Day 1 : Predeparture at Khartoum, Flight on THY...

Day break on Eid, somewhere north of Khartoum (ckn pana pic)

People who have traveled to Turkey in the past would usually take Royal Jordan airlines - their return flight included a one day stopover in Amman (so people would have gotten a 2-for-1 holiday). However, we decided to concentrate solely on Istanbul, and since it's best for us to minimise transit times, then I decided to get tickets on Turkish Airlines (THY).

The only problem with THY is that they do not operate daily flights to and fro. But it worked out for us since we would have one week for our holiday; going out on Friday 12th and returning on Thursday the 18th.

Our flight was scheduled at 5am on the morning of Eid (in both Krt and Istanbul), so we bundled the kids and our bags and left the appt by 3am. Our night driver, Sadiq was on standby, and he even called us up just to be sure. The airport was a hive of activity, considering it was early morning! But it was a routine check-in for us, Alhamdullilah.

Group pic of 3Es - the fourth E was busy... (ckn pana pic)

We met several of our friends at the airport that morning - the Egyptian Air was leaving an hour after us, and this year's choice destination was Cairo. Ehsan was excited at the airport and was continuously running up and down the waiting area to immigration. As always, I was deemed the master of 'travel-diaper-exchanger' (Ckn had the first round with Erica, but she went again, and Ehsan had a rare 'double'...euuuw)! We had to use the public loo, and at one point I had Ehsan standing up on the toilet bowl so that I can use the hand bidet to wash him. An unused filing cabinet was made the changing area. I guess I'm now an expert at this (it started with planes!) and I can handle the stares and smirks easily!

The THY flight was a connecting flight from Addis Ababa, and they were delayed by an hour - Ehsan used that time to clean half of the waiting lounge with wet-ones...

Trick Photography- they look to be the same size, don't they! Both kids had their PJs on because we just took them straight from the bed to the airport (ckn pana pic)

Anyway the flight did arrive and we boarded to a half filled plane and since this was a connecting flight, we found out that other passengers had been bunking on our empty chairs. People were still arguing to be seated as the plane rolled onto the runway! But by this time, the 4Es were tucked in nicely for the trip (I was hoping that all the activity would make the kids sleepy...how wrong I was!). Our flight was scheduled to take approximately 4 hours (which it did), but the time passed nicely and Ehsan was not that unruly, considering.

Our Eid feast - omelette's with turkey and cherry jam (ezal pana pic)

We touched down in the Istanbul Attartuk International Airport at 10am local time (which was the same as in Krt). So far so good!

Resources:
Turkish Airlines. National airlines from Turkey

• Pros : Very good service (e.g. both baby strollers were delivered at the plane door), good food, plane was new and comfortable (definitely more room compared to Austrian Air)
• Cons : Flight out of Khartoum was delayed, and disorganised. Seat assignments were only given at check-in (but priority were given to us)