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.