Just a word more about Khiva-Though the twon itself was a let down in some ways we took a car oput to the Kyzylkum desert in the republic of Karakalpakistan-home to the fast receeding Aral sea to check out some ancient silk road fortresses. Pretty astonidhing that these sand castles, palaces back in the day, are still standing. They are totally exposed to the elements and are built of nothing but mud. Despite supposed UNESCO Heritage classification visitors are free to scramble up and down them and there is little sign of any protection.
Bukhara- Before getting on to the place itself, the minivan ride over is worth a mention. We shared the vehicle with about 16 men, all of whom got stuck into to a bottle of vodka within minutes of setting off. It was 10:30 am. Victoria and I took turns staying awake to make sure the driver didnt partake. Fortunately he turned down their offer. He was wild enough as it was, casually overtaking at blind turns driving at 140km/hr on terrible roads and screaming at whoever dared get in his way. Not a pleasant man- he gave a hearty laugh after we hit and killed a dog...
Anyway, one of the highlights of Bukhara was Friday night dinner with a Bukharran Jewish family that we caught up with sa they were leaving shul. I saw a guy with a kippah on and shouted shabbat shalom across the street. His immediate response, in broken hebrew was 'over to my house for dinner. lets go!'. Although we had already eaten this was just the sort of opportunity we had in mind when we read of Bukhara's 2500 year old jewish community and off we went for a wonderful spread. WE spoke in hebrew, russian and english. More orthodox than any dinner ive been to but thoroughly welcoming nonetheless.
We also had a good time wandering around bukhara under the guidance of Azamat, a bukharan guy we met in the train station at tashkent, who showed us all the sites, bargained for cut price admission tickets, and showed us the good places to eat. Another highlight was the trip to the local hamam (turkish bath house) - a 500 year old structure, where we had to enter after official hours through a latched door, as clearly admitting mixed couples into a traditionally male hamam had to be done (for a considerable profit) on the quiet.
Samarkhand - another nerve wrecking journey, this time with a female driver (probably the only one in the country) who drove at manic speed - in fact similar in most respects to our dog murdering minicab driver - who frequently had her eyes and hands on her apparent female lover in the passenger seat. This was quite suprising to observe openly in a society where male homosexuality is illegal, and female homosexuality is not acknoweldged to exist.
Samarkhand, of course, has many beautiful old buildings, all (again, of course) substantially restored to their former 14th century plus glory. Pleasingly our hostel also had a shady courtyard with bed/cushioned seats prolific in Uzbekistan (perfect for lounging on) and ample supplies of chai and water melon. so we had a good spot to chill out of the sun and away from the sights. we also found it amusing to flick through the 700 channels on the cable TV, to find rare gems - did you know for example, that the Pentagon has its own TV channel? Neither did we! we are sure it is a source of sound unbiased information and of course will be seeking it out at home...
Shakrisabz - We decided to escape the city and the sight-seeing palava with a trip to this southern town, which has easy access to the Zerafshan mountains and , when the government allows the Hissar ange as well. Alas, the latter is off limits thanks to various political goings-on and we set our sights on what was marketed as a sublime, remote mountain lake where we could chill out and cool off. Having paid over the odds for the trip out, arranged through the homestay, our suspicions were aroused when we drove along the flat plain , 15 minutes out of town and got out at what appeared to be the irrigiation water basin, and overflow from a nearby village, Some curious pondlife too. This didnt deter the crowds of men, some of whom totally starkers, who did little to hide their excitement at the prospect of a western woman taking a dip. All in all not conducive to a a very relaxing swim, so after a quick dip (didnt want to offend the driver), with victoria in all her clothes we headed back for a long shower.
Today we went for a hike in the mountains, declining the offer of an arranged tour from the hostel and paying a fifth of the price by going it alone. Good to get into thje mountains and our appetites for the Fan range in Tajikistan, where we head tomorrow has been whetted.
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Monday 20 July 2009
Mosques, medrassas and minarets (15th-20th July)
Khiva-Following our endless train journey through the furnace that is the Uzbek desert we arrived in the city of Urgench. Here we negotiated a reasonably priced taxi over to the ancient city of Khiva. Slight altercation on arrival upon which the driver decided to triple the agreed price and was determined to hang on to our luggage until we coughed up. He underestimated Victoria's strengh and after the red mist descended sheprized our bags from his clutch and away we went to find our hostel.
