Airport in Moscow/ Aeroflot (frustrations)

I just returned from my trip to the Kyrgyz republic. It was a interesting trip. But the trip was terrible. I shal tel you what happened. (ps not a terrible trip but just anoying).
On the way to kyrgyz republic it went ok. nothing was clear but with the help of some kyrgyz people i managed. but the trip back wasn't that good.

First i am at Bishkek airport. i have to measure my lugage. So i measure my backpack. 22 kilo. so i'm like ok that is 2 kilo to much, so it wil cost me more. But them the woman behind the counter tells me that my hand lugage must also be measured.
normaly they do not do that, so i always put the heavy things in my handlugage. So now my total lugage weight 32 kilo taht is 12 kilo to heavy. S i have to pay money. 115 Dollar (they tell me taht in moscow i wil not have to get my lugage, because it is automaticly send to my next flight, just like on my way to bishkek)

the flight from Bishkek to moscow is ok, i have no room for my legs (i'm 6"7) but i'm used to that.

I arive at Moscow. I ave about 2 and a half hours to get to my plane t Amsterdam. First the transit. There i give my ticket and my pasport. The woman llooks at it and says: Amsterdam, i say yes. So she gets a boarding pas. and put the boarding pas my ticket and my pasport behind her. and says something to me in Russia. I cannot speak russia. So i ask her what she said. she just ignores me. Suddenly the woman next to her says to me (very angry): WAIT THERE.
so i wait over there.

after some time they call names and i get my passport and boarding pass back. I get in a bus, and get driven to the bigger boulding of the airport (in Moscow they have 3 different bouldings/airports who are 20 minutes by bus apart from each other).

So i walk into the big boulding and see that i have flight 229 to amsterdam at gate 12. so i go to gate 12. I still have about 80 minutes. There is no sign of amsterdam. But there is still another flight at gate 12 so i wait. After about 30 minutes i hear a voice over the intercom:"barofbeLaufibgsdaflewbl FLIGHT229 anfa;arjfd" you cannot understand russian people who trie to speak english. so i didn't hear what was wrong with my flight. i decide to ask somebody.

I try to ask the first woman i see:
Me: Hello can i ask you something?
She:"don't speak english"
and she walks away.

second woman:
Me: hello can i ask you something?
she take my boarding pas
She: "gate 12 is over there"
Me: yeah but there ........
she was already gone

this happens another 4 times.
finally somebody speaks english and tells me that my flight leaves at another gate.i had 5 minutes left of my 2 and a half hours

so my flight back to Amsterdam was ok.

i get at Amsterdam. So pasport control went well. So i just have to get my lugage......
after everybody has left and my lugage still hasn't arived i decide to ask. And they tell me that my lugage is still in Moscow

Now my lugage is brought to my house. so i have everything.
But i was kinda irritated because i had to pay so much money. And nobody spoke english i Moscow, you would expect that they did speak english in a INTERNATIONAL aerport.

I wanted to know if many of you have flown through Moscow with Aeroflot. and is it went as smoothly as with me.

p.s. sorry for starting 2 threads so fast after each other, but i just had to say this all)

 

yes that happens alot, when i went to pasport check, they didn't even look at my pasport.
the man i sat next to on the flight told me that his wife (an mongolian) always get checked at pasport control, and they look at her pasport to see if it is real. if you are european you are ok, no matter what, but you shoudn't be asian.

pippendagimp, there are 2 kind of woman there, the kyrgyz type: dark hair Mongolian eyes and colour of the skin.
russian: blond and white.
Everybody was very slim, but that is because there just isn't that much food there.
But the woman there were not my type, i'm not into asian type or blond (no disrespect to asian or blonds). But some woman weren't ugly. There were 15 translators at the kamps i was all woman. and i was the only man there Age.(but i have a girlfriend).

I was in the capital on independance day(from russia, They are not happy that they are independant, they want to be part of russia because then they were richer then now). And i was the most interesting thing there that day. Everybody stared at me. They have never seen a 6"7 blue eyed white man before.

 

wow people who are interested.
it is now pretty late. and because of the time differance (i'm still used to kyrgyz time) it is 4 AM now for me, so i'm gonna sleep.Í will. post tomorow morning. Just no pics they are being developed, maybe i can post some later but not before friday. I'll tell you everything tomorow.

