I forgot to mention a few details about the Georgian restaurant: how there were very few guests but a big 'in' crowd (which we snuck into) that dined like kings and never paid, the Russian girlfriends who kept disappearing to the toilets and came back sniffing with strangely elevated moods... then there was Georgian self described 'mountain man' - a well drunk Georgian businessman who wanted to take Julie to the mountains in a stretch limousine for the night and offered me 'any woman I want' in exchange... he really shouldn't have used me as an interpreter, though...
There was something else going on here!
Anyway, we headed west for three days to Samarkand where we camped in the yard of an elderly Russian couple. On two consecutive nights we wandered past and were invited into wedding feasts where we were fed with whatever was available in exchange for our dancing. It's supposed to be good luck to have extra guests at Tajik weddings. Fun. As for the days, we rolled around the markets and monuments of Samarkand, past the Registan to my favourite spot, the row of mausoleums at Shah-i-Zinda.
We also hunted down Volodya, president of the local bike racing club and bike mechanic, who took us back to his typically Soviet flat in the suburbs for the night and down to a lake for a swim. Next morning, full of watermelon and coffee, Volodya escorted us through the back streets to the road heading south towards Shahrisabz.
Past delicious pears and mountain honey over a 1500m pass to Shahrisabz, then another few hundred k's to Bukhara. More melon feasts. Once I stopped and asked and old bloke where I could find a watermelon. He took me back to his place where there was a pile 2 metres high in the back yard. He insisted I took two. We rolled 100m up the road, found a patch of shade, and got stuck into one of them. A granny found us and brought over a blanket. Then she brought over ANOTHER watermelon. As we left we were offered a fourth melon (thanks, but no thanks). Up the road I swapped one melon for two ice creams! It was stinking hot, getting towards 50 degrees in the sun (late August). We took to finding shade and melons for our early afternoon siestas and washed our shirts out a few times a day in irrigation canals.
A little further some teenage local girls approached Julie with more melon offerings as they were on their way home from a day in the fields. Unfortunately a bunch of men found us as well, took over the conversation (typical) and scared them off.
That night we were invited home by a man whose trade turned out to be... traditional circumcisions! He was very happy to explain his trade, got out his tools, and humiliated his 14 year old son by pulling his pants down to demonstrate! Not very useful when the kid's already had the job done! He then ducked off to a wedding feast (we declined to accompany) leaving another local man to be our host and get very sloshed while I poured most of the vodka under the table...
We left our bikes in Bukhara for a few days for a side trip (petrol fuelled) to Urgench and Khiva, 450km northwest.
From Bukhara it was another 100km west to the Turkmen border across either arid or irrigated plains. While checking out a melon stall en route our bus driver to Urgench (who we'd had dinner with) turned up! Back to his place for another feast...
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Uzbekistan
When I got to the fringes of Tashkent I tried to change some money at a market, where there was a government exchange booth (1325 sum to $US1.) Unfortunately I was swamped by a horde of smartarse, aggressive young Uzbek men (black market traders) offering me 1330 - when I knew the rate was 1380. I told them to go away with no effect, then I turned my back on my bike for 15 seconds to express myself more firmly. One yelped, 'Hey! Your bike's gone!' and sure enough, it was. Laughter and heckling ringing in my ears, I ran around the booth and out into open space. No sign of my bike - and all my gear. Back to where it had been - just laughter. From the amusement I suspected a nasty joke but I was shaken. All of a sudden, after a few long minutes it reappeared. No clear culprit. I rode off using the best language I could muster, being abused in return with copycat trash from bad movies ('F- off motherf-er!!!'). Not a great start.
A lot of other things hadn't changed much in Tashkent. The broad leafy boulevards were the same. Still countless fountains and water features, as if they didn't know what else to do with all that water. Still excellent ice cream! As for the traffic - not too bad (though drivers predictably crap for a cyclist, cutting corners etc.). Still lots of flashy hotels which look empty. Still plenty of police around. Few foreigners/tourists. A hint of tedium.
What had changed since 1999? Mobile phones EVERYWHERE. Very soon I found people taking pics of me (or even filming me) - of course without asking. Lots of closed down internet cafes. Broadway, the pedestrian mall in the centre of town which used be be great value, was dead - apparently shut down by President Karimov.
Oh, and the police have been kitted out with spiffy new green uniforms.
Julie flew in to Tashkent airport in dry summer heat and was abandoned by ground staff for a while (left in an empty stairwell with locked doors) but at least the indifferent Uzbek staff didn't try to extort any money from her (this had already happened in Bangkok for 'excess weight'). Her bike got through unscathed, plus I only had to wait two and a half hours for her - bonus. We found a comfy hotel with a pool and next day checked out the Turkmen embassy, with its huddles of miserable victims and extremely grumpy neighbours. 10 days processing time for a 5 day transit visa – along a pre specified route.