The city is remarkable upon first sight- surrounded by a mud packed wall that has been standing strong since the 12th century. Incredible tile work, intricate wood carvings and pleasingly clean toilets.
But a downside to this ancient city, and one which is unfortunately shared by most of Uzbekistan's prized heritage sites, is that the buildings, whilst beatiful, have been stripped off virtually all their original functions. Hence mosques and madrassas built in the 14th century have become markets selling tourist souvenirs, or rather empty museams. in short, they seem to be viewed (and indeed are) the cash cow for tourist dollars. of course the suppression of religion under the Soviets (and perhaps to some extent the secular current authorities) has helped in this. undoubtably this impacts on the experience of visiting these sites. so having now done the big three (khiva, bukhara and samarkhand), ben and i are rather old buildinged out... The other interesting issue when visiting these sites is how much liberty has been taken with the rather substantial restoration efforts. these buildings have been restored to their former glory - back centuries ago, but of course this negates the events and the passage of time in between when they disintegrated and fell into disrepair.
Though theres much more to blog about, including our shabbat dinner in Bukhara, we are being munched on by mossies and havent eaten for too long, so we'll save it for another day.
Off to Shakrisabs tomorrow for some mountain air, then on to tajikistan at the end of the week.
The city is remarkable upon first sight- surrounded by a mud packed wall that has been standing strong since the 12th century. Incredible tile work, intricate wood carvings and pleasingly clean toilets.
But a downside to this ancient city, and one which is unfortunately shared by most of Uzbekistan's prized heritage sites, is that the buildings, whilst beatiful, have been stripped off virtually all their original functions. Hence mosques and madrassas built in the 14th century have become markets selling tourist souvenirs, or rather empty museams. in short, they seem to be viewed (and indeed are) the cash cow for tourist dollars. of course the suppression of religion under the Soviets (and perhaps to some extent the secular current authorities) has helped in this. undoubtably this impacts on the experience of visiting these sites. so having now done the big three (khiva, bukhara and samarkhand), ben and i are rather old buildinged out... The other interesting issue when visiting these sites is how much liberty has been taken with the rather substantial restoration efforts. these buildings have been restored to their former glory - back centuries ago, but of course this negates the events and the passage of time in between when they disintegrated and fell into disrepair.
Though theres much more to blog about, including our shabbat dinner in Bukhara, we are being munched on by mossies and havent eaten for too long, so we'll save it for another day.
Off to Shakrisabs tomorrow for some mountain air, then on to tajikistan at the end of the week.
Thursday 16 July 2009
The Journey Begins...
13th July '09-
we arrived at Tashkent airport at 3am, and were met straight off the plane by four masked nurses who insisted on poking thermometers in us (armpits thankfully). Victoria promptly dropped hers, proclaiming this was all a ridiculous political stunt..as swine flu cannot be controlled in such a manner. I managed to reposition Victoria's thermometer moments before it was snatched away by another bevvy of nurses who, between fag breaks, found it in their hearts to let us pass. thankfully we were not on the list of names called out for further inspection - not sure what became of those unfortunates.
It was apparent from our flight that uzbekistan is not in fact a number one tourist destination. having now been here for a few days we can corroborate this initial assessment, and add a further comment, namely, that most of the tourists we have met thusfar are a bit weird. they are mainly french and swiss, and people seem genuinely surprised to meet english people. not sure why that is. it may also be that it is bloody hot here at the moment and that the non weird tourists are wise enough to stay away in the summer.
Tashkent retains a Soviet feel-wide avenues and a moscovite Metro system. Only one random visa spot-check so far which passed without a bribe. most of the old town has been destroyed, presumably to make way for the Soviet vision.
our time in tashkent was spent dodging cars in attempting to cross the dangerously wide roads, death marching with our rucksacks in the midday sun, and trying not to get ripped off. incidently, uzbek som as a currency brings challenges of its own - namely trying to hide 200 dollars worth which equates to bricks of som (the biggest denomination is 1000 which is about 60 US cents). everywhere you go people have these fat wads poking from their pockets. and a further currency related challenge is the bizzare scarcity of ATMs, or even shops and restos that allow customers to pay by cards. and that is in the rather posh capital city!
