Travels with Kathryn

I am on a plane and decided it was time to start blogging!

My alarm went off at 5.30am on an already hot and muggy London. Today’s plan is:

• Get to Heathrow Airport;
• Flight London to Frankfurt (9.30am departure);
• Flight Frankfurt to Ulaanbaatar (this takes us to 4.20am tomorrow).

Due to the weather, there have been various problems on the Lizzie Line, and as of last night I could see that the station at Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 station was closed which required a change so I allowed a little more time. Having set off at 6am, there were already severe delays, so I decided (day 1 of my holiday) that it was time to deploy my first TMaP of the holiday. For the uninitiated – where have you been? To TMaP is to “Throw Money at Problem”. I therefore took the UK’s most expensive train, chanding at Paddington onto the Heathrow Express. I was plased with my decision.

I had checked in yesterday (securing myself aisle seats on both flights, and even an exit row on my flight to Frankfurt) so it was straight to self bag-drop. This was a slightly interesting procedure as the machine printed my boarding passes (which I already had electronically) and then sent me to a desk to drop off my bag. The bag will be sent through to Mongolia (hopefully) and weighs a mere 15.7kg, but as many of the clothes will not be coming back with me, surely by the time I have thrown my knickers out it will be down to 12kg!

No problems through security (my bra and my sewing scissors went straight through the scanners for a change), but I did have to go back and scan my shoes. Then I decided to have a sit down and cool off (yes, I am starting the holiday as I do not intend it to go on, in a full sweat).

It is probably a good time to introduce my travelling companion (the human one, as opposed to the Monkey). I mentioned that I met Colette on my China trip last year, and we both talked about wanting to go to Mongolia and how the Nadaam festival would be an excellent time to go. Well, here we are. Although I currently do feel a little sorry for her as I am in my aisle exit row, and she is in the middle squeezed with a rather large gentleman next to her. I did spot her easily in the terminal as she blazed past me wearing a fleece (A FLEECE?!) – this could be the first signs of maddness. I will have to keep an eye on her…

We were late taking off, but I am very much enjoying the plane verging on being too cold. For context, you know when you are in a hot country when the airplane cooling kicks on and you get steam pushing out into the ceiling? That happened in London. An uneventful flight and on time arrival into Frankfurt.

Having achieved the miraculous of miraculous tight flight connections last year on route to Sri Lanka, I awaited the German efficency of Frankfurt. I was disappointed. We followed signage for connecting flights (having identified that we needed to transfer from terminal 1 to terminal 3), but at a certain point this just stopped. It stopped in some kind of horrendous holding area containing HOARDS of people waiting to get through the eGates. We did work out that we needed to walk around the hoard (who they were trying to funnel into a queuing area), but it was insane. Had we needed to get through it, there would have been no way that 2 hours would have been a long enough connection time. Anyway, we kept going, found the skytrain boarded, transfered, and finally arrived in terminal 3. This was much better, although rather eerily empty.

Another security scan where there seemed to be an issue with my water bottle which required the airport police (as opposed to security) coming to inspect that it was just water, well, squash. I am a big believer in the travel squash! It took us a good 45 minutes to make the transfer, so I was then ready for a sit at our gate and a sandwich (airport meal staple).

There is only one flight a day from Frankfurt to Ulaanbaatar and an interesting mix of people. A good group of Mongolians (or perhaps second generation Mongolians) returning for the Nadaam festivals, a selection of hardy looking older hiker types who I suspect are planning much of the hiking and probably horse riding, and then people who looked more like me and Colette. However, we are looked to be on the younger side of most of the tourist passengers, and I’m the older than her by a couple of years!

I am writing this from the plane. I did not know quite what to expect from Mongolia Airlines, but as they only have a couple of planes, they do look after them. I had also read some quite mixed reviews onlne regarding the entertainment system and the food. Well, I thought the food was pretty good – an “evening” meal of marinaded chicken thighs, gnocchi, and a big floret each of brocolli and cauliflower. I was about to have a bit of a strop when there was a pudding dish provided and no pudding in it. However, after clearing away the trays, they came through the plane with mini-tubs of ice cream. I can not think why no one else has done this as an in-flight treat, it was delightful and mollified a grown woman about to throw a tantrum. I ate this whilst watching F1 (the film) – for someone who does not like F1, has no interest in cars, and never really understood the appeal of Brad Pitt, I really enjoyed it and Brad Pitt maybe has a certain quality (he’s probably now old enough for my preferred age bracket). There may have even been some crying. However, the compliants may be that having turned it off and on again later in the flight, my screen had frozen. Oh well, it gave me the opportunity to write this.

A special mention shall also go to the inflight magazine which was excellent. Articles included a piece about Mongolia’s history and affinity with horses culminating in the UN’s international day of the horse (11 July don’t you know), the history of Mongolian Air and its fleet and, an article about a popular musical group fusing ancient and modern sounds. I reckon that was at last 45 minutes of entertainment, kind of wish I had taken it home with me.

Our total flight time is just under 8 hours, so I had a plan to eat dinner watching a film, then attempt to get some sleep before our 4.20am landing in Ulaanbaatar. I have definitely managed an hour or so, and some resting with my eyes closed. Hopefully this will stand me in good stead today(?). Interestingly, we have flown over Russia (Mongolia has maintained relations with Russia in light of their geography), and via the flight map, I noticed that just as we entered into Russian air space we had to return to our seats with seat belts on as we were entering some turbulance.

In classic flight style, we were woken up 2 hours before landing and fed again in readiness. A rather interesting little deli plate and a bread roll with an apricot yogurt – fine, but not as good as dinner. Just one hour to go…

I am finishing this off at 4pm on Saturday having indeed made it through a day of sightseeing (more on this in the next blog). But smooth landing into Ulaanbaatar, a nice new stamp for my passport and we were met in arrivals by Mandon who was escorting us for the day. Blue skies, sunshine and 10 degrees. Bliss.

For now, I am broken (more on that to later), must sleep.