Caucasian Detour

Sitting in a windowless office in central London, Central Asia seemed romantically exotic: a place full of ‘Stans where weird was normal, a savings account was a mouth full of gold teeth and fermented mares’ milk counted as a stiff drink.

Even better, no one I knew had been there.

This would have remained a daydream for whiling away long hours of desk-bound boredom if not for the enthusiasm of The Aussie, proudly trying her best to never grow up and get a “proper job”.

We set off at 2.30pm on a Sunday in September to fly from Heathrow to Uzbekistan. We were scheduled to route via Yerevan (Armenia) and on to Tashkent, but that plan that went slightly awry. Queuing up for check-in in London we were handed a smudged piece of paper by a BA official which informed us that, due to a fuel shortage in Armenia (as you do) we were now also going to fly via on Tbilisi (Georgia) to pick up petrol – why not! We were glad to see that right from the start of our adventure, things weren’t always going to make all that much sense….so we passed the time people spotting and wondering the reasons our fellow passengers had for travelling to Central Asia.

BA’s cunning plan all seemed to be going smoothly until we approached Yerevan and found ourselves in the middle of a tremendous thunder storm. The aircraft shuddered as we were lashed by driving rain – our path dramatically lit by flashes of lightening. Clutching the arm rests, we made two abortive landing attempts that ended with half the Armenians on board throwing up, and the remainder loudly invoking the protection of the Lord. So BA moved on to plan B - rerouting to Tbilisi first to get fuel - or "scrounge some" as Dave our trusty pilot said. We made it there an hour later and managed to land, only to be stuck on the tarmac for several hours as we were unable to refuel due to the risk of lightening strike. Fair enough. Dave kindly put on a great Jennifer Lopez film to keep people happy and passed around the gin – he’d got the measure of us by now.

When the storm ceased we set off again for Yerevan to try to unload our (now rather stressed) Armenians - who insisted on clapping at landings and telling the pilot how much they were praying for him. Dave seemed to be enjoying this and moseyed through the cabin shaking hands with distressed Armenians and wearing a general air of benevolence.

Finally, we got to Yerevan and succeeded in landing. The Armenians were off loaded with much relief and the rest of us stayed in our seats relieved to be one step closer to our destination. We were then informed that, as our crew had now exceeded their allotted flying hours, we were going to have to stay the night in Armenia - no big deal surely? The Aussie and I were quite looking forward to this unplanned detour and looking up Yerevan in BA’s in flight magazine to see what the place was going to be like. Unfortunately this rosy-tinted dream was dashed as we found ourselves unloaded in the Yerevan transit lounge being told that there were no hotel rooms available for us in as it was a national holiday and that we were not allowed to leave the lounge.....This news was not very well received as most of the passengers were visa exempt and several of the NGO workers had contacts in the country they could have stayed with. But no go.

So began (at 5am with no sleep) 14 hours being held hostage in the Yerevan transit lounge - with only meals begged from Armenian Airlines to eat. (Note: there is absolutely nothing to recommend about Armenian Airlines food – it being mainly based on rancid bulgur wheat.Ugh.) Blankets were found for a heavily pregnant British NGO worker who was asked, along with an Uzbek family with an angelic baby (who didn’t cry once) whether they’d like to use the Family Room – with the foreboding caveat that they might not like it as it was “very Russian”….

We soon discovered, not really to our surprise, that sleeping on marble isn’t very comfy and having rats scurrying past doesn’t make for a good night’s sleep. Luckily we were stranded with a good bunch of people - some Uzbek couples and a bunch of UK & US aid and NGO workers – and surrounded by some classic 1980s Russian architecture. It did strike us that there weren’t any other tourists on that route….but that just made it more interesting! Once the German from the European Bank chilled out and got his laptop out, and the poor woman trying to get to Tajikistan had given up hope of getting there – everyone became resigned to having as much fun as they could. The Aussie and I got caught up in a competitive game of water bottle football (holding our own for the Commonwealth vs. the US) against a bunch of US teachers en route to Afghanistan and really annoyed a rather large bloke by scoring several goals past him. Anyway, we kept ourselves entertained until we were able to reboard our flight. The football was a marked improvement on the highly detailed biography of Che Guevara that The Aussie had brought with her which was impossible to read for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Eventually the flight crew rocked up from their night in a hotel – looking highly apologetic, crumpled and slightly bemused to hear the laughter and find us having taken over the transit lounge and be playing football down its length. Once on board many apologies were made, but with all the passengers assuring the hostesses that it wasn’t their fault (it was their controllers in the UK) and with the lovely Polly handing round orange juice before take off with the quiet aside (“its got champagne in it!”) they were trying hard. Slightly rocky take off with Dave – back on form again – informing us that the runway was in a state – but that that was normal for Armenia and then back to more dodgy films on his recommendation. Never did get to see what happened to Jennifer Lopez though….

The weather still wasn’t brilliant, but at least we had ditched the hysterical Armenians, I don’t know how they would have reacted to the plane then getting hit by lightening. Poor Polly was sitting facing a row of passengers by the emergency exit doors and was heard to exclaim: "what the hell was that!" as we heard a loud bang and the plane shook dramatically. Luckily this wasn’t the first time I’ve been on a plane hit by lightening so I wasn’t too worried, and most of the aid workers sitting near us had had even more hairy experiences on flights in the past – so between us we managed to calm Polly down. But even Dave sounded slightly ruffled.

Handily we also met the chap who runs the British Council for the Central Asian region and the Vice Consul for the British Embassy - got a few tips and their business cards "just in case" and the offer of a lift into town if our hotel hadn’t sent anyone.