Julie bought some galvanised iron (fashioned by my dad!) and some Bunnings clamps which seemed to sort out my busted frame good and proper!
At the Chorsu Bazaar we stocked up with sultanas, peanuts, dried apricots, apricot kernels, dried cheeseballs, and headed out of town to escape the heat while waiting for our visas.
150km east, snug up against the Kyrgyz border, were the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, a big azure blue reservoir and the ski resort of Chimgan. On the way up Julie began discovering the delights of Central Asian cuisine, including shurpa (clear soup with potato and a hunk of bone/meat) and pelmeni (Russian style ravioli, in a clear broth). First night was on a tapchan (elevated platform with cushions) in front of a wayside inn – after a feed they often won't charge you to roll out your sleeping bags and spend the night. Julie also soon discovered gastro and was pretty miserable as I dragged her (gently) up into the hills.
On a chairlift near Chimgan.
We checked out one of the Soviet relic sanatoria where Uzbeks buy 5-10 day passes to 'rest' and eat set menu cafeteria food 3 times a day for about $16 per person per day, all inclusive. Up in Chimgan some local Russians invited us back to their dacha, tucked away in a remote canyon down a 4WD track. On our way back down from the hills we ran into some junior road racing cyclists near Gazalkent. It turned out that this was an Uzbek junior development training camp, run by Lyudmila, a former road racing champion of the Soviet Union. The team was all staying at a school boarding house, and they dragged us back there for the evening meal. Next morning we rode with the peleton back down the road to Tashkent (50km) with coach Lyudmila escorting us in her minivan (and carrying our bags).
Lyudmila told us she was on a salary of $US300 a month as a senior development coach. Her son was road racing professionally in Italy and a lot of the bike gear she had was sourced from him - though there were always dramas trying to get it through customs, which of course want to 'tax' everything. The gear the kids rode was a bizarre mixture of ancient Soviet steel frames and top notch Colnago frames that had obviously been in huge stacks and had somehow been welded together... but they managed to ride vast Soviet style training distances on it.
Back in town Lyudmila offered us her son's flat to crash in for a few days while waiting for our visas – a great spot in the centre of town, just opposite the Alai Bazaar. This son was in Moscow but there was one other Russian woman living there, who was rarely home. This was Tamara, who turned out to be an obsessive fitness coach with no end of nasty bitching to do about Lyudmila, her husband and her three sons. At least she wasn't home much and the Olympics were on TV. But three days later Lyudmila's husband turned up unannounced and began berating me – should have guessed that the same kinds of things were being said about us - 'we are barbarians, never wash, never clean up' etc. He was also getting anxious about our need to register with the police. It was time to move on and when we left I made a little comment to Tamara about her personal attributes. Her response: 'Well, you shouldn't call our President a fascist then.' Ooops, I had forgotten all about that!
We dropped in on the Georgian restaurant in town where I used to take clients so regularly that I translated their menu for them. Just as we arrived a Georgian friend of theirs had won a wrestling gold medal and so we were invited straight in for celebrations which ended up lasting for the next three days (or at least that's when we left!) After three free feasts I had to insist on translating the new menu on our last night. I got it done by 9pm with Julie's help in time for a final feast and we rolled out of town at midnight on cool, empty roads - excellent - camping 25 km out of town.
A lot of other things hadn't changed much in Tashkent. The broad leafy boulevards were the same. Still countless fountains and water features, as if they didn't know what else to do with all that water. Still excellent ice cream! As for the traffic - not too bad (though drivers predictably crap for a cyclist, cutting corners etc.). Still lots of flashy hotels which look empty. Still plenty of police around. Few foreigners/tourists. A hint of tedium.
What had changed since 1999? Mobile phones EVERYWHERE. Very soon I found people taking pics of me (or even filming me) - of course without asking. Lots of closed down internet cafes. Broadway, the pedestrian mall in the centre of town which used be be great value, was dead - apparently shut down by President Karimov.
Oh, and the police have been kitted out with spiffy new green uniforms.
Julie flew in to Tashkent airport in dry summer heat and was abandoned by ground staff for a while (left in an empty stairwell with locked doors) but at least the indifferent Uzbek staff didn't try to extort any money from her (this had already happened in Bangkok for 'excess weight'). Her bike got through unscathed, plus I only had to wait two and a half hours for her - bonus. We found a comfy hotel with a pool and next day checked out the Turkmen embassy, with its huddles of miserable victims and extremely grumpy neighbours. 10 days processing time for a 5 day transit visa – along a pre specified route.
