Samarkand and onto Tashkent

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Monday April 30.
The uzbeck people are some of the nicest of the trip so far. Everywhere I stop they offer me tea and other treats. It is often difficult to pay for breakfast and they have an excellent sense of humour. The one negative side is their terrible driving. Perhaps it is only the third generation of drivers who are sane. I frequently see crashes but even after a crash they seem detached as to why it has happened. I try to tuck myself in behind a slow moving Russian truck and I depend very much on my mirror.
During the day I walked around the city visiting the grave of Tamerlane and then the mosque that was partially distroyed by an earrthquake in the 1890s.
Tomorrow I leave for Tashkent wit the divertion around Kazackstan.

Tuesday May 1st.
I did 150kms to Dashtebad. very boring flat semi-desert, the road was very poor in places and I had the wind against me. I counldn't find a hotel so I asked the restaurant owner if I could sleep in his place to which he agreed. There was a wedding party next door but I slept well.

Wednesday May 2nd.
It was raining at the beginning but it cleared by mid-day. The road is flat and of poor quolity until near to Tashkent. I checked in to the guest house near to Chorso bazaar and met up with people i had met in Bukhara and Samarkhand.
A french guy had been driving through TM on a transit visa with no insurancewhen it broke down. He had to leave TM because of his visa running out and I saw him in Bukhara. He returned to pick up his vehicle and the mechanic took it out for a test drive, crash it and wrote it off. He wasn't insured either. the frenchman is now headed down into Afganistan thinking Isuspect that it is safer down that neck of the woods.
I also met up again with Werner the swiss techno freak. He has a GPS for guiding us around town and a pwerful computer which has Elton John songs. There is hardly a country in the world in which he has not travelled.
I went to the Chinese embassy but to my dismay it is closed until next wednesday due to the May 1st holiday.

Thursday and Friday May 3rd and 4th.
Rested and did a bit of sightseeing although there is little to see in this sovieet city the fourth biggest in the former soviet union. Out of bordom I even went to the opera but it held little charm for me with enormous Russian baritones singing to unlikely ladies who would crush any normal man in their embrace. After 2 hours the auditorium suddenly emptied, perhaps it is the end I thought but the fat lady was still singing. When I got outside I saw that they were all having a fag. They clearly knew that there was a break coming but one not long enough for a full cigarette. I took the metro back to Chorsu. The ladies of a certain age adored the baritone and jump up and down when he belts out a number. I half expected him to be pelted with knickers but that habit has not translated to Tashkent

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Photos

The owners of the restaurant.
I stayed the night in their restaurant between Bukhara and Samarkand as there was no hotel.