Central Asia XXI: The Trip Home

We took flights halfway around the world, on October 29, 2021, from Tashkent to Salt Lake City, by way of Istanbul and Chicago.  We arrived safely and on time, but with a few adventures along the way.

Masks and Covid tests were required for riding airplanes and entering the U.S.  Luckily, we passed the Covid tests and could endure the masks.  I gathered my travel gear around me as I sat, at 6 a.m., in the Lotte Hotel lobby, waiting for our van to the airport.  I had a stack of magazines, which I could throw away as I finished them.  I had a jacket to keep me warm in the plane and well-used sneakers for comfy walking down long airport corridors.  Our painting from Shakhrisabz was rolled up and placed in my huge black "purse" that no one has questioned is my "small personal item."  I always carry it myself since it is too heavy for anyone else.

I said a bittersweet goodbye to the marble halls and beckoning buffets of the Lotte Hotel.  The Lotte Hotel was beautiful and unique.  Every corner of Uzbekistan was beautiful and unique, as well, if not so lavish as the Lotte Hotel. But it was time to go home.
 

For a small fee, travelers could have clerks at the airport wrap their luggage in multiple layers of plastic, to ward off luggage thieves, I suppose.  Mike had a couple of his bags wrapped.

As we entered the plane on the Istanbul/Chicago leg, Dave and I realized, with alarm, that neither of us had an aisle seat.  We had a middle seat and a window seat.  I couldn’t imagine how I could survive 10 hours flying overnight in a middle seat, with my vestiges of claustrophobia.  Luckily, Mike took pity on me and gave me his aisle seat.  When I later described to Mike my adventures with my seatmates, he said he might have gotten the better situation, squished into a window seat, rather than enduring my seatmates’ company!  

They were an elderly couple who spoke a language none of the flight attendants on this polyglot flight could understand, despite four or five flight attendants trying out various languages on them.  They were small and wizened, and they didn’t know the unspoken rules of riding in a plane.  When the fellow in the seat in front of him lowered his seat, I helped my seatmate poke the fellow in front of him and tell him to put it back up.  Amazingly, the fellow complied.  This was an overnight flight, and the flight attendants soon turned off the large inside lights and had everyone shutter their windows, even though we were flying west and it was still light outside.  

I turned on my overhead light, since reading is my survival tactic for a long flight.  I can rarely sleep, and I get claustrophobic if I sit awake, in a packed plane in the dark.  The woman next to me gestured to me to turn off my light.  I refused, and handed her one of the masks we had each been issued.  She talked louder and louder in her unknown language, berating me (I suppose) and insisting that I turn off the light.  Finally, the flight attendant arrived to mediate the dispute. 

She gestured to the woman, indicating that I had my light, but she had her mask.  The three of us settled into stony silence as the night crept on.  I always berate myself, after incidents such as this one, for unChristlike behavior, but my charitable impulses battle with my survival instinct.

Dave, Mike, and I had a two hour layover in Chicago.  The plane paused on the tarmac for fifteen minutes or more after landing, and then it took a solid hour to get our last bag off the conveyor.  Since it was Dave's and my bag, rather than Mike’s, that was missing, we told Mike to “run for the plane” and we would follow.  As we delivered our bags to be loaded onto the United Airlines plane, after passing through customs, the attendant said we’d never make it.  We dashed for the shuttle from the international airport to the domestic airport and agonized as the shuttle got caught in a traffic jam between the two airports!  As we finally passed through the security check in the domestic terminal, Mike sidled up, saying, “Hi, guys.”  He had misunderstood the attendant who told him which gate to go to, so he was as late as we were.  

Our gate was just a couple of hundred yards past security.  Mike dashed ahead, I ran as fast as a 71-year-old could, and David followed, in his stocking feet, holding his shoes in one hand and his carryon bag in the other.  The attendant was just closing the door to the plane as Mike ran up.  She graciously let us on, and we crashed in our seats on the plane and didn’t wake up until the plane touched down in SLC three hours later.

Dave and I had a resurgence of energy after we got home.  We unpacked our bags and marveled at our treasures.  I wished I had bought more of everything!  What a trip!