrikes intensifying, governments from North America and Africa to Europe and Southeast Asia continued their race on Wednesday to bring their citizens home. Officials chartered jets o