Day 1 getting to Bishkek

The alarm goes off at 3.30 am. It feels like I’ve run into a brick wall. My eyes are sore and scratchy; worse than a scouser whose team has lost to a dubious last minute penalty. We should have gone to bed at 8pm, but we simply had to watch the last two episodes in the third series of Ted Lasso. Idiots! We go to bed at 10, but despite being up since 6am, we can’t sleep. It’s always the way when you know you’ve got to be up early isn’t it?

By 4am we’re vaguely coherent, but the eyes are still stinging. Our friend, Mrs B, arrives bang on time to transport us to Heathrow. Compared to us, she’s positively ebullient, and greets us with a jaunty “good morning “. We just about squeeze out a polite response! 

The queue to check was nearly an hour, not a good introduction to Turkish Airlines. The cheerless check in agent tags our bags and reissues our boarding passes. Then she drops her little bombshell…”now you must take your bags to oversize baggage to check in there”. “Really? How come we’ve never had to do that at Heathrow before”. I argue, then I argue more. Cate’s shuffling, embarrassed at my protestations.  We’re surrounded by people with huge suitcases that dwarf our rucksacks! But apparently it’s not their size that’s the issue, it’s the straps . Absolute tosh!

Those of you who’ve travelled with me will know the form. I’m not a patient soul once I enter airports! In the end she relents…”you can leave them here, but they’ll probably get lost or damaged”. Bugger. I relent, and we scuttle to the oversized baggage check in with me muttering like Muttley. Two minutes later our bags are scanned we are on our way.

Our flight to Istanbul is uneventful, aside from the 20 minute taxi to the terminal. The airport is huge…….no seriously huge, with 3 active runways. The terminal building is also monstrously big; but it is the only terminal. If we joined Heathrow’s terminal 2,3, and 4 together they’d just be bigger. The four and half hour layover passes quite quickly, and we’re off on the five hour flight to Bishkek.

That all goes to plan, and we land a couple of minutes late at 01.35am. Bishkek airport was not the bedlam we expected, and we’re through immigration like a shot. Then a miracle…..my troublesome rucksack arrived. Cue a little skip of delight. The fifteen minute wait for Cate’s bag felt like double that. Anxious glances were exchanged. We weren’t fancying ourselves linguistically at the lost luggage desk, and that’s putting it mildly.

We emerged into the arrivals hall and cheery voice shouts my name. It’s James, our tour leader. How he recognised me I’m not sure, but it’s a good start.

Our Russian driver whisks us, and one other member of our group, quickly into  Bishkek, and we’re all tucked up in bed by 3am.

Overall, a very good start. Aside from the fascist on the check in desk, Turkish Airlines were very good. In particular, their cabin crew were so polite. BA could learn a lot from them!