A lot of people I know have done some really cool posts on how they get from their country’s Peace Corps office to their town or village. So, given that I’m one of only a handful of volunteers in the world who actually flies to site, I thought it would be fun to do my spin on this trope. So, here goes.
Flying to site is both a blessing and a curse. Let’s look at why:
Blessings:
Flying takes 4-5 hours door to door instead of 10-15 by car. It’s much safer and more comfortable than driving. Flying means no negotiating with taxi drivers. Flying means that it’s very easy for friends and family to visit my site. There is climate control for 75% of my journey. The longest you are stuck next to anyone is one hour. Most of the journey is smooth or spent sitting still. It doesn’t cost that much more than driving. And views like these:
Curses:
It takes me 6 changes of vehicle to get home instead of 2, so I don’t get much rest. Aircraft in Kyrgyzstan are more cramped than some cars and buses are. Planes are much more susceptible to weather delays (like my 3-day ordeal, which set a new record for the longest-ever recorded trip from site to office). Schedules are very limited, so if I have an emergency, I have to wait until the next available seat rather than flagging any car off the road. Plane tickets cost 1/4 of my monthly salary, so I can’t fly to Bishkek on a whim like most volunteers do – I’m a site rat by necessity.
And they have their fair share of oopsies too.
Unlike most volunteers, my trips to the capital are planned and arranged up to two months in advance. In fact, the LATEST I’ve ever been able to arrange a trip to the capital was 3 days in advance. Because our office purchases my tickets for me (as I mentioned before, I can’t afford them myself), I have to let them know a good amount in advance not only which day I’d like to travel on, but at what time. They have to approve it, and then they can purchase it. And, they will only purchase me tickets for official Peace Corps business and trainings, apart from one free ticket each year (understandably – I’m supposed to be working in Osh!). So, if I want to go to Bishkek for a weekend with my friends, I can only do it once a year outside of the normal schedule of Peace Corps Trainings. For us here in Osh, that can mean that you go to Bishkek as few as four times in your entire service, or in my case, at least once every month.
So, my journey starts weeks ahead.
The flights tend to be in the early morning and early evening, so I time my flight selections around the marshrutka schedules to each airport. So, going from Osh to Bishkek, I usually travel in the morning, while returning to Osh I usually travel in the afternoon. Here’s usually how the timeline runs.
6:00 AM
I get up around 6:00AM so I can take a shower, eat a snack, and make sure I’ve properly packed my bags.
7:00AM
The first marshrutka from my house to the city leaves at 7am, and I’m very careful to make sure that I get on it. Every morning at 7, the Kyrgyzstani radio stations all play the National Hymn, so I usually get to listen to it if I’m on time.
7:30AM
I arrive in the city center, and change marshrutkas to the airport marshrutka (number 142A or 107A, depending on timing and how I’m feeling). The 142A runs north on Lenin and south on Kurmanjan Datka through the center of town, while the 107A runs on Masalieva street, and runs a little more frequently than the 142A. I have to check to make sure the stenciled placard in the window says “АЭРОПОРТ” to make sure it’s going to the right place.
8:00AM
I arrive at the airport. Technically, you’re supposed to get to the airport 3 hours before international and 2 hours before domestic flights, but they usually won’t start checking people into flights until 60 minutes before the scheduled departure time, so 8 is a perfectly acceptable arrival time. I go through the building perimeter security checkpoint, then head inside and get myself checked in, yell at them if they try to force me to check my bag, then go through security to the waiting room and take a look at the planes on the tarmac.
Osh airport used to be very strange in that you went through the final security checkpoint BEFORE checking in, so you would actually have to run your checked bags through the x-ray as well. This was mostly a quirk of the airport’s layout, and was changed a few months ago in a renovation, but it led to some very amusing moments where the security folks would yell at me that I was bringing illegal materials (ice skates) through when I was obviously going to be checking the massive bag. A less fun moment was the time when I left my Toguz Korgool board in my bag at an awkward angle, which made it look VERY suspiciously similar to a “device” and almost got me in huge trouble. We all had a good laugh when the Kyrgyz security agents had to explain to the Russian x-ray operator that I was actually carrying a traditional board game and not a device of some kind, and ever since, I’ve made a point to take my Toguz Korgool board out of my bag when I go through security.