 

ok on request of SamFisher and pippendagimp

I will tell you about the People, how they life, landscape, and infrastructure, and a litle about theyre culture.

I will begin with telling you why i went there. Like SamFisher said i was going there to help a research ,as a ecovolunteer, of snowleopards. That didn´t go as planned. I was a few days in a snowleopard rehab centre. That was great they had 3 snowleopards there. 2 were taken from poachers and 1 from a circus. one of them missed a paw , because of the poachers trap. after that i traveled around the country. i will tell my improssions later.I want to tell one more thing about the snowleopards

Snowleopards are one of the 3 most endagered cat species, along with the amur panther and the tiger. The biggest problem in kyrgystan is poaching. Because of the skin of the snowleopard, and because there Bones are used in traditional Chineese medican (as a substitute for Tigerbones). In KYrgystan there is a organisation called Gruppa Bars )bars is the russian word for snowleopard' who tries to fight poachers. if people are interested in snowleopards you should look at the international snowleopard trust.

Like i said i traveled in Kyrgystan. But i was only at the north of Issyk Kul (warm Lake, because it never freeces). it is a pretty big lake in the north of Kyrgystan. verry beautiful. I also went one day to Son Kul, a lake at 3000 metre. verry beautiful . you have that lake and just grass hill for kilometres. And that at 3000 metre.

ok now for the people. There are alot of different races. But the two biggest are russian and kyrgyz. i already told how they looked. They al are very friendly. They al speak russian, and most also speak kyrgyz. But if you do not speak russian you do not count there. The people are very poor. i stayed at the house of the uncle of my gide for 1 night. It was a fla()not sure if this is the correct english word) appartment. They had a tv, it was aboout 20 by 20 cm and in black white. They had running water. but they were not the poorest people in that country. I went to a market. that was interesting, just like you imagine a market there, just stalls with alot of food, like 300 melons, and next to that a stall with 800 apples. and bags of rice. It was interestingm, the people are so completly different from the people in europe.

The culture. They are islamic people. They used to be nomadic, now they are only nomadic in the summer. They life in Yurts in the summer. but in the winter they life in vilages in houses, People who life in City´s are mostly not nomadic anymore. Thay life pretty western. Alot of people have horses there. Everybody can ride horse, only a few can ride a car(wich are always very old german car). Gumus is the milk of a horse, it is a traditional drink there(i didn´t drink it i hate milk and do not drink alcohol). They also have alot of goates. The food was pretty good.

Landscape is beatufill, just high mountains everywere. In the south there is Tien Shan (the border with China), i haven´t been there. i was at the mountains in the north, They were beautiful. The landscape is verry untamed. i think you can say it is the direct opposite of holland. You should see it.when my pictures are done, and you are interrested i can send you some. Ofcourse the animals that life there are very adapted. it is great. there is no flat ground. everywere you look there are mountains.

Infrastructure is terrible. There are alot of old russian bouldings. There are some busses, but i moslty took a cab. it costed when i drove to a town nearby about 5 dollars for a hour drive. But the road are terrible. Ofcourse there aren´t that much cars. but theere are alot of holes in the road. people also do not drive on the right side they drive in the centre. and honk if they want to pas another car. The road to son kul was terrible, there was 1 road, and at a few places there was a hole of 2 metre. so you had to ride over the gras.

overal it is a great country to go to. So different from europe, but i think that most countrys in central asia are like that.

If you want to know more you can e-mail me: arno_ed@hotmail.com

SamFisher
how long are you gonna stay in the himalayas?

 

I went to Kirchistan to help a research of snowleopards. I did this as a ecovolunteer. I helped at the rehab centre as ecovolunteer. I did not do much.
I did this as a side interest. I am a biologist, and i would like to do a research like this when i finish my education. But the work i was supossed to do in kirchistan could be done by somebody who has never done anything biological. So just side interest. But i would love to do this kind of research in my future.
about the lynx, it is not considered extinct yet. It still excists in Spain and portugal. But like you already know his status is very critical. IIRC

 

sounds great, how often have you been in central asia? What are you going to do there?(i think you told it already,but i forgot)

 

Oh Great. Yeah some people i met in Kirchistan did the same. I've been told that mongolia looks alot like kirchistan (the person who told me has been in both countrys)

I also loved kirchistan because it is untouched, and very different from holland. (although Holland is not like NYC).

have fun there and let us know how it went.