Samarqand to Dushanbe

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A little of the journey follows. With Katherine (an english historian I met in the hostel) I caught a shared taxi from nearby the hostel. This was a first mistake of a couple made which clearly just adds to experience without all that much danger. He drove us literatly 800 metres and stopped at a share taxi station. The problem was it was the wrong taxi station and then after heavy price negiation we finally were on our way to the right station about 6kms from the centre. There were as usual at these types of places 10s of people crowded around for our chat with the driver to figure out the cost. After about 20 mins or so we settled on 30,000 som each (per seat) for the trip from Samarqand to Dacau in the south. After waiting around for about another hour a woman with childjoined our group and we were off through the suburbs. Before reaching Shakhrisabz which is Amir Timur's home town we passed through some mountains and a reasonably famous pass which has for millenia been the main route north from Afghanistan and the south.
A few hours latter we were driving through very barren flat country then hilly then small moutains on the way east towards Dacau and the border. The towns really feel like the wild west with donkeys, a hot dusty wind, mud brick houses and lots and lots of check points. It was the first time in the entire trip my passport and visa had been checked some completely and so many times. It was quite an ominous feeling but everything was in order so it was fine.

Upon arrival in Dacau the driver demanded more money and after 30mins of anger arguing him in Tajik or Russian and me in English we settled on 2/3 the amount he was demanding. It was a real pity as the trip had been quite a joy and leaving it like that upset me. The thing that annoyed me the most was that he had this ever so slight smile curling his lip during the entire 'argument'. Its amazing how decriptive one can be when you know know one understands what you are staying. I'm not normally like that but I hadn't eaten much all day,it was hot and it was a blanant act of ripping the traveller off. The irony is that the final taxi to the border a similar thing happened when 4,000 suddenly turned to 14,000. YOu can well imagine my mood by then!! I don't think I really believe my exclaimations that the 'uzbeks will remain an improvished people until they can obtain some honesty with their dealings with foreigners'.

The crossing was an uneventual as leaving a paranoid police state can be and then I ended up scoring a ride (paid of course) from the border into Dushanbe about 45 mins away. It was late and I was going to teeat myself so I checked in a hugh old soviet hotel Avesto after a long walk to Hotel Mercury which was unhappily full.

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