"Transiting Tashkent at night" a Tashkent Travel Page by GrumpyScot

9.56pm. With a loud and unhealthy rumble resembling empty GPO trolleys at a railway station the behemoth began to lumber down the runway. "It'll never fly,"" I muttered, but after a mile or two of runway it did, unfortunately with little reduction in noise level. I hope the runway at Delhi is long enough to land it.

The seatbelt sign is now off. The Buddhist monks are already asleep, lying across three seats. A number of our fellow passengers back here are members of the Nepal handball team.

Time for a sleep.

One very short nap later - the stewardesses have just come round with a drinks trolley, from which I chose mineral water. One had long red hair and a lovely smile, and could easily have been Scottish. Apart from the noise I'm quite impressed with this plane. It's very roomy.

FOOD - sardine-like fish, then a huge ¼ chicken, cold, a gherkin, tomato, rye bread, a roll, a sweet cookie and tea. Very tasty. Real knife and fork.

12.51 Moscow time. Fasten seat belts to land in Tashkent (where?). It's still dark outside so nothing to see. The stewardesses brought their trolley around a while ago and we asked for juice. It turned out to be like the syrup from a tin of peaches.

I've been passing the time napping, reading Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" or listening to the Stones. Cathy's unwell again.

I forgot to mention our small brown friend, a cockroach who was crawling round the window while we ate, and recently landed on my book to take a look.

Sad to say, the Tashkent stop is not particularly riveting. It's the middle of the night and we have a hour and twenty minutes for refuelling etc. (includes cleaning the toilets behind us. Good) One noteworthy item is the apparent age of the trucks. No turbo-intercooling here - they look just like trucks pictured in National Geographics of the 40s or 50s.

We flew over Tashkent on the way in - it looks like a largish place.