Taking Off

One of the problems with living in Mongolia is that there are few flight options when leaving. Also, you are required to fly out of the somewhat unreliable Chinggis Khaan International Airport.

My plane was set to be the first to depart for our Christmas vacations, scheduled for 7:50 am en route to London, UK via Moscow. Sadly, the flight was delayed until about 11:00, causing me to miss my connecting flight in Moscow. I was originally scheduled to land just after noon, but I was now going to have to take the 2:00 flight out of Moscow, which would be a very tight connection in an airport that I have never seen before.

Before I continue, I should mention that I was flying with Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier. If this is ever an option, DO NOT TAKE IT!! The plane was an old Soviet jet liner that looked to have been built in 1950, and hadn't been maintained since. Despite the terrifying appearance of the plane and the absolute lack of leg room (about 4 inches less than a standard economy seat), I was at least on a plane.

An hour into our 7 hour flight, the plane begins to descend. Of course, I couldn't understand a word of the announcement, so I became a little... unnerved. It turns out that we were landing at Irkutsk's not-so-international airport to... wait for it... refuel. How did we need to refuel an hour into a 7 hour flight? After the hour-long wait on the tarmac, it became obvious to me that I was not going to make the next connection in Moscow either. Not having a Russian visa, I was starting to worry a great deal about spending the night in what turns out to be the most expensive airport in the world.

Finally, with the refuelling completed, we lifted off again for the remaining 6 hours of our entertainment-free, alcohol-free, sleep-free flight. Luckily I sat next to a lovely woman with whom I had the most interesting of conversations. She did not speak a word of English, however; she did speak fluent Mongolian (not really a surprise for a Mongolian to speak fluent Mongolia) and French. I speak terrible Mongolian and enough French to communicate. It turns out that my French is far better than I thought, as we continued our small-talk conversation for most of the trip.

After a very long, uncomfortable 6 hours, we landed in Moscow, where I'm pretty sure the pilot got lost driving the plane around. We spent literally 30 minutes driving around the tarmac. After we entered the airport we had to stand in the long, tedious line where they booked everyone for new flights. After spending 3 hours in this line, before passing through security, I found that I had another 3 hours to wait before my next flight would leave. So, to pass the time, Charlie, an Englishman whom I befriended in the airport in Ulaanbaatar, and I sat down for a couple of beers. Having left UB, I was carrying USD only, and Charlie only had USD and British Pounds. The problem - the airport bar only accepts rubles. The second problem - the only way to exchange money is at a machine that wouldn't exchange any money. Finally, we settled on getting a few beers from one of the stands in the airport. Fortunately, the airline didn't have any problem with carrying open alcohol onto the plane.

After a very long journey, thus far, I boarded my plane 3 hours after I was supposed to arrive in London. The following flight was again entertainment-free, but came with substantially more leg room. The nearly 5 hour flight finally got me to London 8 hours after I was originally set to arrive, ending the chance to drive up to Newcastle that day.