Finally again: flying the "humanitarian way"

Somehow I missed all of it:

The quick take off
The narrow interior
The lack of on board toilets
The lack of glossy magazins
The constant bumps
The noise from the propellors,
The occasional hazard of a break away door
The every day reality of minor incidents, such as lack of cabin pressure

Somehow I missed the feeling of sitting in a shoebox 20'000 feet above the ground.
Yesterday, I finally had all of it (except the door and the minor incidents) once again. Finally, I was flying again in a small aircraft called "Beechcraft", the one I was flying with hundreds of times during my stay in Somaliland.
Since there wasn't a commercial flight to Hirat, I decided to try out the ICRC airline, which flies a 19 seater Beech craft in Afghanistan. All in all, the deal which they offer is GREAT. It's first of all for free, you are driven all the way to the airport, you don't have to cross the hundreds of security checks, you don't have to pretend you like the dry sandwhich which you would otherwise be offered in commercial airlines. As said, it's great! To top it all up, I got to know five minutes before take off that the plane will visit Kandahar first, then fly on to Hirat. Though I am not very eager to spend real time in Kandahar, I was always curious to at least get a glimpse of this city in the south, where Prison Break is reality and which the winner of "Afghan Star" and one of the bravest female police officers call their home.

Landing in Kandahar is best described with "steep". All of a sudden, peeking out of the window, I saw a tiny landing strip about 5 km below us. Uncountable turns and spirals followed this first view, until we landed - several minutes later - on the very same landing strip.
The airport is actually quite busy; though mainly military planes, there is indeed a constant take off and landing. Besides planes, there are plenty of other curious things to observe in this airport: soldiers keeping fit while running in 50° C up and down at the side of the runway; soldiers trying to keep fit by bycicling close to the run way; soldiers sweating under their heavy uniform, and all what you can see is a child like face; several plastic toilets with "crapanistan" carved into the inside of the door (must have been the soldiers on duty next to the toilet); a real retro styled airport building from the 60ties; a few gardeners removing flowers that have dried out due to lack of water; ... Not taht all that would have encoaurged me to stay longer than half hour in Kandahar, but still, interesting to at least have seen this place once!

I have tried to take few picutres, but unfortunately forgot my USB cabel in Kabul; will post them as soon as I am back.