Julie bought some galvanised iron (fashioned by my dad!) and some Bunnings clamps which seemed to sort out my busted frame good and proper!
At the Chorsu Bazaar we stocked up with sultanas, peanuts, dried apricots, apricot kernels, dried cheeseballs, and headed out of town to escape the heat while waiting for our visas.
150km east, snug up against the Kyrgyz border, were the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, a big azure blue reservoir and the ski resort of Chimgan. On the way up Julie began discovering the delights of Central Asian cuisine, including shurpa (clear soup with potato and a hunk of bone/meat) and pelmeni (Russian style ravioli, in a clear broth). First night was on a tapchan (elevated platform with cushions) in front of a wayside inn – after a feed they often won't charge you to roll out your sleeping bags and spend the night. Julie also soon discovered gastro and was pretty miserable as I dragged her (gently) up into the hills.
On a chairlift near Chimgan.
We checked out one of the Soviet relic sanatoria where Uzbeks buy 5-10 day passes to 'rest' and eat set menu cafeteria food 3 times a day for about $16 per person per day, all inclusive. Up in Chimgan some local Russians invited us back to their dacha, tucked away in a remote canyon down a 4WD track. On our way back down from the hills we ran into some junior road racing cyclists near Gazalkent. It turned out that this was an Uzbek junior development training camp, run by Lyudmila, a former road racing champion of the Soviet Union. The team was all staying at a school boarding house, and they dragged us back there for the evening meal. Next morning we rode with the peleton back down the road to Tashkent (50km) with coach Lyudmila escorting us in her minivan (and carrying our bags).
Lyudmila told us she was on a salary of $US300 a month as a senior development coach. Her son was road racing professionally in Italy and a lot of the bike gear she had was sourced from him - though there were always dramas trying to get it through customs, which of course want to 'tax' everything. The gear the kids rode was a bizarre mixture of ancient Soviet steel frames and top notch Colnago frames that had obviously been in huge stacks and had somehow been welded together... but they managed to ride vast Soviet style training distances on it.
Back in town Lyudmila offered us her son's flat to crash in for a few days while waiting for our visas – a great spot in the centre of town, just opposite the Alai Bazaar. This son was in Moscow but there was one other Russian woman living there, who was rarely home. This was Tamara, who turned out to be an obsessive fitness coach with no end of nasty bitching to do about Lyudmila, her husband and her three sons. At least she wasn't home much and the Olympics were on TV. But three days later Lyudmila's husband turned up unannounced and began berating me – should have guessed that the same kinds of things were being said about us - 'we are barbarians, never wash, never clean up' etc. He was also getting anxious about our need to register with the police. It was time to move on and when we left I made a little comment to Tamara about her personal attributes. Her response: 'Well, you shouldn't call our President a fascist then.' Ooops, I had forgotten all about that!
We dropped in on the Georgian restaurant in town where I used to take clients so regularly that I translated their menu for them. Just as we arrived a Georgian friend of theirs had won a wrestling gold medal and so we were invited straight in for celebrations which ended up lasting for the next three days (or at least that's when we left!) After three free feasts I had to insist on translating the new menu on our last night. I got it done by 9pm with Julie's help in time for a final feast and we rolled out of town at midnight on cool, empty roads - excellent - camping 25 km out of town.
Dushanbe to Tashkent
My kind hearted granny, Baba Lyolya, turned out to be full of amazing stories. She gave me a family history lesson and dug out 100 year old photos from her parents' era in Petropavlovsk, in southern Siberia, where she was born. (I think it's now Kazakhstan - the distinction is vague up there, northern K. being very Russified.) Most of these were from studios with great props and Sunday best furs. She really put across how isolated Dushanbe was back in 1954, despite the railway built in the 20's. When she arrived the local Tajiks were still living in clay pot homes ('kibichki') and the girls would flock around her to stroke her ponytails in awe.
From there on her stories ranged from her involvement in organising (illegal) backyard abortions (she gave a detailed 'recipe') and stories about how she'd go to Termez (on the Afghan border, now in Uzbekistan) to catch the first supplies of household products to stories about her work as manager of the neurosurgical hospital in Dushanbe, with long gone Jewish and Russian consultants... Extraordinary living history of the Soviet Union.
The following day I went back to the Iranian embassy having decided to resort to begging. Who knows, maybe they don't take this whole reference number thing so seriously. They seemed receptive and said come back in the afternoon. By that time my number had magically appeared.
