Flying from Mazar to Kabul - I wasn't the only passenger who glued his/her nose to the window to capture the greatness of the mountain range in betweeen the two cities.
Hirat Airport - few huts, waiting area is under the open sky.
Maybe I should change the name of my blog from Johannistan to Flightistan, since every second of my articles seems to be related to flying. But than again, flying truly is an experience in countries like Afghanistan and Somalia. It's quite different from this straightforward flying in Europe and North Amerika where the worst that can happen to you is that your bag is getting lost (according to a recent study, that happens particularly often with British Airways, KLM, and of course, Allitalia) or that they run out of beer during a transatlantic flight.
In Afghanistan, it's different issues that you are faced with. For instance that the airport of the second biggest city in the country consists of few scattered buildings, with the passanger waiting room simply being the large area in between the shags. In order to get your bording pass, one has to wrestle with 200 adult men. Gentlemen ladies first seems a unknown concept to Afghanistan. Once you get your bording pass, you realize that it is simply a piece of paper that bears the name of your airline, but otherwise, no furhter information: neither your name, nor your seatnumber, nor the departure time. Looking at the actual ticket shows you that even there, your only mentioned name is your first name spelled wrongly. Amazingly, you still manage to get on the flight!
During a stop over in another airport, you watch out of the windows and see two fighter jets taking off with an unbelievable speed, and again you wonder if thats really the country you want to live in.
Flying, as much as it is an experience, it also remains a scary business here in Afghanistan.
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