Arrival: The Luggage Whisperers

Three teams were participating in the challenge to reach the first destination Khiva of the joint Uzbekistan vacation: Team FRA, Team DUS, and Team Moskwitsch. Team FRA started on Saturday at 11am from Frankfurt Airport with Uzbekistan Airways directly to Urgench. Team DUS started around 3pm from - surprise surprise - Düsseldorf Airport. And Team Moskwitsch, represented by Janina and Jörg, flew from Moscow to Tashkent at 9pm on a flight operated by Aeroflot.

Team FRA arrived in Urgench, healthy and well, with a relatively new plane, even a little earlier than planned. Team Moskwitsch spent a nice day at the Moscow Kremlin and arrived at the gate 1 1/2 hour before the official boarding start; it was 6:30pm. Boarding was scheduled to start at 8pm and the plane was supposed to be in the air at 8:45pm. Team Moskwitsch eagerly awaited Team DUS at the gate. 'If it hasn't landed at 6:25pm, they still have 2:20 hours to make the connection, right?' Jörg wondered. But this was not correct; the plane was scheduled to arrive at 6:45pm. As it was shortly before 7pm, Janina managed to log into the airport's free WiFi (which rarely works with foreign phone numbers). She found out that the plane from Düsseldorf was expected to land with a 45-minute delay. 'Good,' Jörg concluded, 'this way we have time to quickly have a beer at the Irish pub'. Fortunately, the pub was only 20m away from the gate. When it was still no sign of Team DUS at the gate at 7:30pm, the airport website informed us that the plane was expected at 7:50pm. This was extremely close. Jörg could only imagine the beer at the Irish pub in his dreams. Janina and Jörg paced nervously around the gate... 'Shall we play the slow-moving couple from Germany who can only walk very slowly to the counter?' But luckily, the boarding was delayed by half an hour. The people who, in Soviet tradition, already formed a line in front of the gate at 7:50pm, stood there until 8:45pm, then they finally boarded the plane. This delay was very convenient for Team DUS! At 8:25pm, we saw the first, sweaty member of Team DUS running to the gate... the other two had taken a bit longer with one of the countless carry-on bag checks and arrived two minutes later. Team DUS started with the Aeroflot plane half an hour later than planned from Düsseldorf. Due to this delay, the plane had to circle twice over Moscow before finally being allowed to land. So Team DUS just made it in time for the boarding of the flight to Tashkent. A reason to celebrate!

Or maybe not... what about the checked baggage? We thought it would work out with the baggage due to the boarding delay. But when we arrived in Tashkent 3 1/2 hours later, the absence of the baggage on the baggage carousel proved us wrong. What a bummer! So Team DUS went to the Lost&Found counter. Meanwhile, we checked the currency exchange machines in the airport terminal. It should be mentioned that it is definitely best to exchange US dollars right after the passport control at the small exchange booth. The machines practically only gave error messages. Janina was the only one who could exchange used(!) dollar bills at the machine. The ATMs allegedly failed to establish a connection to the domestic bank or ran out of cash... Maybe it was also because of the time, we arrived around three in the morning. If you want to avoid the haggling with the numerous and tourist-hungry taxi drivers, you should go to the tourist information as quickly as possible after the passport control and organize an official taxi there. It costs 10000 SOM (about one Euro) more than a regular taxi, but it is less hassle. The price per taxi for us was 50000 SOM. Why did we need a taxi even though we were continuing from the same Tashkent airport to Urgench? Well, the terminal for domestic flights is located opposite the international terminal, separated by the runways. The shuttle express is not active at night. So we were left with either the taxi ride or an almost one-hour walk. Team DUS was informed that the baggage would arrive in Urgench on Tuesday. But they should contact the hotline again, whose number was professionally written on an A4 sheet of paper diagonally across the Lost&Found counter.

The taxi ride was a bit adventurous, we had never heard tires screeching so often within five minutes... Passports and baggage were checked in front of the building of the domestic flight terminal and then again inside the building, 'safety first' of course. The check-in for our flight was not yet open, so we settled down in the small waiting area. By the way, there was also a small exchange booth that exchanged other currencies (e.g. Euros) for SOM at reasonable exchange rates. Team DUS was in a slightly better mood after the total fail transport of the baggage at SVO Airport. By the way, other passengers (e.g. from London) were also affected, who had changed flights in Moscow. Just to anticipate: Team DUS tried countless times to reach the hotline at various times, from Sunday to Tuesday, but the attempts were rarely successful. On Wednesday, Team DUS drove from Khiva to Urgench Airport at 8am, narrowly avoiding a car accident. Result of the promised transport on the phone: One backpack had come with the flight from Tashkent to Urgench, the other two remained missing... What a bummer! Another update: On Thursday, the last two I-only-come-with-carry-on-team-DUS members took a taxi to Bukhara Airport. The service was very accommodating and(!) the two missing backpacks were present, casually hanging out at the airport, like two overripe grapes, just waiting to be picked, like two pastries at the bakery, like two juicy melons on the roadside in Uzbekistan... Yeah, this time a reason to celebrate!

Our flight from Tashkent to Urgench went smoothly, we arrived around 9am on Sunday, September 1st. The taxi ride to Khiva was not as fast as before. Luckily! Because this time, we couldn't fasten our seatbelts. After the turbulent arrival, we were definitely very excited to see what the desert city of Khiva had to offer!