Some pictures I omitted from earlier Uzbekistan posts.
Miscellaneous Uzbek Trivia
I thought i would post a few random observations that have previously been absent from my posts – Just a few things i found interesting:
Gold Teeth: Many women and men (but mostly women) of abut middle age or older here have a few or all gold teeth. I have been told that it is fashionable. It is quite strange the first few times a women smiles (not at me – they seldom smile at me) and you see her gilded smile. I guess it isn’t any stranger than people in North America getting their perfectly healthy teeth capped. I tried to explain to one guy in Bukhara that in certain sub-cultures in North America, gold teeth are popular (i.e. rap culture), which he seemed to think was very funny.
Car Theft: Apparently care theft used to be a big problem in Uzbekistan (mainly in Tashkent), so the government changed the law so that now, the first time one gets caught stealing a car he gets 15 years in prison. The second time one gets caught stealing a car one gets either life in prison or death by firing squad. (One Uzbek told me life in prison and another told me execution, so i don’t know which is true.) Now car theft is virtually obsolete.
Questions: Every Uzbek with whom i speak asks very soon upon meeting how old i am, whether i am married and how many children i have. They cannot understand that i am single and childless and thing it is even funnier when i say that i want neither marriage or children. Everyone here seems to have many children very early in the twenties. Kids are everywhere, like rats.
Cigars: If you are coming to Uzbekistan and are a cigar smoker, bring enough for your trip, because they seem to be nonexistent in the country. My cigars have attracted a lot of attention (in Bukhara they even became the subject of rumor); had i brought more i could have given them away to the curious smoker.
Vegetarians: Like most countries, Uzbekistan is not a great place for vegetarians. Breakfasts are usually ok and then it is pretty much bread and cheese and fruit for the rest of the day. There are lots of yummy looking bready/samosa-y looking things for sale on the street, but they all contain meat. On the plus side, the bread and fruit are really very good. And the tea is excellent.
Tattoos: I have been told that if you want to see people in Uzbekistan with tattoos, you must visit the jails. Muslims, of course, are not supposed to get tattoos and that rule (unlike the drinking rule) seems to be well-respected. I have worn long sleeves on this trip, but sometimes a tattoo peeks out from my sleeve and it always gets questions. Many people have asked me what they are and asked to take pictures of them. One guy said, “You are like pop star” because i had so many tattoos. I have nopt gotten any negative reactions, just curiosity.
Poverty: There are definitely many poor people here, but i have seen no one sleeping on the street and very few people begging for money.
Animals: Aside from birds and working animals like donkeys, horses, goats and cows, i have seen very few. I saw four cats in Bukhara and i have seen a total of three dogs. I don’t know where they all are.
Safety: Other than my little run in with the police, i have felt perfectly safe the whole time i have been here, even at night and walking alone. I feel the need to mention this because i know many people have other ideas about the country.
Reading: If you are visiting Uzbekistan, bring your own reading material and do not count on finding more. I brought one book (the hilarious and appropriate “Absurdistan”, which i recommend) and then was fortunate enough to trade it for another English book with the girl i met on the train to Bukhara. I read that and then read the one English book a my Bukhara hotel. Now i am without reading material and cannot find more. Because most travelers here are not native English speakers, it is difficult to find books to pick up along the way. I am even down to my final NY Times crossword. It may be a long flight home.
Uzbekistan: The Final Day
As it turns out, my crumby day yesterday did not last even one full day.
After my post, I returned to my hotel, the Gulnara Guesthouse. It is on the edge of the old town near the bustling Chorsu market. I cannot comment on the rooms, because, as I mentioned, my reservation was screwed up and the only room they had for me wasn’t really a room, just a cot and electric fan, but I must say that I am quite happy with the accommodations. The owners are friendly and the rooms are all located around a pleasant courtyard with a huge apple tree and laundry strung up everywhere.
It is definitely a backpackers’ place, with everyone there being young and traveling with large backpacks or by bicycle. Almost everyone there seems to be French, although the Japanese girl i met in Samarkand (and saw again in Bukhara) is staying there as well.
