Archive for April, 2008
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
The Road to Samarqand (285km)
We’re getting into the groove of Uzbekistan now, a few days after crossing the border. The country has greeted us in style with two of the most marvellous cities we’ve seen anywhere on our travels. Bukhara and Samarqand certainly live up to their reputations with charming old quarters and a string of tiled mosques, madrassas and mausoleums that rival anything we saw in Iran.
Between the sight-seeing we’ve done a bit of gastronomic touring as well. How nice it is to linger over cups of coffee laced with cardamom, sample the local wines (whites reminiscent of Spanish sherries and some surprisingly good cabernets) and treat ourselves to lunches of grilled meat and tall mugs of draft beer. And all within a modest budget too! Life here is miles more affordable than what we were experiencing in Europe a year ago.
Perhaps our biggest surprise has been discovering that the hospitality we experienced in Iran continues to be an important part of life here. We entered Central Asia with stereotypes of bribe-seeking police officers and overcharging merchants in mind. Instead we’ve been showered with good wishes as we pass by on our bicycles. One elderly cafe owner even insisted on saying a touching prayer for us as we stopped for tea. All three of us held our hands out together, palms pointing to the sky, as he asked Allah for a good journey ahead and safe return to Canada. (more…)
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Uzbekistan by andrew
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
41km Yakatut to Bukhara
We managed to get up before the farmers this morning to the beautiful sight of the sun breaking through some low clouds as a bright red ball in the sky. After breakfast “bread and chocolate spread with some not-so-great coffee” we set out to knock off the last few kilometres into Bukhara. It was too hard to resist having a second breakfast when we found a shop selling giant loaves of fluffy white bread, just like you’d find in Europe or Canada and the first we’ve seen for a very long time. Soon we were rolling into the old city of Bukhara, a gorgeous place filled with ancient buildings, street markets, art galleries and leafy trees. It’s too bad we only have a month in Uzbekistan or we could happily spend quite a few days here.
In the afternoon we met Jungsun, our Korean host who’s teaching language classes. She’s kindly welcomed us into her home for a couple evenings and as we write this she’s cooking dinner. The smells are really making our mouths water!
The only small dilemma on our minds at the moment is the problem of registration in Uzbekistan. All tourists are supposed to have a docket which shows where they’ve spent the night. Normally we would get this at a hotel but obviously we don’t get anything if we use our tent or stay with friends. We’ve heard we could have troubles leaving Uzbekistan if all our nights aren’t accounted for. At the same time, we know plenty of people cycle across the country and the nature of cycle touring means you spend many nights in the middle of nowhere. There must be a solution here but we haven’t figured it out yet. What is really amazing is that no Uzbek official has told us about this requirement. We only know from Jungsun and from reading guidebooks. You’d think that something supposedly so important might be mentioned when you receive your visa or enter the country?
Postscript: On our second day in Bukhara we went to see Rakhima, Jungsun’s friend, and we watched her family making bread. Here’s the video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-39208495316855978342 Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Uzbekistan, Video by andrew
Monday, April 7th, 2008
97km Jalkym to Yakatut
“Any carpets? Drugs? Guns?”
We shook our heads and giggled. The thought of carrying a carpet or a rifle on our bike tour was oddly funny to us. The guard smiled too. “We’ll search your bags, just to make sure there’s nothing dangerous.”
Turkmenistan was trying to be thorough as we made our way through their customs formalities and towards the Uzbekistan border post. They turned out to be quite soft in the end. The bag check never materialised and when an official came over to berate us for not registering with authorities after five days (something we checked with the Tehran embassy and were told we definitely did not need to do), he immediately backed off when we said we were sure of our position.
A few minutes later the exit stamp was in our passports and we were on our way, past the last smiling picture of Niyazov and across no-man’s land to the Uzbekistan frontier. Several families were pushing their belongings on carts between border posts and for perhaps the first time ever we caught people enviously eyeing our relatively speedy and efficient bicycles. The deluxe mode of transport! The Uzbek officials were efficient and friendly, helping us to fill out a customs form entirely in Russian and then speeding us through the rest of the process. All told, it took us just over an hour to leave Turkmenistan and enter Uzbekistan. (more…)
No Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan by andrew
Sunday, April 6th, 2008
21km Turkmenabad to Jalkym
The Turkmenabad hotel was a little pricey for our tastes so we moved on this morning but not before we stopped to watch a few women in the kitchen preparing samsas for a nearby restaurant, putting chopping beef and onions into pastry, brushing the dough with chicken fat and baking the delicious looking treats for about 30 minutes. Food to drool over!
