Update 1 : Working Trip To Mariupol, Ukraine – Part 1 : The Journey

It has been quite a while since I last updated my blog. My last blog was posted on 21 May 2008 and it was about the Champions League Final between Man Utd and Chelsea.

This time I will be writing about my latest working trip to Ukraine.

To cut long story short, I was required to be in Ukraine to witness, as a client rep, a transfer operations from Heavy Lift Vessel (HLV) to river barge of our offshore structures for my project, the Turkmenistan Block 1 Development Project. The structures are on its way from Pasir Gudang to Turkmenistan.

Since Turkmenistan is located in the Caspian Sea (a lake actually), that is isolated from the main seas, the cargo need to be transported through the Volga-Don Canal in Russia that connects the main sea (Sea of Azof) to the Caspian Sea.

After several postponement, (in the shipping industry, the ETA always moves as the sea condition fluctuates from time to time), I finally departed KL on Saturday 18th October 2008 via Frankfurt and Munich. One heaven of a looooooong journey.

My family sent me to KL Sentral. My wife and the twins were there sending me at around 9.00 pm and Afiq cried loudly after I got down (refer to Aishah’s blog for details – macam engineering drawings pulak). Arriving in KLIA after a 28-minutes smooth ERL ride, I went str8 to the international MAS lounge, where I bumped into 6 GTS colleagues (Process Engineers and a Planner) who are on their way to London for an attachment with a renowned consultant for a project in Uzbekistan. (I wonder will Structural Engineers ever be involved in attachment like this).

My flight, MH 0006 (B777-ER) which was supposed to be at 2345, was delayed after I got into the aircraft due to some traffic congestion in KLIA. (There are many flight to European destinations around that time). Being among the last scheduled flights be4 midnight, we were delayed close to 1 hour, which effectively reduces my ‘shopping time’ in Frankfurt (if the shops are opened around the time I arrived – I hope so).

After 12 hours and 30 minutes, MH 0006 touched down smoothly at 0700 local time in Frankfurt Main International Airport. This marks the first time ever I step my feet onto Germany, hence enhances my ‘appetite’ to hunt for souvenirs while I am in transit there. After all the security proceedings, it was already 0800 approx and I am still without any Frankfurt/Germany souvenirs.

There were 5 shops that opened, and three of them sells relatively the same thing. So I managed to grab some fridge magnets, keychains and t-shirts. Being an exhaustive and experience bargain hunter, I managed to get my hands on 5 euro adult t-shirt in that short space of time (full price t-shirts are around 23 euro ++) and kids t-shirts around 15 euro. Since dah tak sempat nak shop, I ran to gate A22 to get my boarding passes for both Frankfurt-Munich and Munich-Donetsk sectors (Yes, I put shopping before safely securing my seat on those flights), only to be met by another security hassle !!! hampeh.
The flight to Munich takes about 55 minutes and was supposed to depart 0855 hours. Whilst all passengers are seated for take-off, the captain makes this announcement “ Ladies and Gentlemen, there are 2 passengers that did not turn up, so we need to unload their checked-in baggage as this is a security procedures. We will start our journey in about 10 minutes”. Arghhhhhh….. not again….

Dah la nanti kat Munich aku nak gi shopping lagi, so every minutes counts… unlike what the captain announced, we took off after about 20 minutes delay….sapa la mamat 2 orang tu, nak kena siku 8x berturut2 tu…..sebagai pembalasan…

Sesampai di Munich, I spent some time to call home, sip a cup of free coffee (Thanks to Lufthansa), and off course, continue my shopping rally. I managed to grab few Munich souveirs plus a t-shirt each for Afiq n Adib, which costs 15 euro each…….

I thought I could run straight to the gate, tapi…. Lupa lak.. this is an international flight, so a ‘trip’ through the customs is a must…. Alamak……

By the time I left the shop, the flight status turned ‘boarding’…. Apabila sampai kat custom, panjang la pulak barisannya… isk, mau tak sampai Ukraine aku ni …. Kena pulak bila sampai time aku, the immigration officer belek2 pasport aku, Tanya mcm2 soalan then sembang2 ngan mmber dia kat sebelah… allo, brader.. aku punya flight dah nak jalan dah ni.. sudah2 lah belek2 tu…. Setelah beberapa minute berlalu, dia pun cop jugak la walaupun Nampak hesitant (kesannya, cop ‘Munich’ kat passport aku jadi tak terang…. )

Sekerling kat status board, it showed ‘final call’…. Alamak… apa lagi, sprint 100m ala2 Usain Bolt la aku….. nasib baik pintu tak jauh mana, lepas bagi boarding pass pada the stewardess, aku Tanya… “Am I the last passenger?”… dia jawab simple jek… “YES”….
Tak penah lagi mcm ni, seingat aku…

Bila turun je tangga nak baik bas, aku Nampak semua org dalam bas macam bengang sebab kena tunggu aku… sebaik2 je naik bas, pintu pun tutup and the bus pun jalannn…

Lupa lak nak cakap, my colleague, AJ and Hans, are on the same flight and they thought I changed my journey last minute and pegi through city lain…… they kept texting me while I was stuck at the immigration….

The flight to Donetsk took 3 hours and touched down in Donetsk International Airport at approx 1515hrs.

Nanti dulu, that’s not the end of the journey my friend….

Mariupol is situated approx 120km from Donetsk… we were met by several of our Russian and Ukrainian agents…. Among others Igor, Pavel, Mikhail, Alex and Ivan the driver… (I must admit that I can remember Russian names pretty easily compared to Malaysian names…. )… as long as I can match their surname with any Russian footballers…. Before we were passed by the immigration, I got a scare when they asked me to stand aside for ‘extra checking’.. which eventually made me the last person to clear the passport counter….

We had to take another 1.5 hours drive from Donetsk to Mariupol and along the way… yup, you guess it right… I fell asleep… the road was bumpy all along and the highway is not as good as what we have here in Malaysia… alright, the highway was free, no toll… but if compared to our free highway i.e. Federal Highway etc, it is a huuuge difference mate…… the one we have in Malaysia is far far more comfortable…. We should be thankful to the Government .. and its employees…

Arrived in Mariupol at around 1730hrs…. straight check-in at a hotel called Spartak Hotel…. Well, I recommended this hotel coz it looks like the best hotel in Mariupol after some internet search.. but eventually it turned out to be not the case… (I got blamed by Hans due to the unavailability of Wi-Fi even though the website said otherwise).. moral of the story : do not trust the websites 100%, look for hotel reviews instead….

After calculating all the flying times, transit times, delays and drive, the journey took me 28 hours in total… and THAT IS THE LONGEST JOURNEY THAT I EVER ENDURED IN MY WHOLE 30yrs LIFE…

OK guys, time to stop… I’ll definitely update this blog with part 2 and part 3.. watch out for this space… till we meet again, spasiva for reading …. (translate : spasiva = thank you)…