Barnaul 8
The travel plan was for a Sunday afternoon coach drive to Novosibirsk with time in the city centre for a meal prior to a 22:00 flight to Irkutsk.
Now here is what actually happened.
The coach driver had been told to drive to the centre of Novosibisk arriving around 16:00 and then leave at 19:00 for the airport. He was a miserable git and obviously resented having to give up his Sunday afternoon to drive load of foreigners around. On arrival at the police check point at the outskirts of Novosibirsk he asked for directions (they never know the way). He then set off in the direction of the airport not the city centre. Ian Longworth rang Intourst but the driver took no notice of their reminder of the agreed agenda and got lost again. It was now 16:30 and I think he said there wasn't time to divert through the city. Intourist contacted the coach company and the driver then refused their instruction to divert via the city. He then got lost and drove about 12 km alongside the river but on the wrong bank. He then had to drive 10 km or so back to the nearest bridge and then simply dumped us in the airport car park and pissed off.
Fortunately there was a bar at the far side of the car park serving beer and kebabs and it was a glrious evening with bright sunshine so the wait was not as tedious as it might have been.
We checked and boarded an Airbus operated by a Russian airline known as S7.
Departure time came and went. And then an announcement that roughly translated was 'everybody out - delay of a least 2 hours - bad weather'. With no assisstance or advice from anyone we made our way to the landside departure area and sat down.
23:30 'delay for another 3 hours' and some bottled water was produced.
02:00 'meal available' - you've guessed it - the in flight meals were handed out.
05:00 06:30 departure appeared on the screens.
We then had to go through all the check in procedures all over again to get airside.
07:00 ish we boarded the plane. We then sat there for another hour or so while they told us lies about bad weather. I think we left at about 08:00 for a two hour flight plus two hours time difference giving an eta of 12:00.