Fear and Loathing in Uzbekistan

We are in Uzbekistan. Now, as a break from my usual ranting about wherever we happen to be, I thought today I would try to be a little informative about what we've seen and done. So here follows my observations and notes on the stuff out of the ordinary, you know, the little bits and peices that you may not know about Uzbekistan that will hopefully make your next trip there that little bit smoother and more comfortable....

GEOGRAPHY

Uzbekistan is in Central Asia and was formerly part of the USSR (or СССР as I now call them since I mastered the cyrillic alphabet). Some people may not know this.

Uzbekistan is one of only 2 doubly landlocked countries in the world (by doubly landlocked I mean only sharing borders with countries that are landlocked)

Despite being located in one of the more arid regions on the planet, and having only 10% arable land, they grow cotton here. This is insane and you can pretty safely bet once the Aral sea dries up completely they probably wont grow cotton anymore.

MONEY

The currency is the Uzbek Som, of which largest denomonation note is the 1000 som note. The current exchange rate for US dollars is 1331 Som to the dollar. Because of this here one usually measures one's currency in mass rather than cardinal amount. "That will be 2.5 kilos of som" is how one would normally pay for, oh I don't know, a sandwich or bottle of water.

GETTING AROUND

There are two types of cars on Uzbek roads: Ladas or Daewoos. I'm reliably informed that this is due to amazingly high taxes on car imports and Daewoo built a car factory here. The Ladas are all left over from the Soviet era.

Train puncuality must be a serious concern to the city fathers in Tashkent. I assume this lead them to ask the designers of their metro subway system to design some aspect of the trains to ensure passengers alight quickly and orderly. Being soviets and all their solution was, wait for it: KILLER TRAIN DOORS! The way it works is this. The doors for the trains must weigh about 300 kg's each and close at supersonic speed, so if you are passing through them, you make damn sure you are out of the way before they swing into action. People prepare to get on or off the train about 30 seconds before the train stops at the station. Then the instant the doors open people fight, push and scramble for the exit while everyone on the other side do the same thing. Due to the serious consequences of being caught in the doors, somehow everyone gets off or on very efficiently, if a bit scared and flustered. It's actually quite entertaining sitting on the train listening to the doors crash shut as a mass of humanity rushes either way through the portal. Not making it is trouble - there are severed hands and feet littering the tracks at the popular stations! (I may have embellished that last sentence a tiny bit..)

Uzbek roads are infinitely better than the roads in Kyrgyzstan and the Uzbek's get to live out the dreams of their Kyrgyz neighbours by driving as fast, or sometimes even faster, than the road and traffic condidtions or even laws of physics allow. Did someone leave a bit of a gap between them and the car next to it? Great! Invent your own lane by driving right bewteen them. Is there a slower car in front of you? Why not drive on the footpath to get past them. Don't worry about the pedestrians, they probably use the train and will know to get out of the way. Think you can go even faster around this corner? Then do it! The 12 cm wide tyres on your Daewoo or Lada will probably grip.

PEOPLE

There are still quite a lot of ethnic Russians living in Uzbekistan, mostly in the captial Tashkent. Thus whilst a visitor may think there are an inordinate number of prostitutes walking the streets here, they are more likely to be Russian women just going to the shops, or taking their infant child for a walk. In 6 inch high heels. And skin tight lycra. And with about an inch of makeup. Dressed like an actual prostitute.

HISTORY

Uzbekistan is home to many of the most ancient cities in the world, including Khiva and Samarkand which is 2750 years young! Let's hear it for Samarkand. There are also many of the most historically important sites in Islam such as the Registan and Mausleum of the cousin of the prophet Mohammad in Samarkand and the Chor Minor Mosque and Minaret in Bukhara. By the look of things they are also important sources of income for Islam in Uzbekistan as every one of these sites are full to the brim of carpet shops, ceramic vendors and, of course, money changers, conveniently located right in the temples!

FOOD

No meal in Uzbekistan is complete without mutton! Yep it's the national favourite. Usually it's cooked on a Shashlik which is a big metal skewer that they load up with the chewiest, gamiest pieces of meat available and also a nice big tasty piece of fat. Yummers! The places selling Shaslik are pretty easy to find because they generally the place that looks like it is on fire.

In actual fact I, and Shell, have really enjoyed Uzbekistan. This guy in Kyrgyzstan told us that in both countries you get to see the 3 M's (It may have been 4 but I can only remember 3 at the moment). For Uzbekistan that means Mosques, Minarets and Madrassas. For Kyrgyz it means Mountains, Mountains and Mountains, so the difference in countries was stark and a nice change. We have seen some dead set ancient history and had lots of fun haggling for souvineers, wandering around ruins and drinking many, many cups of tea.

But now we graduate from 3rd world to 2nd. Tomorrow morning (at 4:50 am!) we fly to Moscow and move one step closer to the real world, stuff like drinkable water, edible food, paying real money for stuff and, of all things, work. Sheesh. I'd like to say we are going to tourist it up big time for the next week, but we will probably just sleep in and spend most of our time taking photos of the weird stuff we see out the front door of our hostel.

I can't wait! Until next time, when I become your correspondant in Moscow, Bye!

Yurt Life Camp, Tash Rabat, Kyrgystan

We spent a night in the stunning valley of Tash Rabat in "Yurts" (pronounced Yurta in Russian). According to Wikipedia a Yurt for those of you that have not stepped inside Central Asia and seen one or heard of one either for that matter is a portable, felt-covered, wood framed dwelling structure used by the Nomadic people in the steppes (dry and arid areas) of Central Asia .

