Flying back to Almaty!! - Luggage decided not to come plus a few more bumps to keep things interesting!!

11th December 2006

Detour via russia

Well, we have made it as far as Almaty after many many hours – Remind me again why we did not take a direct flight from London to Almaty with Air Astana? Oh yes, only two flights a week!!

When we arrived at the gate for boarding we found out that we were going to be flying first as far as Ekatrinburg in Russia, not Baku in Azerbaijan as we had anticipated… On the plus side British Airways was lovely to fly with, on the minus it left over an hour late, landed in Ekatrinburg in the middle of the night and we had to stay on board for an expected 45 minutes while they refueled. This stretched to a lot longer when they discovered that they had either too many bags or too few bags and each had to be gone through individually before we were cleared for take-off…Luckily the pilot spoke English so we knew what was going on..

Ready for take-off -another announcement – another delay – this time for a technical problem with the plane… More prayers to St. Anthony – please let us reach tarmac in Almaty intact!! Finally understand this reverent and frantic recitation of the Rosary that people do when in need!!! I have come to dread take-offs and landing – especially in snow!

Having said that, we managed to sleep on this leg of the journey and possibly missed breakfast but landed safely in Almaty, later than planned and ready to face whatever came next!!!!
Well, we have made it as far as Almaty after many many hours – Remind me again why we did not take a direct flight from London to Almaty with Air Astana? Oh yes, only two flights a week!!

When we arrived at the gate for boarding we found out that we were going to be flying first as far as Ekatrinburg in Russia, not Baku in Azerbaijan as we had anticipated… On the plus side British Airways was lovely to fly with, on the minus it left over an hour late, landed in Ekatrinburg in the middle of the night and we had to stay on board for an expected 45 minutes while they refueled. This stretched to a lot longer when they discovered that they had either too many bags or too few bags and each had to be gone through individually before we were cleared for take-off…Luckily the pilot spoke English so we knew what was going on..

Ready for take-off -another announcement – another delay – this time for a technical problem with the plane… More prayers to St. Anthony – please let us reach tarmac in Almaty intact!! Finally understand this reverent and frantic recitation of the Rosary that people do when in need!!! I have come to dread take-offs and landing – especially in snow!

Having said that, we managed to sleep on this leg of the journey and possibly missed breakfast but landed safely in Almaty, later than planned and ready to face whatever came next!!!!

Dawn as we came in over Almaty

Passport control was a breeze, very little queuing – too good to be true because 5 minutes later we were surveying the empty carousel – no luggage. Turns out our luggage never even made it to London and is still sitting on the tarmac in Shannon… We could not believe it and as we were told it will not get here until Friday or Saturday we were frantically trying to work out what this meant to us – Basically, all the baby things, bottles, snowsuit, clothes etc plus all Declan’s clothes (I wisely left some clothes behind in Ust-K but did not gloat as it had been my idea to check the bags right through to Kaz, although as they are still in Shannon don’t think that made any difference). We also now have no gifts, no makeup, no contact lens solution & toiletries, (as you can no longer carry them in hand luggage). We are allowed $200 compensation to tide us over…

Well, that seriously altered our moods before we even started the day, followed on by nobody to meet us, (although Aida did turn up shortly afterwards), followed by no hotel rooms available, followed by a phone call from Alma, the head coordinator in Astana asking where was our marriage cert?!!!!! What?!!!!! Thought the paperwork trail was all done and dusted!!! And if not, why wait until we are on the ground in Almaty and not ask us to get this during the two weeks we were at home.

Aida told us that the only hotel room she could get us was $200 a night. Very steep so brought us to an apartment building which would be $100 a night…. She invited us to follow her to have a look, said the hotel room was only a single room with no window!!... We followed her in, she had gone on ahead and Declan said ‘Nyet!’. We just turned back and waited for her in the car… Think at this stage all we wanted was sleep in a comfortable room. Hence we are staying in The Eurasia Hotel, nice 4*, large kingsize bed and it has a window!!!!! Don’t know what that was about – maybe Aida just wanted us to stay in an apartment!!?!!

And the next downturn in the day was …. No flights appeared to have been booked to Ust-K for us… Aida rang Air Astana and they had only one seat available so she put us down for standby for the second! She later confirmed to us that we have reservations for tomorrow on the 2pm flight. She will pick us up at 12pm… If we had known there was a 2pm flight we could have traveled to Ust today instead of missing tomorrow’s visit to the Baby House! Just had an awful thought – what if we are flying Air Scat – these are small old warplanes with propellers and luggage all piled up at the back of the plane and major earmuffs are required!!! Hope I am wrong!!!

Sorry about all the negativity but … not a lot has gone right today… However at the end of the day, we will survive lost luggage and expensive hotel rooms – what is important is that paperwork is not a problem and that passports issue on time! Say a prayer!

On a more positive note we have a shopping mall joined onto the hotel and also asked at reception about locating the large Ramstore, a mall that has a skating rink on the ground level and it turned out that it is only 200m from the hotel.. We spent a pleasant afternoon there despite our low moods and have found a snowsuit that should fit small Alex…

Anyway hope I am posting here tomorrow in a much better mood and that we have been reunited with Alex – wonder what his reaction will be – granted Alfiya has to be willing to take us to the Baby House for a short visit – hope we make it in time…