Anyway, bear with us while we figure out a mutually agreeable style...I'm keen to get on to our 20 hour train journey to Khiva, but first we must mention for my Grandma's sake at least (Benny's grandma) the first person we met- A turkmeni woman who is in Uzbekistan conducting research for a documentary on central Asia's Jews. She defined herself as jewish, but one who also believed in Jesus. Her family spoke Bukkharan -written in Aramaic-I gave her a quick rendition of Chad Gadya. She wants to go live in Israel, where she would have more freedom than in Turkmenistan.
The second interesting observation so far is the status given to cotton. they even have a very lovely metro station called **** which means cotton picker, with a mosaic mural with pictures of cotton plants. simiarly several people we have spoken to have mentioned with pride the quality of cotton produced. and yet i have to wonder how a crop which most would say has been an ecological disaster, introduced to the area under the USSR and responsible for draining the Aral sea gets such kudos. i wonder whether this causal relationship has been officially recognised yet...
and on to the train...ben's preconceptions about train travel in russified central asia were realised when within one hour of departure, illicit vodka was purchased from the provodnikas/lady selling food on the train, and toast after toast was made to our health. accompanied with smoked sausage, cucumbers and bread. also amazing how interest in discussion can be sustained despite our non-existent russian or uzbek...Contrary to our preconceptions we ended up having to put our cabin mate Salim to bed after one too many toasts. We expected greater stamina.
we arrived at Tashkent airport at 3am, and were met straight off the plane by four masked nurses who insisted on poking thermometers in us (armpits thankfully). Victoria promptly dropped hers, proclaiming this was all a ridiculous political stunt..as swine flu cannot be controlled in such a manner. I managed to reposition Victoria's thermometer moments before it was snatched away by another bevvy of nurses who, between fag breaks, found it in their hearts to let us pass. thankfully we were not on the list of names called out for further inspection - not sure what became of those unfortunates.
It was apparent from our flight that uzbekistan is not in fact a number one tourist destination. having now been here for a few days we can corroborate this initial assessment, and add a further comment, namely, that most of the tourists we have met thusfar are a bit weird. they are mainly french and swiss, and people seem genuinely surprised to meet english people. not sure why that is. it may also be that it is bloody hot here at the moment and that the non weird tourists are wise enough to stay away in the summer.
Tashkent retains a Soviet feel-wide avenues and a moscovite Metro system. Only one random visa spot-check so far which passed without a bribe. most of the old town has been destroyed, presumably to make way for the Soviet vision.
our time in tashkent was spent dodging cars in attempting to cross the dangerously wide roads, death marching with our rucksacks in the midday sun, and trying not to get ripped off. incidently, uzbek som as a currency brings challenges of its own - namely trying to hide 200 dollars worth which equates to bricks of som (the biggest denomination is 1000 which is about 60 US cents). everywhere you go people have these fat wads poking from their pockets. and a further currency related challenge is the bizzare scarcity of ATMs, or even shops and restos that allow customers to pay by cards. and that is in the rather posh capital city!
Anyway, bear with us while we figure out a mutually agreeable style...I'm keen to get on to our 20 hour train journey to Khiva, but first we must mention for my Grandma's sake at least (Benny's grandma) the first person we met- A turkmeni woman who is in Uzbekistan conducting research for a documentary on central Asia's Jews. She defined herself as jewish, but one who also believed in Jesus. Her family spoke Bukkharan -written in Aramaic-I gave her a quick rendition of Chad Gadya. She wants to go live in Israel, where she would have more freedom than in Turkmenistan.
The second interesting observation so far is the status given to cotton. they even have a very lovely metro station called **** which means cotton picker, with a mosaic mural with pictures of cotton plants. simiarly several people we have spoken to have mentioned with pride the quality of cotton produced. and yet i have to wonder how a crop which most would say has been an ecological disaster, introduced to the area under the USSR and responsible for draining the Aral sea gets such kudos. i wonder whether this causal relationship has been officially recognised yet...
and on to the train...ben's preconceptions about train travel in russified central asia were realised when within one hour of departure, illicit vodka was purchased from the provodnikas/lady selling food on the train, and toast after toast was made to our health. accompanied with smoked sausage, cucumbers and bread. also amazing how interest in discussion can be sustained despite our non-existent russian or uzbek...Contrary to our preconceptions we ended up having to put our cabin mate Salim to bed after one too many toasts. We expected greater stamina.
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