Written in Samarkand, 26/7/2002
(DIMITY )
We crossed the border into Uzbekistan from Kyrgzstan on the 4th July accompanied by ever faithful Almaz worried about our ability to travel without speaking the Russian language. He even managed to cross into Uzbekistan without a passport to arrange a taxi for us!
I am still amazed at the difference a border can make. Gone were all the old beat up soviet dinosaurs of cars. Everyone seemed to drive a new Tico, Nexia or Damas from the local Daewoo factory. It was suddenly possible to drive over 50km/hour on new roads/highways in stark contrast to the pot holed, uneven tarry surfaces in Kyrgyzstan. No longer were we traveling in the 1950’s Soviet time warp, we were in a thoroughly modernized and apparently thriving and prosperous country distinguished by it’s proud (predominantly Uzbek) heritage.
Our first week in Uzbekistan was spent in towns in the densely populated fertile Fergana Valley - our first night in the town of Andijan. Here we met a local jewelry maker and his apprentice and despite their lack of english and our lack of russian managed to have a highly entertaining night. Here Paul also made his first visit to the Uzbek black market currency exchange.
The Uzbek hospitality continued in Tashkent where we met and stayed with a law student Kuvonch, and his friend Aziz. They really made our time in Tashkent enjoyable and helped us remain sane when we realized that our visas were invalid.
Our friendly Uzbek consul in Bangkok, Shavkat (see first posting), had yet again managed to “endear” himself by completely stuffing up our Uzbek visa. Our invitation letter stated that we wished to enter Uzbekistan from the 4/7/2002 until the 4/8/2002 however Shavkat made our visa valid from the 4/4/2002 until 04/07/2002! Despite our queries in Bangkok, he reassured us that these were the entry dates and we could stay for 30 days after the 4/7/2002 if we had entered by the 4th. Who were we to argue with the consul! Anyway to cut a long story short we were told by the Tashkent police, in no uncertain terms, that our visa expired on our date of entry…. GULP!! . I don’t know about Paul but I certainly had visions of being interred in an Uzbek jail or some other nightmarish situation.
Fully aware of the police’s fondness for bribes and shaking down tourists we hot footed it to Samarkand (where our invitation was issued) to see if by some miracle we could find an official sympathetic enough (and not fond of bribes) to correct this very serious problem for us. It transpired that they were willing to alter our visa if Shavkat personally contacted the Tashkent head office to admit his mistake (groan…) and then the bureaucratic black hole of Tashkent were to give Samarkand visa police permission to alter our visa. After several (very expensive) phone calls to Bangkok, a week in Samarkand, and communication break downs in Tashkent, Paul and I ended up picketing the visa police’s office on a Friday afternoon. We were not going to leave until our visa was corrected and made camp in the foyer. Half an hour after the office closed at 6pm, they corrected the visa. The correction consisted of an adjustment of the “7” to an “ 8”, an official stamp, and a page of handwritten explanations. Our Uzbek visa is most definitely unique!
(PAUL) Samarkard was also a very interesting place, with many beautiful remains of old medressass, mosques, and even the famous Ulughbek’s 600-year-old observatory. Most had been built by Amur Timur (Tamerlane to the west) who ruled all of Central Asia to Turkey and Moscow,in the 14th century, and is now idolized as the founder of Uzbekistan.
(DIMITY) After a side trip from Samarkand to Tashkent to arrange visa’s to Russian and Kazakstan we left early in the morning for Bukhara. It took 7 hours in extremely hot weather (about 45 degrees). In typical Central Asian fashion our bus had no windows except for the front seats which Paul and I managed to grab early in the morning. I drank about 4-5 L of water that day and didn’t have to pee once!
(PAUL)
We spent a few days in the heat of the summer at Bukhara. We tried to make the most of the beautiful minarets, mosques, and medrasses but it was pretty hard in the heat! Bukhara isn’t known for its greenery, and the temperature was pushing 50 degrees. We also planned to go west to Khiva, which was rumored to be even hotter! After 3 days Dimity announced that nothing was worth traveling in the heat and she feared that she really wouldn’t make it alive to Khiva in one of the Uzbek public buses (they feature no AC or windows that open!). So we ended up blowing our budget and hiring a private car to drive us the 1300km to Khiva and back. It was a pretty interesting trip however and highlights included a swim in the Amu-Darya river, and a passage through Turkmenistan with no visa and only a photocopy of our passports to show the border guards!
Khiva was a pretty interesting city. The old town has world heritage listing as most of the buildings are 100-900 years old. Up until the late 19th century it was the capital of its own nation, and ruled by a narrow minded Emir who really wasn’t aware of much beyond his Emirate. He is on record for boasting to a Russian ambassador in the mid 1800’s that Khiva had 20 guns! The #1 industry was the good old trade of slaves. The museum there featured some of the tried and trusted civil control measures such as throwing criminals off the minarets, live burials, and public impalement. On the way back to Bukhara we detoured into the desert to check out the ruins of many 1st and 2nd century silk road fortresses.
Once back in Bukhara, where the temperature had cooled down to a more respectable level, we decided to head out to a mountain range in the steppe that was rumored to have forests of walnut trees and abound in wildlife. We had to hire another car to take us the 400km (no public transport available), and were driven there by the judo champion Tajid and his 16 year old son and wannabe interpreter Alex.
This was the first time I had seen the huge Central asia grasslands known as steppe (in America they would call it prairie I think). After a fews hours of steppe, we arrived at our first camping spot, Aidar Kul. This was a huge (maybe 1000 square km) lake and provided a welcome relief from the heat. That night we “feasted” on carp.
The next day we headed back into the steppe towards where my map said the mountains and walnut forests were. It was easy to see the mountains, but pretty hard to see any forest, and then I read that in 1991 the park had lost 4000ha to logging! Once we arrive at the mountains, we headed up a remote valley inhabited by Tajik people. Deep in a narrow valley we found our first wild walnut trees lining a crystal clear stream. We set up camp at this spot that was shaded by old walnut and fruit trees, and stayed there for 2 days. For the second night, I left Dimity to enjoy her Garden of Eden and hiked up the valley along the stream to try to see some animals. In particular, I wanted to see some of the rare Marco Polo Sheep, known locally as “Arhar”. We didn’t see any animals during the evening and I thought that the highlight was going to be the masses of wild blackberries, pears, apples, apricots, walnuts, and other fruits that we ate along the mountain stream. That night we slept in an Arhar poachers camp and ate what I later found out was Arhar! I also learnt here that mistakenly covering yourself in sunburn creams instead of insect repellent in the middle of the night doesn’t stop the mossies from biting! The next morning, on the way, I decided to head for some high points and climbed up about 1500m where I was told the Arhar live. Just as I was about to give up, I saw two scampering up the cliffs to safety. They actually looked more like deer than sheep but I was really happy to see them.
Tajid dropped us off on the highway to Samarkand and we arrived back here yesterday. Our plan was to revisit the museum, and then catch a bus to Tashkent to pick up our Russian and Kazak visas. But we have just found out that a faxed and scanned copy of our Russian invitation aren’t good enough so for the last 10 days no progress has been made! Also our Kazak invitations haven’t even arrived! I think we will have spent close to $2000 on visas for this trip with the Russian visas along costing $570 (Australian)
Now we will probably go and visit another National Park on the border with Tajikistan with magnificent Alpine scenery in the next few days while we wait for visas, before leaving Uzbekistan for Kazakhstan next week….. hopefully!!