Anyway, after my post, I went to my room and spent about 4 hours napping and listening to repeats of Bill Maher and Ricky Gervais podcasts on my ipod, which cheered me up immensely. After that, I went for an evening walk and had tea and a cigar on a busy corner, where I was joined by some Uzbek construction worker with some basic English skills. He said he had only seen cigars “in films”. He asked to buy one from me but I had only one left, so i didn’t sell.
All in all, it was a pleasant end to what started out as a crumby day.
This morning, after breakfast, I walked up to the Khast Imom, which is the holiest part of Tashkent. It is a collections of newish mosques and mausoleums and a small museum that houses a massive and old copy of the Koran. Surrounding the buildings were some very well manicured park areas, which were also home to many large stork-like birds (like storks, but bigger and with more intimidating beaks).
I then walked past many large and largely unattractive apartment blocks to Navoi Park, which is a big park containing some odd Soviet structures and a man made lake with beach areas, little paddle boats and small fair area with rides. I wandered there for a while and had some ice-cream-like frozen substance. I have on this trip mastered the pronunciation of the Russian word for ice cream, which had previously eluded me.
Now I am just sort of pleasantly killing time. My flight is at 9:00pm, but i plan to get there nice and early, as I could not check in on-line. I plan to stroll through the market again, see if i can spend my remaining Sum and then I will probably just hang around in the courtyard of my hotel and smoke my final cigar.
I may post again either from Tashkent or Seoul, internet access permitting.
d
Night Train to Tashkent
My last day in Bukhara was pretty relaxing. I just went for walks and read a book and went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant. I know, Italian food in Uzbekistan sounds like a bad idea, and i’m not sure that it was all that authentic, but the vegetarian pizza that i nibbled at (usually i would have gobbled it down, but i am still feeling ill), was actually ok. They best part though was sitting at a proper indoor restaurant and smoking a cigar; it’s just so civilized.
They evening came and i caught the 7:40 night train to Tashkent. It takes about 12 hours, so i had booked a bed in a sleeper car, each of which holds four. Unfortunately i shared my car with four men. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, but sleeping in close quarters with 4 strange men who don’t speak English doesn’t thrill me.
The beds were comfy and it was nice to lie down, but the air conditioning that was allegedly flowing failed to cool me down at all. I spent the whole time lying in a pool of my own sweat and praying that some sort of a breeze would come, but my bunk mates kept the door to the car and the window closed, so no breezes were to come. Plus, i had a terrible case of food poisoning and had to urgently get up often to use the disgusting bathroom. Needless to say, i got very little sleep.
On arriving in Tashkent, feeling relieved, i caught the metro to my new hostel. Unfortunately, as i waited for my car to arrive, a police man or solider (I can’t tell which are which) with a machine gun took me off the platform and to a small room with a table, two chairs and another uniformed, heavily armed officer waiting. I had a moment where I was certain I would be raped. Neither of them spoke English and i refused to speak any Russian, lest i accidentally implicate myself in some crime. They inspected my passport, visa, registration papers, my money and searched my bag. Of the questions they asked that i understood were “why are you in Uzbekistan?”, “Do you have family here or in Russia?”, “What is your job?”, “How long are you here?”, “Are you married?” and “Do you have any children”. But most of the questions were just nonsense Russian to me. I think they wanted a bribe, but they didn’t ask and i didn’t offer. Finally, after about an hour of questions in Russian (no matter how many times i said i only spoke English, they kept speaking to me in Russian), they let me go.
I now know that it wasn’t a big deal, but in the moment, i found it unnerving and upsetting. Being interrogated for no reason by two men in a language you don’t understand is not a good feeling. I felt like i was in a Kafka novel or a movie where an innocent girl traveling ends up in a foreign prison.
Then, i finally arrived at my hostel, where frankly, all i wanted was a shower, a nap, and an hour or so of watching the BBC, but i found out that they had lost my reservation and were fully booked. The only room i could get was a tiny room with a cot and a fan. No AC and a shared bathroom. I really wanted something better, but couldn’t bear the thought of trudging around town popping into hotels, so i took it. It is a cozy little place and my room, such as it is, is only about $6 or $7 dollars a night.
