"Gate to the Silk Road" city, Chust and Uzbek hospitality

Asia » Uzbekistan
May 19th 2008

Published: May 20th 2008

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Darahera

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The place near mountains

So, one nice thursday morning we head out to what is considered to be the most beautiful part of Uzbekistan - Fergana Valley. First part was getting to to the place in Tashkent where taxies to Fergana leave. Me, Roman and Vidmantas were just standing and waiting while Bekzod was negotiating the price with the swarm of taxi drivers. Typical sight in Uzbekistan. After some negotiation one of the swarm was selected, as we experienced later not the best one. The way to Fergana is very beautiful - liek a scenary from Lord of the Rings, except of army man with sniper guns guarding tunnels. There is only one way to Fergana and it is heavily guarded, mostly because of Andijon events few years ago...
After some time our car was stopped by police, which is quite typical for Uzbekistan too. Our driver apperantly was quite a nervous guy. For about 10 minutes we were witnessing him shouting and energetically gesturing to policeman outside of the car. About the time we thought we might need to find a new driver he came back. He must have won the argument. But he was quite pissed off anyway and was driving like crazy

Mountain place

Valley of the Valley

on those narrow and not secured mountain roads. All we could do was pray. Eventually we got to our destination safe and sound. Our destination was Bekzods home city Pop. Its original name was Bob - "gate" in Arabic. It is said to have been a gate to Silk Road. The one who said it (Bekzod) is not sure what gate exactely that was. All in all ,we were met by Bekzods family and experienced real Uzbek hospitality.

The next day we went to mountains. We stayed at poeples' place near mountains and went hiking (for about 6 hours up a mountaind and down). After that had a nice Uzbek lunch. If we would have had a nap and went swimming it would have been all ingredients for typical Uzbek mountain trip.

The day after that we went to a small city Chust in Namangan region. There was a little amusement park where we stayed all day. We sawsome sort of a circus type performance with a kif walking on a rope hight above and people doing tricks with their bodies. It was interesting to see, seemed like old times type of circus. Interesting aspect - every performance

Little sheep herder house

There are many sheep, cow and other herders around

ended with a prayer. We went to most of amusments there, ate plov and danced some Uzbek dances in disco. For other people we were the biggest attraction in park at that time. They seemed to be excited and really nice. The bazzar was interesting too. And of course we didn't leave "city of knive masters" without buying a knife.
In the evening we had such personal trip - little Bekzods trip. Being about 10 years old little Bekzod packed up his bag - put his clothes, toys and some food - and set away. He went through roads and fields to an old cemitary where he sat under apple tree and ate an apple. In the evening he set back home. Well, it was just 30 minutes way from the home, but he was the first tourist of Pop. So we, 3 foreigners now, after 10 yeras were traveling the same path.

Eventually the third lazy day we just enjoyed the last day of Uzbek hospitality and headed back to Tashkent. After Valley it seemed to be very smelly and noisy.

Coclusion - Valley is not scary as some people say it to be (because of Andijon