Tashkent – Flying Home

HY553 flight of Uzbek Airways left Tashkent airport at 11:30 exact heading to Kuala Lumpur. I was among the few passengers on that plane. Kuala Lumpur, compared to New Delhi, Lahore, and Bangkok, is a dry destination from this country in the central of Central Asia. This morning there were several flights to Asia, and all were full of passengers, but less than 20 people boarding from Tashkent to Kuala Lumpur.

This morning started very messy. It seemed I was not prepared yet to leave Central Asia this sudden. The notorious Uzbekistan immigration officer was not that bad though. My embassy has prepared me with magic letter so that if they tried to find trouble I still have a way out. During my two month stay in the country, I had never registered myself to the OVIR office (Passport and Immigration office), thus my stay was illegal. Luckily the immigration officer was too happy to speak Tajik language with me, chatting about the luck of living in a Muslim country like Indonesia (?) and forgot checking my registration dockets. I was lucky. I think he was also lucky, not every day he met Indonesian speaking Tajik in this airport.

The Tashkent International Airport is also weird of its kind. Just after you pass the Immigration gate, your Sum banknotes are worthless. I tried to buy a drink with my left Sum, but they refused. “Only dollars, please!” said the shopkeeper.
We were still in the territory of Uzbekistan, but even the Uzbek’s own money is worthless here. Somehow this airport reflects a nation’s confidence on their own money. Not only here, in other cities of Uzbekistan, the locals prefer to save Dollars rather than Sum, and prefer to keep the money below their pillow in bedrooms rather than trusting them to the banks.

Soon after the Boeing took off, the scenery changed drastically from grey plain to white snow peaks. I estimated we were above Tajikistan or Afghanistan now. My memory flew back to my adventures in those Pamir mountains, from getting the permit in Kabul until hitchhiking in the Wakhan Corridor, frustrating Tajik visa, and the poor but hospitable families in Tajik’s GBAO province. Maybe one of those families saw this aero plane flying beyond their garden.

Tashkent from the air

Countries’ border lines become meaningless when you are on air. I remembered my struggle passing through borders, frustrated with visa limit, difficult days waiting for truck to transport me a 50 km distance, expensive travel, and also harassments from the customs and truck drivers. Here, some thousand feet beyond land, all of those land barriers are passed in the order of seconds. With the speed of 989 km per hour, all of those months of crawling on the rugged terrain were substituted in few minutes. But that’s the magic of traveling. The days of overland traveling might be replaced by minutes of airplane journey, but the wisdoms one get from the two are incomparable.

Uzbekistan… Tajikistan… Afghanistan… Pakistan… India… then maybe through the Indian Ocean to reach Malaysia. I passed through again the countries that I have passed by land journey since 1 year and 7 months ago. All of the memories are returned back. I also remembered my dream (when I was in Afghanistan) of being set back, being thrown again to my zero point. And that dream came true. Thing is different, now I didn’t have headache of thinking how to continue back my journey, as now I had already had the plan to return back to the land I have just left.

Countries border is meaningless seen from here

Sitting next to me is a young 19 year old Uzbek boy from Jizax, Khursidjon. Khursid went to Malaysia for studying, but I think his original purpose was for working. It was his first time to fly, and to be abroad. He was both excited and worried. He reminded me to when it was my first time flying and being abroad. At that time I was exactly at his age, 19 year old, flying from Indonesia to Hong Kong and Beijing to study there. He was like me at that age, wearing neat western suit with tie (he said the suit itself cost 150 dollars), beautiful shoes, with all of passports and money neatly placed behind his beautiful suit. He was also like me, asking whether the drinks and food on the plane was free. He was also excited playing with the airplane’s radio, listening to different songs, and kept looking at the window to see the clouds, scenery that was initial experience for him.

I didn’t know what luck which bring him to me – or me to him ? of which I was thrown again to my memory of first time traveling. I was exactly like him, innocent first flyer. Now I turned to be world wanderer in some unreachable corners of the world.

I helped Khurshid feeling in his arrival card. Everything was in English and Khurshid’s English level was quite poor (two weeks later when I got a letter from him I was surprised how his English improved very fast in Malaysia). Khurshid said he was enrolled in a school in Malaysia and cost some thousands of dollars, but he just got the visa one day before departure. The visa cost 10 dollars for 3 months (Malaysia always sells cheap visa) and for visa he needed round trip flight ticket which cost him 900 dollars (for comparison, my one way ticket was only 299 dollars). His family was not rich but he had a great hope to be able to work in Malaysia.