From Dushanbe my route headed north over two big passes past Khojand towards Tashkent. I'd had some horror reports of the road, with massive road and tunnel construction works going on.
So I thought I'd get a lift on a truck. 'Smokin' Granny' (my new name for her since I discovered she secretly puffed on old school 'Polyot' cigarettes) kindly decided to cook me French toast for breakfast. Very sweet of her but I soon offered to cook it for myself - not so easy when you're blind.
I rode up the road 15km or so and waited well into the stinking hot afternoon near a police checkpoint for a truck to offer a lift. I had plenty of company - due to sky high petrol prices (and roadworks) not many drivers were interested in going over and transport was scarce for everyone. Eventually I got lucky. The truck turned out to be empty- hmm, not so good, nothing to cushion the bike with! All I could use was my groundsheet. We headed up past the Tajik president's silly palace-dacha into the mountains and the road soon turned to hell. The tunnels were as bad as feared - 30cm of water over rubble! Glad I didn't ride. My Tajik drivers were in a hurry to get home and hammered over the first pass. At 2am there was a roadblock so the boys decided on shuteye till 5.30am. We slept on a tapchan (open air traditional tea house platform, with cushions) next to a mountain stream. Over the next pass helter skelter and we stopped to get my bike out. I was nervous. Climbing up into the container dust was everywhere and I found my bike right at the front- it'd obviously been tossed all over the place but was intact, thanks to the 4 panniers which had protected it. Only minor casualty was my billy - a bit of panelbeating gives it character, anyway.
I rolled down through apple trees onto the plains near the border to the first roadside stalls of watermelons and delicious long white melons. On my way I met plenty of friendly lowland Tajiks who were busting to give me apples, plov and anything else they had for the road. After one failed border crossing ('the international border is 40km up the road, this one's just for locals') at Bekabad, I got over into Uzbekistan. The border guards seemed younger and more worldwise than I remembered them - I asked one what the black market rate for Uzbek sum was and he told me (correctly)! From here it was 100km across cotton fields and piles of watermelons to Tashkent.
From there on her stories ranged from her involvement in organising (illegal) backyard abortions (she gave a detailed 'recipe') and stories about how she'd go to Termez (on the Afghan border, now in Uzbekistan) to catch the first supplies of household products to stories about her work as manager of the neurosurgical hospital in Dushanbe, with long gone Jewish and Russian consultants... Extraordinary living history of the Soviet Union.
The following day I went back to the Iranian embassy having decided to resort to begging. Who knows, maybe they don't take this whole reference number thing so seriously. They seemed receptive and said come back in the afternoon. By that time my number had magically appeared.
From Dushanbe my route headed north over two big passes past Khojand towards Tashkent. I'd had some horror reports of the road, with massive road and tunnel construction works going on.
So I thought I'd get a lift on a truck. 'Smokin' Granny' (my new name for her since I discovered she secretly puffed on old school 'Polyot' cigarettes) kindly decided to cook me French toast for breakfast. Very sweet of her but I soon offered to cook it for myself - not so easy when you're blind.
I rode up the road 15km or so and waited well into the stinking hot afternoon near a police checkpoint for a truck to offer a lift. I had plenty of company - due to sky high petrol prices (and roadworks) not many drivers were interested in going over and transport was scarce for everyone. Eventually I got lucky. The truck turned out to be empty- hmm, not so good, nothing to cushion the bike with! All I could use was my groundsheet. We headed up past the Tajik president's silly palace-dacha into the mountains and the road soon turned to hell. The tunnels were as bad as feared - 30cm of water over rubble! Glad I didn't ride. My Tajik drivers were in a hurry to get home and hammered over the first pass. At 2am there was a roadblock so the boys decided on shuteye till 5.30am. We slept on a tapchan (open air traditional tea house platform, with cushions) next to a mountain stream. Over the next pass helter skelter and we stopped to get my bike out. I was nervous. Climbing up into the container dust was everywhere and I found my bike right at the front- it'd obviously been tossed all over the place but was intact, thanks to the 4 panniers which had protected it. Only minor casualty was my billy - a bit of panelbeating gives it character, anyway.
I rolled down through apple trees onto the plains near the border to the first roadside stalls of watermelons and delicious long white melons. On my way I met plenty of friendly lowland Tajiks who were busting to give me apples, plov and anything else they had for the road. After one failed border crossing ('the international border is 40km up the road, this one's just for locals') at Bekabad, I got over into Uzbekistan. The border guards seemed younger and more worldwise than I remembered them - I asked one what the black market rate for Uzbek sum was and he told me (correctly)! From here it was 100km across cotton fields and piles of watermelons to Tashkent.
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