Tomorrow night i fly to Seoul.
On every trip i have one day where i feel tired and fed up. Today is that day. Tomorrow will be better.
Samarkand Express
Forgive the absence, but internet is very difficult to find in Samarkand. I have been here 3 days so far and today was the first day I found an internet cafe – and it took me over an hour to get here. Anyway, on to updates.
I left Tashkent on the Sharq Express train which left early in the morning. I was running a bit late, so I decided to take a taxi to the train station. They have a really good system for taxis here; there are the proper, marked taxis that you can call or hail and will cost a small fortune (they wanted the equivalent of $5US to take me to the station). Then there are the regular guys in regular cars (almost always Ladas). You just stand on the side of the road and they stop and you offer them money to take you where you want to go. It’s actually very sensible and they took me to the train stn for about $1.
The train ride was supposed to take 3.5 hours, but due to work being done on the tracks, it took over 6hrs. I was in first class, which is very comfortable and had little tvs at every seat. Unfortunately the little tvs only played on type of movie: Gangster movies in russian where russians with cold blue eyes and black leather car coats shot each other with silenced pistols….Then again, maybe it was the news. A few guys had their tvs cranked way up. The ride would have been fine, except that the slow speed of the train meant that they didn’t have enough power to run the AC, so it was very very hot. Despite that, and the odd cockroach, I found the ride very relaxing.
I arrived at the train station in Samarkand and immediately I could tell that it would be very different from Tashkent. Gone were the women in western dress; here all the women are wearing long, patterned, shapeless dresses with headscarves. The men wore the traditional square beanie hats. (I don’t know what they are called.)
I hired a taxi and headed to my hotel/B&B. Just driving through the city and catching glimpses of the monuments I had traveled so far to see made me giddy with elation, until I finally blurted out, “This is so fucking cool!”
Hotel Furkat is in one of the Old Town enclaves and from the outside is nothing more than a door in a wall on a dusty, unpaved road. But behind the door there is a beautiful courtyard and an enormous tree around which the 3 story hotel wraps itself. The tree pokes its branches on to each of the balconies, making the whole thing feel like a tree house. When I arrived, I tried to explain that I had a reservation, but the owner, Furkat, said “tea first” and ushered me towards one of the delightful chaikhanas that line the perimeter of the courtyard.
After some tea and apricots, I checked in to my room, which is sort of a tacky collection of odd furniture, shiny wallpaper and jeweled curtains. I then went out to wander.
Impressions of Samarkand to follow.
Tashkent: day 2
hello again.
After breakfast I went to the train station and bought my ticket to Samarkand for tomorrow morning. I took the metro (a few times today actually). The subways here are very similar to those in Moscow. They are quite elaborately decorated (not as much as the nicest of those in Moscow, but lovely nevertheless). I wanted to take photos, but it is forbidden, and there are police everywhere here. They haven’t given me any trouble but i have seen them stop random people and look in their bags.
I went to the Chorsu bazaar today. It is mostly food items: produce and bread, spices and nuts, eggs, meats, etc., but there are also stall selling woven items, pottery, musical instruments, at whatnot. The Uzbekistan bread is very sacred to them. They incorporate it into ceremonies and pictures of it seems to be on all of their tourist advertising. Basically, the bread is this round, flat but with high edges, golden brown bread with sesame seeds. Sometimes they have intricate designs on them. The thing is, as i discovered today, it isn’t that great. I mean, it would be great with some hummus or a hearty mutton stew, but on its own, it left much to be desired.
Also while walking around the market, I had fruit, pistachios, and various types of honey. I watched a goat (or sheep) get hacked apart with a small axe in the butcher’ section. I also help collect fluffy yellow chicks that escaped from a structurally challenged cardboard box and were running away. My good deed for the day.
