Travelling without moving

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia... in my mind I have travelled thousands of miles already, visiting new and exciting places. In reality I am still sitting in my room looking out over the familiar skies of London. For weeks, months now, my travel plans have bounced around like a restless pingpong ball. I have been moved like a pawn over an invisible chessboard drawn across the map of EurAsia.

My original project was to be in Central Asia. Then, just weeks before it was about to start we had to reconsider. The twinned stars of science and funding had not yet lined up and until they did, the project was at a standstill. Kyrgyzstan transformed into Russia. The contacts had been made, the plan was drawn up and the research done. Suddenly, for reasons still shrouded in mystery, the Russians dropped off the radar and went incommunicado. A mild panic started to grip me by the throat. Only seven more weeks until the thesis is due and the rug gets pulled out from under my project! More back-up plans were dreamed up, like rabbits pulled out of a hat. Turkey, Moldova, Bulgaria. What country east of Hungary wasn't suggested?

Then cosmic intervention. The stars have finally started to align. Kyrgyzstan has come back into focus. Not for the orginal plan but for an improvised patchwork formed of the original and the new project. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I am excited but by now won't actually believe anything anymore until I land at Bishkek airport and the custom officers let me in.