Taraz Revisited

19 Jun 2009

We have made it safe and sound back to Taraz. We haven’t seen Lukas Anton yet but we are once again situated in are old room at the Zhambyl with Quentin and Kara next door.

Our flight from Dulles to Heathrow on British Airways was uneventful. Since we left at 10pm we pretty much slept off and on most of the way. Heathrow has really changed and grown a lot since I last passed through. We arrived early so we unloaded on the tarmac and were bussed to Terminal 5. We then had to take a second bus to Terminal 1 were we picked up BMI Airlines for the second half. I had heard rumors that there were some issues with British Airways and BMI cross ticketing. So I had arrived prepared to have some sort of hiccup in the process. After walking for what seemed forever we finally made it to security. Once we cleared there it was on to the BMI ticket counter to check-in and get our boarding passes. I knew it was a bad sign when he got on the phone. Long story short, the two airlines computer systems are not on speaking terms and depending on who you purchased your tickets from the other airline has problems with getting the system to process the tickets. He could see our reservations but British Airways system had a lock on the e-tickets. The gentleman at the counter was very nice and after about 20 minutes he had resolved the issue, called us back over to the counter and handed us our boarding passes.

In spite of our short layover we still had plenty of time. It was then another jaunt to the gate. BMI is ok service but their jets are small and old. The seats were tight together, no screens in the back of the seat in front and some seats didn’t have access to the screens in the center aisles. It was 6 seats across, 3 on each side. We were 1 hour late leaving Heathrow. First they were missing 4 passengers whose luggage had already been stowed underneath. If the passengers did not board or were not located they were going to take all the bags off in order to remove the bags belonging to the 4 passengers. Once they had that resolved we had another delay because of “2 birds on the runway that they need to clear off”, those were the captain’s words. I kid you not! I don’t know what kind of birds or if they were dead or alive but it was another 15 minute delay. We still managed to arrive only about 15-20 mins behind schedule.

Our trusty drivers were waiting for us outside baggage claim. We headed to the parking lot where we met up with Quentin and Kara. With stops it took us about 7 hours to get to Taraz. The roads are in much better shape and we managed to sleep off and on during the drive.

When we got out of the car in front of the hotel it was like we had never left. Janetta had evidently been by the hotel because they had our keys to our old room all ready for us. Room pretty much looks the same. They have trimmed some of the vines covering the windows back a bit and fixed the tile on the bathroom floor. Wayne checked the AC unit and it seems to be functioning properly and blows out nice cold air.

The weather today is sunny, with a slight breeze and warm. It was actually a bit chilly in the wee hours of the morning as we made our trek from Almaty to Taraz.

I guess that’s all for now. We’ve been to the store and hopefully we will get to see Lukas tomorrow if we don’t go this afternoon.