Bishkek ahoy!

Speeding to the airport, my mother will hate me for saying that as she always sticks to, and lingers under the speed limit, one spectacular crash appeared on the motorway, so spectacular in fact, that it looked like a perfectly composed stunt. So perfectly composed that with a Mercedes two back wheels on a BMW's roof, everyone felt the need to slow down in admiration, leading to us all missing our flight! 


A blessing in disguise really, looking drawn and sombre from lack of sleep we all crowded around a brunch and then crashed at a Premier Inn for two nights, and wow were those beds comfortable! I am now going to invest in a little hotel savings account, so whenever I need to do a JK Rowling, I shall book into a hotel, do various works (in her case Harry Potter) and crash out for a good 12-14 hours sleep with the "do not disturb sign" on the door!!


The thankful element about flying out on Monday, meant that I didn't take off from earth UK side, with a jar full of butterflies in my stomach. Instead I felt as though I was finally in the right place for this time. I say that, I have felt I have been for a while, but the little occurrences seemed to have lead me to this big trip/job as a stile into the next field, so to speak. 


Ladened with cameras, camera bags and an amalgamation of carry on's (the amount that would have put a family of 10 to shame)! we settled into a flight that took two hours to get going because, the fuel pump wouldn't fit the plane! So far this has been a trip of firsts for me, firstly to Asia, secondly I have never missed a flight, well I have missed many to Edinburgh/Gatwick from the uni days, but that's because I hadn't wanted to go back... yet! And thirdly, my first delayed flight. Sicken but true, I kind of enjoyed the two hours on the tarmac, just chilling.. sadly not having a Bud though!!


Up in the air due to the random daydreamer I am, I decided to think what the possible purposes of all on the plane was (thanks to a conversation with Paul Smith this summer, as he informed me why he liked to see planes up in the air as you didn't know why people where on it, and he liked to think about it) but wasn't prepared to what I might hear. 


The flight to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan stops at Almanty in Kazahkhstan, where those staying on for the 25 min flight to Bishkek, stay on the flight as all Bishkek passengers wait for the concluding leg of the journey. There were four American's on the flight, ranging from 17yrs old to 50, who I had spoken to before we took off, and over heard the nicotine withdrawals of another mid flight, with her nicotine patch glinting and reflecting in the aeroplane light.


In our 40 min lull, they were asking who we were and what we were doing, after filling them in on our quest of Tea they informed us of their trip to Kyrgystan. Krygystan has three army bases, two Russian and one American, these guy were heading to the American one, where they would then be posted to Afghanistan for a year, one having already spent a year there. This really effected me, I was going on a trip where the films/books/news were going to unfold in front of me. I already knew this, as I am certainly a realist, but, I hadn't even put the perspective of this documented war into the picture.


I had to bite my tongue not to ask them their names and details, as I would want to track their progress to see that they returned home safely, crazy, because how in the hell would that help them? It certainly woke me up to the unique nature of man. I would never want to go into the forces, my stint in the school's CCF on the few Wednesday nights that I attended was more than enough for me, but it made me realise why some people don't understand why I took this job on. I guess I am going into a conflict of my own, battling with an unknown that I have only heard the hyped "fear them out" media bang on about, and I really have no clue as to the reality. I have packed as appropriately as I have been told, and will stick to all the common sense and diplomacy that I have assembled in my 24yrs on said planet, but like them, there is no going back, even if I don't like it. I am posted out for the next 4 1/2 months doing a job in areas that may scare me senseless, but I will be surrounded by good comrades, some who have been out before, and learning skills that may or may not come into their own later on in life. 


25mins to Bishkek completed... tarmac sprawled beneath the planes wheels, with the engine now still. In a new country and the only lights you see from the plane, is one line of white street lights, and darkness surrounding it. With open drains, and  pot holes in unlit streets awaiting me, one really is Dorothy, not in Kansas anymore. On the starting line to enter into this new anthropological world, passport tucked away in my pocket, no money on my person, I enter the country in a run up to elections, 5 months after a revolution, with a sense of apprehension, yet clarity of leaving all emotional baggage at a never to be opened locker again, in an airport, near a town, I called home, for my life to date.