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Travelling travails of the World
Champion
A report from team Anand
Five countries, 2000 kilometres,
about a million potholes, an unexpected ferry and the "Lord of
the Rings" trilogy. A report of a crazy roadtrip through Europe.
Months of careful planning for the chess world championship in
Sofia by the Anand team were disrupted by a volcano in Iceland,
located under Eyjafjallajökull, one of the smaller glaciers of
the North Atlantic island. Tens of thousands of people were
stranded on airports in Europe. One of them was Viswanathan
Anand, who had travelled with his wife and manager Aruna from
Madrid to Frankfurt on Thursday April 15th. They planned to
continue their journey to Sofia on Friday April 16, together
with three other travellers. Two more seconds were to fly from
other airports in Europe to the Bulgarian capital on Friday to
join the team there.
On Thursday April 15, Hans-Walter Schmitt and another helper of
the Anand team flew to Sofia to prepare the arrival of the team
Friday. The plan was good and well thought through. But then, on
Friday, the bad news was that the ash cloud from Iceland had
reached Frankfurt Airport and the airport had to be closed at
09.00 a.m. This meant that the planned flight to Sofia, LH3484,
which was scheduled to depart at 10.05 a.m., was cancelled, just
like hundreds of other flights. It was quite unclear how long
the airport would remain closed, therefore Aruna Anand and the
team decided to rebook for the evening flight, LH3488, which was
scheduled for 19.45 p.m.
Anand’s baggage was checked through to Sofia. Since it was not
clear, however, if the evening flight would depart on time, or
depart at all, Aruna thought that it wise to collect the
checked-through baggage from Madrid, just to have everything
under control in case of another cancellation. She was in close
contact with Lufthansa, who were very cooperative, and picked up
the baggage herself on Friday afternoon. You should know that
finding four pieces of luggage in a major airport like Frankfurt
is not an easy task, especially when there are heavy
disruptions. Only in case of an emergency, e.g. if somebody has
life-saving medicine in his suitcase, an airline is willing to
make baggage available for the passenger.
After solving this problem, it soon became clear that the
evening flight to Sofia would not depart as well, since
Frankfurt airport would be closed until Saturday morning at
02:00 a.m. Once again the tickets were rebooked, and despite a
long waiting list, Anand and his team were accepted and even got
boarding passes for the first flight on Saturday, April 17,
LH3484, at 10.05 a.m. However, on Friday, when it became clear
that the situation at all major airport was becoming more and
more critical, Aruna Anand and her team had already started
searching for alternatives. Plans were made to travel to Vienna,
which had one of the airports that was still open at that time,
to get a flight from there. However, Vienna also closed down on
Friday evening.
Aruna began to study other train schedules in detail, but it
soon became clear that everything was booked out and it was
absolutely impossible to get a ticket. Team Anand also had to
bear in mind, that travelling to Sofia by a land route was also
problematic, since not every country on the way would accept
transit travellers from India without a valid visa! The shortest
route is via Serbia, for that Anand and his wife would need a
visa, which was impossible to at such a short notice.
There were some very generous offers from Anand supporters, who
wanted to help get the world champion and his team to Sofia as
quickly as possible. Wolfgang Grenke, one of the main sponsors
of the Chess Classic, and sponsor of the Bundesliga team Baden
Baden, in which Anand plays, offered Anand the use of his
private jet. However, German authorities could not give him
permission to fly, since the airspace in Germany was now
completely blocked. Even German chancellor Angela Merkel had to
take an overland route when she arrived from San Francisco on
Friday and was not allowed to enter German airspace.
On Saturday, after another cancellation of all flights from
Frankfurt and other airports in Germany, including all flights
to Sofia, it became obvious that there was only one final
possibility to reach Sofia: by car. However, most car rentals,
taxi companies and other VIP services simply had no cars and
staff available, while companies that did simply refused to
drive all the way to Bulgaria. Finally, after many hours of
trying, team Anand managed to find a VIP service by Taxi
Lagerberg, located in Amstelveen, The Netherlands. They
contacted two of their best drivers, Paul Oostheim and Peer
Reintjes, on Saturday, and asked them to stop their shift
immediately, in order to be able to drive to Bad Soden on
Sunday. This is 500 kilometres from Amstelveen, a five hour
drive.
