Blogs from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Asia - page 2

At last, we are traversing a section of the ancient Silk Road - travelling around the major "Silk Road Cities" of Uzbekistan. We arrived in the early morning in Tashkent - the exotically named capital city. Driving around the city we were amazed by the tree-lined, wide roads with extensive Russian-style buildings. A massive square, with a central statue of Timerlane on horseback - the Uzbek national hero, had pride of place. The whole square was surrounded by impressive large white buildings, headquarters of banks and industries, and the stark soviet built Hotel Uzbekistan. The Kukeldash Mosque, with its turquoise-coloured dome sparkling in the sun was magnificent, together with sandalwood pillars, tile and brick work. The adjacent medrassahs, a small museum, housing the world's oldest Koran, and other buildings formed a scene of Central Asia and ... read more

Yesterday, I visited The Museum of Astronomy in Tashkent. We learned that the first telescope was not a tube, but actually a hole in the ground in the form of a tube, from which people looked through into the sky. I also saw a variety of instruments that people used to measure the angle of elevation between the level of ground and the object in the sky. It was amazing to know that in the 14th century, Mirzo Ulugbek used very complicated mathematic formulas in his computations to create maps of the sky. P.S. The weather is hot and dry, the day temperature is 110 degrees Fahrenheight (similar to what we have in Las Vegas in the summer). I am preparing for the commute to Samarkand.... read more

Welcome to the Republic of Uzbekistan, or “O’zbekiston Respublikasi” how it’s officially called in Uzbek. Uzbekistan is my second and last of the “Stans” I visited. Again, curiosity brought me to the country. I know people who have been before and they only told me good things about it. Most of Uzbekistan’s main cities were on the Silk Road, an ancient trading route between Europe and China which started since the era of the Roman Empire. Many products were traded along this route but Chinese silk was lucrative and the main product traded here. The Silk Road brought a lot of change to Central Asia, bringing Islam to Uzbekistan among others (10th-11thcentury). Today about 88% of the population in Uzbekistan is Muslim. To me, the people I saw in Uzbekistan ... read more

Tashkent Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, is different from the other places we have been in Uzbekistan. It is a large city with a diverse population. It has a lot of Russian influence. We did some walking around and visited the steam engine museum. We found lots of hole in the wall places to eat with good local food. ... read more

I cycled from the Kazakh border to downtown Tashkent. I had to stop at a few checkpoints and policemen asked to see my passport several times, more out of curiosity than anything else. I ended up sliding a copy of my passport on top of the bag attached to my handlebar so that every time a cop or a guard asked for my ID, I would simply point at the copy. Most of the time they would say “ohhh French?” and they’d let me go… They all looked pretty bored. I must admit I was a bit worried about meeting so many Uzbek policemen. I have read so many articles about corruption in this country, I was becoming paranoid. Especially since, in Tashkent, there are policemen (are they actual policemen or security guards?) at every single ... read more