First time flying with a plane full of Russian passengers was indeed an experience. The Russians are notorious of their drinking habit, and in these plane, the passengers were just normal Russians. The overweighed Uzbek flight attendants had to come here and there to serve vodka, red wine, white wine, beers, and all kinds of alcohol to thirsty passengers. Not until two hours, many of the passengers got drunk and crazy. Some men kept ringing the bell to call the attendants to bring more wine. As the men were completely drunk the fat stewardess refused to give them more drink. The men were angry. They screamed. The stewardess screamed back to them in Russian.

This flight was very noisy.

Vodka, anybody?

Not long later, a young Russian girl also got mad. She, without reasons that I could understand, swore to a fellow passenger with dirty words. She screamed very loudly. Then she shouted to all passengers…, “YA LYUBLYU SEBYA… POTOMU SHTO YA LYUBLYU SEBYA…!!! (I love myself, because… I love myself!!!)”. The atmosphere in the plane was very noisy and it became resembled a busy bazaar of Tashkent. Suddenly, another girl came to grab that drunk girl and slapped her until she got quiet.

I still had not relieved from my surprise, suddenly I heard from behind my seat, a Malaysian Chinese old lady got angry with her younger male companion ? possibly her relative. She shouted in Chinese and cursed that man with improper words. I was not interested to hear that I tried to listen to the music through the earphone, but still their fighting was audible (it was they were too loud or the earphone quality was too bad?). Then the woman slapped the man with the flight magazine, “PLUCK… PLUCK…. PLUCK…” and didn’t stop cursing him.

Not more than 20 minutes later, the Russian girl who was before screaming “I love myself because I love myself” stuff, got back her conscience. Now she found that her coat was lost, and tried to check all of the hand luggages of other passengers by herself. “I lost my jacket…, please, you passengers, if you find my jacket, please return to me…!!!”
Again, the flight attendants came to stop her.
“Didn’t you leave your jacket in Tashkent airport?” asked an annoyed passenger.
“No, I’m sure it was with me. I am sure!” said the girl while continuing searching.

It’s never be quiet here.

Combination of Uzbek, Russians, and Malaysians in a flight. It was not crowded but the in-flight dramas might be interesting to be filmed by Hollywood. The in-flight movies were also strange. One was scary Russian humor full of slapping and kissing between drunks in a concert. The other was weird movie of a homophobia being treated by a psychiatrist to be a homosexual. Everything is weird in this flight.

At 10 p.m. Malaysian time, the Uzbek flight reached Kuala Lumpur. Khurshed was astonished by the night scene of this Southeast Asian capital, and from far away the giant twin towers were visible. This was Malaysian new airport, very modern equipped with inner train system to connect the airport to the immigration counters and arrival halls. As the flight was full of Uzbek and Russians, I prefer to pass the Immigration as early as possible as I assume many of them would spend longer time to get through.

A Kyrgyz family was almost not allowed to pass, as they didn’t posses Malaysian visa. “We are from Kyrgyz republic. You know, Kyrgyz republic. We don’t need visa to go to Malaysia!!!” said the Mongoloid-faced man to the Malay Immigration officer. They checked the blue Kyrgyz passports back and forth, brought those passports to the computer room then came back to the Immigration counter, again and again.

I didn’t have time to notice what happened next, as Khurshed also got problem. He got a 3 month visa, but the immigration staff didn’t stamp the passport easily. His passport was brought checked again and again to the computer room. Uzbek passport with a Malaysian visa didn’t guarantee the holder to get an entry. Khurshed was frightened. I came to help him as a translator. The higher rank immigration staff seemed didn’t believe the reason of his coming to study. Khurshed then was given only 2 month visa after the staff checking his round-trip ticket.

Malaysia, totally another world away

Malaysia, at night, was hot and humid. Compared to the dry, cold, freezing Tashkent, it was a sudden shock. A Malaysian couple friends of mine picked me from the airport and brought me directly to a restaurant in Selangor state. The food, the air, the talk.., everything is a sudden vibration from the food, the air, and the talk in Tashkent.

I was still not home yet. But I was almost there.