And so I had met a new friend. The Brazilian pastor in Mongolia. We talked and talked for what seems like hours about Ministry, love and life. He studied 2 years of English in England, and then 2 years of Mongolian here in Mongolia before he could even start his ministry. Thats 4 years of commitment. Could you imagine that? Its his 6th year and he says, his ministry is just beginning. Wow.

We go back down for dinner, and we meet the couple from Belgium. They have been traveling for what must be more than 20 years, and they say traveling is only getting harder and more stressful. She shares the story of her first trip to the USA post 911. Her husband had been there before, and so his fingerprints were already in the system, while she has not. She has been “randomly” selected for a full security check a grand total of 4 times, and at the fifth she lost it. No way this is random, she asked the airport security and they told her, she had hit 3 of the major alert signs. 1) Her fingerprints were not in the system, 2) She is traveling on a ticket bought by a credit card under a name different from hers and 3) She had no credit history in the country. Well, anybody with a brain would know why. Firstly, she had never been to the states post 911. Secondly, not every culture in the world require wives to change their name after marriage, and Belgium is definitely not one of them and 3) Not everybody in the world owns a credit card! But still she was checked over and over again.

We had a quick dinner, a shower and then back to the airport. Now back in at Genghis International Airport, we learn that the Mongolian airlines flight from Beijing had arrived hours ago, but the Air China flight from the same airport could not fly due to “Bad Weather”. This is not a new thing. In fact, most people think Air China does it on purpose. We wait and we wait. No news whatsoever, and then finally we are told that we can check in.

There were 3 airlines all checking in at the same time, something hardly heard of in this airport, and so we all line up. By some odd twist, the Brazillian and I get stuck in the same line as this American dude. And the 3 of us are all behind some guy from Holland who as a big problem with his tickets and his journey, causing our line to be stuck. The nice couple from Belgium are in another line that just breezes through, and they tell us we will meet at the gate. Finally we get our boarding passes, and the 3 of us are in the same row.

I pass through Passport control easily, and then came security check. Now I have never had such trouble ever before. They made me take everything out of my bag. All my cables, all my electronics gadgets, everything. My portable hard disk, my web cam, my USB Card Reader. Everything. I even had to take off my belt, which of course caused my pants to fall. Then they spotted Sydney the turtle. They were mean to her. Trying to open her up, to make sure she was not dangerous. They banged her, on the the table several times, and after my poor baby survived, they gave everything back to me, and asked me to pack up my things in a hurry cos I was holding back the line. And so with one hand holding up my pants, and the other stuffing everything back into my bag, I quickly grab everything and meet up with my amigos.

The three of us sit there, drinking coke eating chocolate, waiting for some form of news that the plane would arrive from Beijing. The Korean air flight boards, about 1/2 of the people get on, and leave. Then we hear an announcement in Mongolian, followed by very bad English.”Passanger XXXX YYYYY ZZZZ traveling on Air Lolea to So Leh Please report to Gate 1″. Nobody could understand that the voice meant Air Korea to Seoul. And so the announcement went on and on and on. And after like 20 minutes, the ground grew got desperate. Security measures require them to remove this passenger’s check-in luggage before flying off, and they didn’t want to go through the hassle. And so they finally go asking the people in the hall, one by one, if they were flying to So Leh (Seoul). And then we spot this lady, she was SOOOO shy after she realized the plane had been waiting for her. She obviously was Korean, and spoke very little English. She looked like she wanted to die of embarrassment as she walked to the gate, head laid low. And the drama was over. The Korean air flight finally took off. Our flight however was a different story.

We waited and waited and finally at 1:00am, our flight at arrived from Beijing, which meant the ground staff required 30 minutes to clean up the plane and turn it around back to Beijing. At 1:30 we boarded, and then the 3 of us sat in a row, laughing our heads off as we thought of that poor korean lady. We took off at 2am, and almost immediately we were served hot meals. We arrived at Beijing at 4am.

Stay tuned for Part 3…..

On this day in History..

• Lunch with our guests - 2005
• Fifa WorldCup 2006 :- Italiano? Si Italiano! - 2006
• Nadaam tomorrow - 2006
• Dedication Ceramony for the Naadam - 2006
• The Journey that took a wea bit too long.... - 2007
• Sydney in the Transit Hotel - 2007
• JJCM :- Canton-i, One Utama, PJ - 2008
• Wanted :- A Review - 2008
• Given the right parameters, even men can help shop for shoes - 2008
• I saw Dr.M today! - 2008

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.