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Published: June 11th 2010
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Having had our fix of Silk Road culture we now head south into the Zerafshan Mountains onto good motorcycling road, sweeping up and down the green mountainside. We pass through some tin roofed villages and they have obviously got a job lot of paint as one village will have blue roofs, the next green, the next red etc. At one point the sky ahead goes very, very black and we have thunder as we ride through a snow storm. It doesn't last long and soon we are back in the sunshine riding along picturesque valleys.
We make one brief diversion at Shakhrisabz - Timur's birthplace which was once grander than Samarkand. Now its just a few ruins but what's nice is that they are un-restored.. Ak-Saray was Timur's summer palace but all that's left is the remains of a doorway 40m high covered with un-restored filigree mosaics. In some ways its actually more evocative than the restored examples in Samarkand, standing alone you can really appreciate the scale of the buildings, the ruins are towering over us. The imagination runs wild wondering what the rest of the palace would be like.
We overnight at Denov near the border with
Tajikistan. Its a strange little town, mostly scruffy with one very posh shop & one very posh hotel that doesn't usually have guests!! (there are rumours of money laundering - this is a drug hotspot area.). The night we are there there is a wedding on in the posh hotel. The guests are all sat eating and two girls in sparkly dresses are dancing for the audience. We are in a separate little room but every now and then the wedding breaks and we join in the dancing. I notice the local men are giving the girls in sparkly dresses money to dance with them so I start charging too and make 4,000 som - this isn't as profitable as it sounds, 1,000 som is worth 50p!! but I didn't have a sparkly dress and am still a novice.
Next day is border day and getting out of Uzbekistan isn't as easy as getting in. First there is the usual waiting at the barrier as the bikes are let through 2 at a time. As usual we are at the back but this works in our favour as we get a phone call from the guys up front warning
Ak-Saray - Timur
its nice to see some unrestored ruins for a change - these are the remains of the 40m gateway. The palace extended all the way to Timur's statue in the distance. of money problems. On the way into Uzbekistan, where customs and immigration were very friendly, we had to fill out a currency declaration form and most people (on the advice of our guide) guestimated what they had. Now, on the way out of Uzbekistan the very unfriendly and officious customs people, are searching everyone's belongings inch by inch and confiscating any money over and above what's on the declaration. One guy argues back and they take him off to be strip searched. Luckily for him they chicken out when he gets down to his underpants and don't go any further - he had about $2,000 tucked down the back of his underpants tightly grasped between his cheeks. (for the Trans-amers this was Aaron!). Being last and forewarned we had got our act together and were OK but still had to stand there for 30 mins while they searched every single bag and opened everything just to see if we had a few extra dollars stashed away. Finally after several hours, and a few thousand dollars poorer as a group, we get to leave Uzbekistan and enter Tajikistan. The nice Tajikistan immigration office says 'welcome to Tajikistan' to each of us
as he hands back our stamped passports.
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kate goldberg
non-member comment
Hi
It is great to hear about all your adventures. Sounds like you are having an amazing trip. Can't wait to hear the stories first hand over a Yorkshire pint.