Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Great Misadventures to Bishkek

I can never say my life is not adventurous. I am now writing by the fire at the Asia Mountain Guest House in Bishkek after a long adventurous 36 hours.

First of all, we get to SFO on Monday evening and we realize we never made arrangements to get from Manas Airport to the hotel. And Bill doesn't have the number or email to Asia Mountain. So I sat there minutes before boarding the plane and emailed my Kyrgyzstan Adoption group on Yahoo. This is about 7 pm or so PST. It was a long shot. I sent out the email in hopes of getting some ideas on how to resolve this. Lo and behold, Cindy and Mala immediately respond. Then Marnie! Holy cow don't we do anything else but check out our emails and postings?? Thank goodness we are all blog, email and group addicts.

Then, I look at Bill and just by chance asked if he has the info for our reservations at Heathrow on the way back since we have an overnight layover. Nope, no printout and he can't remember the name of the hotel. What's next?

OK, I shouldn't have asked that. Because next, we get into Heathrow a little bit late and our connecting flight is soon to leave. We make it to our BMI flight to Yerevan / Bishkek, but our bags don't. The luggage had not been unloaded from the previous flight and never made it onto our plane. So, we were told this at the gate and then confirmed again by the flight attendant after they close the cabin doors. Wonderful. I am now about to freak out but thought better about it and asked myself. If I had been told that our bags were definitely not going to make it before the closed the cabin doors, would I have said, forget it, I'm not flying without the bags? Oh hell no! I was going to Bishkek, bags or no bags. Bill also would have nipped that in the bud right then and there and reminded me I'm losing my mind.

So more adventure in Yerevan. We land in Yerevan and had to wait almost another hour of schedule delay because they had to spray the wings with this anti-freeze solution because it had been snowing and apparently, you can't fly a plane with snow or ice building up on its wings. Now, not only were we delayed again, I also realize that the big triple goose down coat I brought with me is inside the missing bags. Great. What else...?

Then we get to Bishkek. And decided to follow Mala's advise about grabbing a cab. We haggled a little bit with a cab driver and settled on $20 US dollars to get us to our hotel. We get out onto the parking lot and get into his car without a taxi sign on top. We sit in the cab thinking about the worst things that could possibly happen. We especially think this when he goes down this road that looks like it dead ends onto and alley. Then he takes us down the alley... Apparently, this is an actual road and our hotel is just off it a little ways down. Good thing because thoughts of how between Bill and me, we were going to beat the shit out of this guy, crossed my mind during this ride. Ha ha, what a relief. We pay the guy and we check in without anything bad happening to us.

Then, everything just got much better. Sure we still had no idea where our bags are but at this point, I stopped caring because I called Saule and she informed me that Kuba was coming at 10 to get us and take us to the baby house. Yes, things are looking up.

6 comments:

Gen 's Family Story said...

I love the play by play action. What a story you'll be able to tell your son:) By the way, is it cold there?
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!!!

Unknown said...

Oh Ivy... you brought back memories of getting Bishkek :) We were so jetlagged that I just didn't connect well with our facilitator and somehow I thought she had thrown us in the car with some crazy ass man that was going to kill us!! and the whole time my mom was like "isn't this lovely?" as trees are zipping by so fast that they are a mere blurry hint, while Jim and I were like "how are we going to get out of this situation alive and with our money?" it was too funny... but not at the time... only looking back on it and realizing that the crazy ass guy had been sent by the hotel... we saw him several times and everytime I kept thinking... man you don't know how close you came to being brained by two deranged Americans!

Can't wait to see the next update :) Oh and I'm being reminded to tell you to get the discount card at the Beta store (it takes a little time but it's worth it)

Lisa Brotherton said...

Ivy,
I'm just so thankful that you've made it there safely. I'm sure the bags will catch up at some point. All that matters now is seeing your beautiful boy.
Please keep us posted were waiting on baited breath.
Lisa B.
P.S. Re: taxi driver
I'm sure you and Bill could've taken him. ;.)

Hilary Marquis said...

Oh Ivy! I remember thinking the same thing when we got into a cab a few times. I am such a chicken, and Kryg was my first big travel experience. What a way to break me in, huh?

Ivy Lee said...

Shea, thanks for the discount reminder. I think we are going tomorrow to buy some formula for the baby house.

And Lisa, I love that you think we could have taken on the cab driver! Never underestimate the jetlagged and deranged. Yeah!

I have another post coming. I just couldn't stay awake any more last night and now I can't sleep at 4 in the morning.

mel@livvyloowho said...

I love following your blog (just found it last night), your summaries are the best. You are right that none of these mishaps will matter once you get to the baby house! Take pictures!