When we finally tore ourselves away from the kitchen it was off to the market to spend our remaining manat. As usual, we caused a stir and several children and adults alike gathered around Andrew to pepper him with questions in Russian while Friedel did the shopping. It was hard to figure out what to buy because we didn’t have much money left and needed to make sure we got the right things to last us until Uzbekistan. It took about four trips in and out of the market, checking prices, discussing what we wanted most and then running back in to make the purchase before we’d spent the very last of our coins and notes.
To give you an idea of how far money goes here, for about $3 U.S. we bought three large rounds of bread, a large bag of carrots, a few mixed cucumbers and tomatoes, a large tin of sardines, pickles and a small portion of a prepared salad.
After our shopping, we set off the road to Uzbekistan, across a bumpy and unstable floating bridge which forms yet another part of the main road through Turkmenistan. They collect a toll for crossing it (not from cyclists) but it still looks like it might give up at any moment and traffic drives all over the bridge, trying to avoid the worst parts. This country must be such a joke among truckers. Its transport links seem to be falling to pieces everywhere we look. What a shame because the Turkmen people are lovely. They deserve a better government.
We stopped in a quiet place to read for a few hours but wind and threatening rain sent us off to look for a campsite before long and we had to search for a while in the heavily cultivated fields. Finally we found a spot at the end of a track and we were glad to get into the warmth of our tent. We heard on the radio that snow – yes snow!! – in London had forced many flights to be cancelled and we wondered if this was the same cool weather pushing through Turkmenistan. It was certainly a world away from what we’d seen over the past week.
2 Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Journal Entries, Turkmenistan by friedel
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
88km Repetek to Turkmenabad
Turkmenistan’s cities are the most bizarre of our trip so far.
Today we arrived in Turkmenabad, the country’s second biggest city. When we reached Mary a few days earlier we found it oddly deserted so this time we were hoping for a bit of life on the streets. We cycled down a long boulevard, wide and reasonably modern with a string of government buildings in white, polished stone. A larger-than-life statue of Turkmenistan’s dearly departed dictator sat in front of each one. He died in late 2006 but so numerous are the pictures and sculptures of Niyazov, with no sign of Turkmenistan’s current president, you could be forgiven for wondering if he died at all.
After going several kilometers and never seeing a sign or more than a solitary shop, we started to wonder just where the centre was. We stopped to ask directions from a group of taxi drivers. “Centre?” we said, speaking first in English and then using broken Russian. “Da,” they replied, pointing to the ground beneath them. Here, right here, they seemed to be saying but all we saw running off the boulevard was a string of Soviet apartment blocks with flaking paint, sagging shutters, rusting satellite dishes and a few depressed citizens outside smoking cigarettes.
It turned out this was the centre and our hotel was in one of these vintage buildings. Not long afterwards a slim woman with streaks of red in her blond hair was showing us to our suite in Hotel Lebapgurlushyk. Yes, here in Turkmenistan $25 U.S. buys you a real three-room hotel suite. Before you get too jealous, it’s hardly the Ritz with fading, ripped wallpaper, flaking paint and dusty sofas. Still, it’s almost certainly the only suite we’ll be able to afford on our travels so we’ll just close our eyes and bask in our imagined glory. To be honest, we thought the price was inflated compared to what we’ve paid elsewhere in Turkmenistan, and at five times the going rate for Turkmen citizens, but our choices were limited. This hotel seems to be the only game in town at the moment and they seem to know that. Anyway, the shower was hot and after a few days in the desert that was all that really mattered.
Later, we set out once again to try to find some excitement in Turkmenabad. Every street was almost empty. Once in a while we’d stumble across a Turkmenbashi Bank on one block, a cafe a few hundred meters away, but you could hardly call it a lively atmosphere. Eating out is cheap here so we wandered into a dark restaurant for a meal that ran us all of $7 U.S for bread, a starter, main course, drinks and a tip. With Russian music videos booming away in the background, most of the tables empty and barely enough light to see what we were eating, our big night out in Turkmenistan felt just like the city of Turkmenabad itself; certainly memorable, easy on the wallet but more than a little strange!
