GOING HOME (FINALLY): BAKU. AZERBAIJAN, TO LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, VIA DOHA, QATAR

After almost 24 days of non-stop travel, which included seven countries and an unprecedented number of miles covered (compared to all previous trips we have taken), I was SOOOO ready to go home, but we still had one more major hurdle to leap over: the flight home, which would entail five segments:

1. Arrive 2 hours early at Baku Airport for our international flight

2. Flight #1: Baku, Azerbaizan, to Doha, Qatar - 2 hours 50 minutes (1700 km / 1,056 miles)

3.  A layover of about 1 hour 35 minutes in Qatar

4. Flight #2: Doha, Qatar, to Los Angeles, California - 16 hours 10 minutes (3,360 km / 8,302 miles)

5. Drive home in mid-afternoon LA traffic - about 2 hours after retrieving our luggage and our car, which takes about 1 hour (85 miles)

If things went well, from the time we arrived at the Baku Airport to the time we arrived in our home, we would have been traveling for for 25 hours 35 minutes, would have covered 9,443 miles, and would have gone through a time change of 11 hours. (When we arrived at LAX at 2:05 PM, it was 1:05 AM the next day in Baku.)

Everything went more or less as planned, and yeah, it was exhausting.

It was doubly exhausting because our flight left Baku at 3:30 AM.  Yes, you read that right.

The Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku is named after the third President of Azerbaijan. It was named the best airport among Russia and the nine Russian Commonwealth countries in March 2017, just a few months before we passed through. 

Of course, we arrived at the airport around 1:00 AM, so we didn't see it like this:

Photo from Wikipedia. 

But I did take my own pictures inside. It is quite the place:

I like that they had special rooms designated for ablutions required before prayer, and then a place to make a charitable donation after you were done praying since one of the five pillars of Islam is charity. Very practical.

The big surprise was how EMPTY our plane to Doha was. I haven't been in a plane this empty in . . . well, ever! Too bad this was the SHORT section of our flight--under three hours.

Because it was an international flight, we got breakfast at about 5:00 AM (4:00 AM Doha time):

Okay, I've been to a lot of the places on this flight map--Helsinki, Amsterdam, Berlin, Moscow, Casablanca, Baku, Almaty, Beijing, Bangkok, Cairo, Accra:

But zoom in a little bit and everything changes. I've been to Amman, Cairo, and Luxor, but nothing east of there. Yikes.

The Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, was named the 5th Best Airport in the World by Business Insider in 2018.  Skytrax, a world airline and airport ratings group, describes the facility as "the most architecturally significant terminal complex in the world, as well as being the most luxurious."  (Hong Kong International Airport, where we had stopped on our way at the beginning of our trip, is rated #4 by the same organization.)  I'm glad we had only a short layover here. I'm sure my husband would have insisted on visiting Doha had we been given more time, and the trip was long enough as it was.

The airport was pretty dang glamorous:

This huge stuffed animal is known as "Lamp Bear." Kind of odd:

Lots of beautiful people. 

This is the first time I've seen a man in the full white Arab outfit (not like the man above, but the kind with the flowing gown that goes to the floor and the streaming headdress with a black band around the forehead). I didn't dare take a picture, but I did snap this one of my seat screen on our Qatar Airways airplane:

And I think this one is from an in-flight magazine that also warned us that the flight we were on is the 10th longest passenger flight in the world:

A computer station is located next to a children's play area:  

As can be seen in the second picture, the supports or "legs" for this sculpture are slides for kids:

There are several other similar figures in the airport that kids can climb on:

This one is my favorite. 

It looks like a reclining Buddha:

There were some unique things in the shops, such as this little bag with a compass on front.  At first I couldn't figure out what it was for:

. . . but when I turned it over, I realized the compass is for determining the direction of Mecca, or the direction to face when praying:

Can I have this, Bob?  PLEEEEEEZE?

I have never seen Tang for sale in an airport before. Is it even available in the United States anymore?

I'm always surprised that ANYONE can smoke after reading the advertisements on the boxes:

Harrods has a teddy bear mascot and Kit Kat has a camel mascot. Who knew?

We got off on time, and the next 16 hours went by soooooooo sloooooooooowly. It felt like we were on the plane for at least . . . 16 hours! We did have a very interesting flight path that took us almost over the North Pole:

California, here we come!!!

FINALLY.