the return - part 1

Greetings my faithful few. I trust you are both well upon my return from the Christmas & New Year break in dear old Blighty.

I expect you are ready for more tales of derring-do and adventures as your intrepid blogger begins his next sojourn in Afghanistan. Before I begin I would like to thank all those who, over the break period, expressed concern, nee often delight, regarding my bowels. Suffice to say I sit before you this afternoon in full control of all faculties much to your collective dismay!!!

Well, how do I begin, to tell a story of... the journey to Kabul. My faithful fellows and fellowesses I can tell you now the journey itself was of epic proportions and is a blog entry all of itself. So where do I begin.

Picture the scene, it is Terminal 4 at Heathrow, I am alone again in the world with just my bag of clothes, DVDs, books and of course – Acer, my ever constant (when it boots up) computer for company as I again turn my back on home comforts, warmth, company, family, the mighty CAFC et al and head back to the joys of Kabul. Little was I to know that Kabul would be further away and an adventure or two more than I realised. As I queued at check-in I had a call from Matthew who would share the flight with me, 9pm London to Dubai. The bags were checked in, we met for coffee and headed for gate 24. Gate 24 is so far from the terminal there are 3 long, separate, moving walkways to it!!! Two of which were broken, but no fear there is a coffee shop at gate 24 so off we trudged. You know how they put up signs saying “Warning 10 minutes walk to gate” well this one was very accurate, without the moving walkways it was at least 10 minutes. We get to the gate around 7.45pm and the coffee shop there is not actually closed.......... because it does not exist!!! So do we return to the main departure area, boarding is at 8.30, the walk is 20mins and we have 45mins. So we walk all the way back, have a coffee and then at 8.15 walk all the way back to the gate. But what is this, there is no boarding, in fact we are now told the plane is delayed for an hour. Not forgetting we have already made 40mins of walking between departures and gate. So we go for the full hour of walking back and forth and return once again to the coffee shop for yet more refreshment. Little did we realise this was a Portent – a sign of things to come!!!!!

The flight left an hour late and was uneventful. It was half empty and there were plenty of rows of seats to lay across and sleep, so not bad at all. We were to arrive in Dubai on Tuesday morning and catch an early morning flight to Kabul on Wednesday arriving in Kabul mid-Wednesday morning which was very important as I had to finish the 2007 end of year accounts by the end of Thursday.

In the usual chatty style of captains as they come in to land we were informed by a rather jolly chap that the weather in Dubai was a little overcast. This may go down as one of the understatements of the century. It was absolutely chucking it down with rain. In fact, the whole area outside the arrivals terminal was under water and as we stepped off the kerb we were ankle deep in water. Not bad for a desert kingdom, but only the beginning!!!

We were ensconced in our rather shabby hotel and wondered what to do for the day. I went to reception to ask them to call a taxi so we could go to the snowdome and ski for the afternoon. The answer I got rather surprised me “I am sorry sir, I recommend you do not go, Dubai is flooded and it will take about 2½ hours to get there through the traffic”

As the rain had abated we went for a walk instead, after all we are in the desert, it can't be flooded, can it? We walked for about a mile and slowly, but surely realised the receptionist was no fool, yes Dubai was flooded. (See piccie above) As we walked we had to avoid the waves made by the passing cars as the water spread across the pavement.

On the way back it poured and we got soaked, but worse was to come!! We spent the rest of the day drying out, and sleeping. Dinner was dire. If you can imagine Indian cooking with no attempt to include spices you will get the idea!! So off for an early night, and an alarm call at 5am for the next leg. At least we would be off to Kabul early and get away from the flooded desert kingdom - or were we? See you in part two.