Uzbekistan

I knew that Uzbekistan would be quite a different experience when I saw that the ticket office of Uzbekistan Airways in Dubai was closed three times a week for “Flight Duty” and at the check-in counter where I had to battle with people transporting huge home cinema sets and half a dozen truck tires…

I spent a total of 10 days in Uzbekistan, most of it visiting cultural sites along the Silk Road in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Uzbekistan used to be an important commercial platform between the East and the West and also Central Asia’s most important philosophical and religious center during many centuries. It is therefore not surprising to see so many Medressas (Islamic study houses) and mosques in the country. Though all of these where used as warehouses during soviet times, most of them have now been re-opened, either for tourists or for religious activities.

Uzbekistan is also the first country where people thought that I was a semi-local (ie. Russian) and where I could understand some of the words written on street signs in Uzbek or Russian (got some notions of Cyrillic now). However, explaining that I am half German, half Belgian but that I lived in London and am doing a one-year trip around the world remained quite challenging!

Tashkent
There is nothing really spectacular to be seen in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital. It is a city that is marked by Soviet-style architecture with its large streets and police officers at every corner, metro stations that have been built as bunkers in case of nuclear war, artificial bazaars and small cars driving on gas. However, it has probably more ballet performances to offer each day than London, which I took advantage of. Lola, an uzbek woman who spoke very good English and studied German showed me around the city in the evening.

Samarkand
I took my first train ride to Samarkand, the city which houses the world renowned Registan. There had been a sudden temperature drop when I arrived in the city, 25 degrees less than in Dubai which made me wear two pullovers and my wind-resistant trekking coat…it was also the first time since the beginning of my trip that I experienced rain again!

The Registan is pretty majestic and made of three huge Medressas facing each other, all highly decorated with azure mosaics - it is probably one of the most awesome sights in Central Asia and worth the trip to Uzbekistan! Samarkand is also the resting place of Amir Timur - a Turco-Mongol conqueror who ruled over most of Central Asia in the 14th Century and whose statue can be seen in every major city in the country - a truly (and actually new) national hero for the Uzbeks.

I also enjoyed some local Uzbek food, consisting of Plov (rice with vegetables and meat bits swimming in lamb fat and oil…and some more oil…and some more fat) and Shashlik (brochettes) with the ever present bottle of Coca-Cola (not seen a single Pepsi in the country..!).

Bukhara
I went on to see Bukhara, a few hours by train away from Samarkand. Bukhara is a small city with plenty of historical monuments, medressas and mosques - its main attraction however is Lyabi-Hauz, a small plaza built around a pool surrounded by 400-year old mulberry trees - a good place to chill out (even though some of the locals prefer to listen a bit too often to Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado in the evening).
I stayed at a really nice hotel in Bukhara and got invited to share the birthday cake of one of the staff members and the obligatory glasses of vodka - pretty cool thing!

Khiva
I took a 4.5 hours taxi ride through the Uzbek desert to reach Khiva - a very small, museum-like city. The walled city has been preserved in its entirety thanks to the Soviet conservation program (though it feels a bit too preserved at some times to be honest) and is a real gem with all its palaces, tombs, mosques and medressas! The trip through the desert was worth it even though I had only a day to visit Khiva as I needed to get back to Tashkent to catch my plane to Russia.

The only way to reach Tashkent on time was to take the 19-hour sleeper train- my first training for the Trans-Siberian which I will take to cross Russia and Mongolia. I shared my compartment with three other Uzbeks who were very interested to know how life is outside of Uzbekistan (and how much I earned (“How much you take?”), how much a car costs (“How much car take?”), how much an apartment costs (I am sure you know by now how to ask it in Uzbek-style), how much my shoes cost, how much bread costs..etc..etc..). I didn’t sleep particularly well - though I suppose that it is only a matter of getting used to it.

I keep you posted!

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