After the market I walked around the old city, which is entirely unlike the more modern parts of the city. It is rather decrepit and tangled, but charming. I visited a few mosques and a medrassa, but basically I walked…all day.
It was about 37 degrees today. I don’t know if this is the heat I was warned about; the heat that was supposed to crush me and force me inside in the midday with it oppressive hotness. I don’t know, but I thought it was beautiful out today. Hot and sunny and dry. Perfect.
Late afternoon I stopped for a coffee, smoke, and ice cream at some cafe. I read the menu, perusing the assortment of tongue and organ meats, when I read the last page of the menu, it said: “Payment for dish brakes”. And below that was a list of breakable dishes and prices. Apparently, if I had broken a plate it would have cost $5, but if I break a table it would be $75. This raises the obvious question: does this mean that I am allowed to break the table as long as I pay for it? Or, more importantly, how often does this sort of behavior go on?
Very strange and amusing.
Anyway, I walked some more, went to some parks and Independence Square and then to dinner at a Russian restaurant, which was delicious.
I think that’s it for today. My train is early in the morning and I want to be well-rested for the first day of the focus of my trip: Samarkand.
I’m sure I have more anecdotes, but they escape me at the moment.
Later. d
Hello, Tashkent!
Let me just being by apologizing for what are sure to be many typos (Cyrilic key board)
I arrived in Uzbekistan last night. The flight from Seoul was about 7 hrs and was uneventful. We arrived in Tashkent and began the immigration process. I was a bit apprehensive, since everything i had read said that it was a difficult process and could take 3 hours. On the contrary, it was far less of a hassle than entering Canada or the US; there was just a lot of paper work to fill out.
Outside the airport i was hit with a wave of summer evening heat and a mountain of taxi drivers all clamoring for my money. I lit a smoke and told them to wait until i was finished. They stood there staring at me. I told them to back off or they I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my cigarillo. They behaved. Then, in Russian, i managed to haggle the price of a taxi from $15 to $5 US. I know it shouldn’t cost more then $3, but i am ok with $5.
En route to my hotel, the cabbie asked me (in English now) if i wanted to change some money.
I should explain: Everything I had read told me that the best place to change money is with illegal, black market money changers. The banks will give you about $1700 Som for every US dollar and will charge hefty fees, but on the black market the rate is much better.
I agreed to the exchange and we made a detour to a poorly lit side street where we met a man in a waiting car. I gave them $100 US and got $210,000 Som, which was presented to me in four bricks of bills.
That done, i was driven to my hotel, the mighty Hotel Uzbekistan. Now, this hotel is a prime example of the hideousness of some mid-century Soviet architecture. It has no charm, but i picked it, because i am only here for 2 nights and it is in the best possible location. Also, it is a known hotel, and i knew i would have to give them my passport for a day to complete the mandatory Visa registration, so i thought it would be best to do that at a hotel with a good reputation. My room is unimpressive, but clean and has a great view. The hotel sits on the ring of Timur Square (which is really a circle) and is the centre of the city.
After getting settled, it was about 10pm and i decided to go for a walk and a cigar. The air was magnificent. It was beautifully warm and not at all humid and smelled of strange plants and spices. The moon was nearly full and small bats circled everywhere. Timur Square was beautifully lit and filled with people. Actually, there were people everywhere: families and couples and gaggles of teens walking around, sitting on benches, playing games and drinking tea. I even saw a few people on horseback. In another square people had gathered and there were merchants selling art and jewelry. It was such a beautiful night and the moon made all of the enormous soviet buildings look beautiful (even the ugly Hotel Uzbekistan). It was such a grand stroll. This is going to be an awesome trip.
I slept well and awoke to breakfast. This hotel doesn’t screw around with breakfast: fruits, vegetables, breads, oatmeal, eggs, meats, curried chickpeas, daal, rice, blintzes…I went back for thirds. Now, quite stuffed, I must figure out how to stash my mountains of Uzbek currency on my body and then head out for the day. I have some business to tend to (buying train tickets and whatnot) and then I will go for a walk.
My hotel has a computer room, so i will surely blog later today.
d