Day 0.

Inside Dubai International Airport ready to check-in for my Emirates flight. It had been over a year since I had last been to been to Terminal 3, opting instead for other airlines at Terminal's 1 & 2 for various reasons.


Grabbing a turkey sandwich air-side. I was using my UK passport for this trip after having my initial Turkmenistan visa application rejected with my New Zealand passport. The original plan was to visit Turkmenistan with ironmanjt, and full credit goes to him for sussing out a reputable tour company (compulsory for getting a visit visa) and organising the great itinerary for the whole trip. After running into problems with the notoriously fickle Turkmenistan immigration authorities though, it unfortunately ended up just being a solo trip. There is a daily direct flight from Dubai (DXB) to Ashgabat (ASB) on LCC flydubai (FZ). However for my journey to Ashgabat I elected to take an indirect route flying via Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport instead (DXB-DME-ASB).


The first flight to Moscow was on Emirates (EK) and the onward connecting flight to Ashgabat was on Russian carrier, S7 airlines. Although it meant having to fly over four times the distance than a simple direct flight to Ashgabat, it meant arriving earlier at 7:30am in the morning as opposed to 4:30pm in the afternoon on the flydubai flight. The price for the indirect flights was also the same as flying direct, and as I am a bit of an aeroplane geek, getting to fly a new airline (S7) and visit a new airport (DME) was also abit of a plus. For the return to Dubai I did however take the direct flydubai flight as it was the most convenient.


For the trip I also had two return domestic flights, both on Turkmenistan Airlines (T5). From Ashgabat to Türkmenbaşy (ASB-KRW-ASB) and from Ashgabat to Mary (pronounced Mah-ree) (ASB-MYP-ASB).


Boarding the EK777 on time for the flight to Moscow.