8:50AM
My boarding pass says that we’ll board at 8:40. But, nobody moves until we see the Cobus transporter bus pull up outside the door, which triggers a frenzied rush of fur-hatted men and fur-coatted older women pushing their way in a sort of mob to see who can get on the bus first. Having fought through these crowds close to 50 times now, I can say that I’m very good at wedging my way to the front quickly. Then, in true New Yorker fashion, I analyze which way the bus will approach the plane (depending on its parking spot) and which door I should stand at to get off the bus and onto the plane first. Because boarding is the Hunger Games here.
Out of the bus, then to the stairs. People rush the stairs so fast here that the airports all employ attendants to block people at the bottom from climbing up because otherwise the poor stairs (some of which date back to the Soviet era) could get overloaded. Soon, I’m on board with my bag overhead and myself in my seat.
9:10AM
It’s really funny that you thought the plane was actually going to leave on time.
9:20AM
The stairs go away, the engines start up, and we taxi out and take off.
9:30AM
The good views start out the windows and continue for the rest of the flight. These short flights used to have water and beverage service but it’s a coin toss whether you’ll get it anymore. And none of it is free. So I just enjoy the free show out the window.
That is, if the plane isn’t being rocked by insane turbulence that is typical of flying across mountain ranges at low altitude.
9:40AM
Raise your hand if you actually believe that the captain has gotten us up to 8000 meters altitude. Not me.
9:50 AM
More gorgeous views
10:00AM
Touchdown in Bishkek. Usually we get to come straight in, and then we taxi up to a remote parking stand and wait for the stairs and the bus. Getting off the plane is more Hunger Games, and if you don’t physically restrain someone to let yourself into the aisle, you’re not getting off the plane.
10:10AM
Since I usually travel carry-on, I can go straight out to the curb on arrival. When I get to Bishkek, this is always the moment when I cease being American, and I put on my Russian face and personality. Because the taxi drivers in the arrivals hall in Bishkek and Osh are some of the most aggressive I’ve ever met. They’ve literally followed me for minutes before, and yelled at me if I wanted a taxi as I was getting into a bus. They’ve tried to tell me that there are no more marshrutkas as a marshrutka pulls up behind them. And they’ve tried to tell me that the taxi fare to the city is five times what it actually is. So, I take a deep breath, scowl deeply, and walk through the sliding doors into the arrivals area and make a beeline for the door, yelling “nyet, nyet, ne nada (I don’t need it), ne nada, ne nada, nyet” at each taxi driver who follows, approaches, and blocks me. Just outside the beautiful marshrutka number 380 waits for me, and I put my bag in the back and pay the driver and take a seat.
11:00AM
If I’ve timed it right, the marshrutka leaves right away, and I make it into the Osh Bazaar area of Bishkek within 45 minutes. From there, it’s either a 15 minute walk to my office, or I will take yet another marshrutka to my hotel or apartment, depending on which one I’m going to. Usually I’m where I need to be by noon, but on days when I’m delayed, I sometimes stop in for lunch at a favorite cafe near my office before going there (since usually I arrive right as my colleagues take their lunch break).
In the other direction heading back to Osh, I usually leave for the airport at 3PM for a 5PM flight, and I’m home by about 7PM assuming no delays.
Flying is certainly a luxury as far as Peace Corps service is concerned; but considering that the alternative is a dangerous series of twisty windy snow-covered passes (that are so dangerous that volunteers actually are required in winter to travel through Kazakhstan to some sites in order to avoid them), I’m happy with it. It’s better than driving, it’s better than a 72-hour train ride (hey, PC Kazakhstan), transferring between 3 different speedboats (hey, PC Guyana), taking a bouncing ship across the ocean (hey, PC Samoa), taking a 24-hour bus (hey, PC Peru), or a chain of 16-hour taxis on dirt roads (hey, PC Zambia).
While the cost of flying means that I can only go to Bishkek for official work, and I can’t go in to visit people or party whenever I want, it’s a nice little reminder that I’m here in the Peace Corps specifically to do my job in Osh. I’m not here to go out to sketchy clubs or eat as much American food as I can; I’m here to make a difference in my community. While flying is an unusual luxury, I appreciate the irony that because of the luxury in which I travel to site, I actually choose not to leave it as often.