Different, but probably better! We decided to go through to the departure lounge for a bite to eat.Bad mistake. Heathrow Terminal 2 seems to be undergoing a major rebuild. A new shopping mallpresses in from all sides, attempting to relieve us of all our travelling money, but the cateringfacilities are not yet complete. What there is appears largely closed and almost sold out. So muchfor one of the world's busiest airports - I doubt if Tashkent airport will be as bad.
We board the brightly painted Uzbekistan Airways Airbus on time at 22:45. Clean, modern, brightinterior seems just like any other major airline. The excellent In-flight magazine holds a surprisethough - a half page advert for Internet Access in Tashkent! All my preconceptions about thebackwardness of Central Asia are proving badly ill-founded, and I'm beginning to feel this trip willbe more educational than I had thought. No doubt the in-flight catering will bring me back toearth.
Wrong! An excellent dinner of curried lamb (choice of lamb, chicken, or vegetarian) was up torestaurant standard, and the cabin staff were cheerful and efficient. Quite a lot of room too, so Idrop off to sleep looking forward to breakfast. I should have stayed asleep! Breakfast consisted ofcheese, a half slice of white bread and butter, two shortcake biscuits and a Danish. The tea wascold. Dawn was better. The moon seemed to float below us like a reflection in misty blue water,and the horizon was an angry purple as though night was furious at being displaced. It made upfor breakfast, and even compensated for the fact that there was no duty-free trolley on this plane.At full light below us was endless desert like sea-rippled sand.
As we come in to land at Tashkent, the landscape is definitely foreign. We have to change planes here at Tashkent Airport.
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