In the meantime, two more seconds of Anand arrived, very late on
Saturday, in Bad Soden to join the team. They had originally
intended to fly to Sofia on Friday, but after the closure of the
airspace, they had redirected to Bad Soden. To do so they had to
travel more than twelve hours by train on Saturday, coming from
different countries. But they made it somehow – what other
choice did they have?
On Sunday morning, at 11:00 a.m., the Mercedes Sprinter,
equipped with all kinds of amenities like a fridge, two TV
screens and a DVD player, arrived in Bad Soden and after picking
up the team in the hotel, the journey started at 11.28h. The
drivers had prepared the route for Sunday: we would cross the
Germany border in Passau, drive through Austria and continue to
Budapest, to spend the night there. That was a 1000 kilometre
trip, and after a smooth drive with a lot of sunshine the team
arrived in Budapest at 22.30 p.m. Bear in mind that the drivers
had started their trip in Amstelveen at 06.00 a.m.
On Monday, the journey continued at 08.00 a.m. with a morning
traffic jam in Budapest. But the drivers managed to get the team
out of the city pretty fast, and the drive to Szeged was easy,
despite the heavy rain. The Rumanian border was reached at 13.30
p.m. The team had to transfer to Bulgaria via Rumania, because
this country will accept Indian passports without a visa. The
border was crossed near Arad, the federal border police
recognised Anand. After crossing the border we started to watch
the first film of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the extended
version to be precise.
We had to drive 480 km through Rumania to the city of Vidin at
the Bulgarian border. If you use Google Maps you may find it a
bit strange that we had to reckon with 9-10 hours for this
fairly short distance. But when you actually have to drive this
route you understand why it takes so long: there are numerous
construction zones, about every ten kilometres, dead dogs and
cats on the road have to be avoided, and there are about a
million potholes. To make the situation even more difficult for
the drivers it was raining continuously – a miracle that the car
survived these extremely bad road conditions. Even the two very
experienced drivers had never seen such bad roads.
In the car however, the atmosphere was very good, there was food
and drink, and the second “Lord of the Rings” film, “The Two
Towers”, helped us pass the time. After more than twelve hours
driving through Romania, at 22.35h, we finally reached Calafat
in Romania to cross the border to Bulgaria. That was when we saw
a long queue and a ferry, and it dawned upon the passengers that
there is no bridge across the river “Romania” and we would have
to use the ferry. That meant waiting until enough cars had
arrived for the ferry to cross the river. After over an hour,
just before midnight, the ferry started, and twenty minutes
later, on 20 April at 12:05 a.m., Anand finally reached
Bulgarian territory. One of the Bulgarian border officers
checked the passports in the bus. When he read “Anand” aloud he
realized that he was checking the passport of the chess world
champion and started laughing: “Ah, Anand!“ Without any further
checks we were allowed to pass.
Only 250 km left to Sofia, with about four more hours to go, but
the story is not completely over. In the meantime, the last part
of the Ring-trilogy, “The Return of the King”, was running in
our Sprinter DVD, and we were confident that we would reach
Sofia at about 04.00 a.m. that night. And, dear readers, when
the streets are empty, when you have driven 36 hours and your
destination is within reach, you want to get there as quickly as
possible. With only 100 km to go, at 02.15 a.m. on Tuesday
morning, April 20, the Bulgarian police noticed a dark Mercedes
Sprinter with a Dutch license plate, driving a just a little too
fast. You guessed right: we had to stop and the driver had to
explain why he was speeding (74 km instead of the allowed 50) –
and what he was doing in Bulgaria. However, when the driver told
the very friendly police officer that Vishy Anand and his team
were on board, the officer smiled and said: “Ok, take him to
Sofia, but not too fast, ok?!“
Without a fine we continued the last leg of the journey to
Sofia, although we were stopped again by the police, this time
just for a routine traffic check. Finally, at 05.30 a.m. after
travelling for more than 40 hours, we arrived at our destination
– just in time to have an early breakfast. There was only one
problem: we arrived at the Hilton Sofia still a little too early
and had missed the last hour of “The Return of the King“. We
will have to watch that on our way home…
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Published
on April 21st 2010
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