A Yurt is also known as a: ger in Mongolian, gher in Pakistani, boz üý in Kyrgys, kiyiz üy in Kazakh and Uyghur and last but not least kherga or Jirga in Pakistani.

In Kyrgys boz üý(боз үй), literally means "grey house", because of the colour of the felt. Which I think is a pretty good description except for the smell. It should be more like a "grey house that smells like farm animals" and it would be a more accurate description. Or even better still "grey house that smells like farm animals and will leave you and all your worldly possessions smelling like farm animals".

The family who ran the yurt camp had two boys (lucky them) who were about 4 and 7 years old, as soon as we got there the older boy had his ball out to play catch with us all. We had bought some Chinese kites at the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, these were a hit with the boys and made a pretty good sight with the kites flying against a background of mountains in the evening light.

Our Yurt accommodation was pretty basic but comfortable and in hindsight a lot better than hotels that we were to stay in in the future, we slept on mattresses on the carpeted floor, four people per yurt, we were nice and warm and toasty until all the peat or poo or what ever it was in our stove had all burnt away. We wanted to keep the Yurt camp family's puppy "Miro" cause he was so beautiful and so sooky and cold but I was a little worried that one of us would roll over crush him in our sleep, or he'd leave us a present in the night so we surrendered him to our drivers who thought he was just a cute as we did.

The toileting situation was pit toilets, two of which were full to the brim and particularly scary looking, one however was newly built and smelt of fresh paint, which in my mind makes for pretty good air freshener. Showers were non existent, but there was a mountain stream that I gave a miss and a portable sink for washing your face and brushing your teeth in. The women of the Yurt camp put on a pretty good dinner for us all, the highlight of which was the mashed potatoes and the vodka. Breakfast the next day was an equally good spread of pancakes, fabulous apricot jam, little fried dough bits and bottomless cups of regular black tea (finally).

After breakfast four of us decided to go horse riding for an hour, I still don't know if it was a great idea. No body got hurt or anything, but the horses either didn't understand English or they were just very disobedient and we would have covered more ground if we had of just walked for an hour instead! We were expecting a trail ride where the horses know where to go and for one of the local to come with us, but they literally just handed us four horses took our three dollars each and said see you in an hour. It was an experience none the less, especially for Jasmine who has never ridden a horse before. I led her around for a while until I got rope burn from dragging her horse along and realised that by riding one handed I could only ever go round in circles and had no chance of getting my horse to do anything I wanted. So then I ditched her and left her to work out how to drive herself. Brock's horse had a major flatulence problem accompanied by a hatred of all of us, so I guess you all know how that worked out.

While we were in Tash Rabat valley we also managed to look through the old stone ruins there. Tash Rabat means "stone walls" in Kyrgys. The ruins were an old Caravanserai used by the old Silk Road traders, or it also could have been a defensive structure, there are a few theories. The ruins were uncovered in Soviet times and make for some great photos in the morning light with the mountains as a backdrop (detecting a theme here?).

Tash Rabat was an awe inspiring place, it was the best of Kyrgystan all in one place, great food, vodka, friendly people and absolutely stunning scenery.

Yurts, Mountains, Horses, Mountains, Lakes and Mountains!

Welcome to Kyrgyzstan!

At least that's what we thought the sign said... It was written in Cyrillic so it was kind of hard to tell what with all the backwards R's and P's and C's and some other letter that we didn't know what the hell they meant.

Yes we had arrived in the frequently misspelled and rarely heard of back home Kyrgyzstan, and, as regular readers would no doubt be aware, we couldn't have been happier about it. As one of the republics of the former Soviet Union Kyrgyzstan was really only of interest to the Ruski's as a mountain getaway, know it all 10 year olds with the world map on their notebooks that listed all the member countries of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the 5 million or so people that actually live there and, presently, Michelle and I.

Now to be completely straight with everyone we kind of chose this trip that came to Kyrgyzstan because no one has heard of it or really even knows where it is. There was no avid intrest in USSR history, or central Asian culture or even a firm idea about what was there; we just thought it would be cool to go somewhere that hardly anyone else we knew had, or would, go. The sum total of my knowledge of Kyrgyzstan was garnered from my friend from Renewtek, Djail, who is Kyrgyz and some unrelated reading about the dissoltion of the USSR that mention it in passing.

So it was now that our learning (and yours too, dear reader!) would begin in earnest. The first, most obvious, salient point about Kyrgyzstan is that it is quite mountainous. And I mean mountainous in the sense that the sun is quite a distance from the earth, or French people are rude and smelly. The whole country is mountainous ie mountains everywhere you look. Big mountains, smaller mountains, grass covered mountains, rocky mountains, snow capped peaks, peaks with glaciers, summits with snow on the north face, ragged pointy tops with snow on both faces, just lots and lots of mountains. It is, in fact, 90% covered in mountains. There are basically only 2 flat areas in the whole country, one valley where the captial Bishkek is situated that is perhaps 200 km's long and maybe 30 - 40 km's wide and the Ferghana valley that is mostly part of neighbouring Uzbekistan. For all the driving we did here, there was maybe 2 hours where we weren't encircled by, perched upon, or near the shadows of some fantastically picturesque mountain range.

And inhabiting this mountain paradise are the totally excellent Kyrgyz people. For all the different ethnic groups in Central Asia, such as Uzbeks, Armenians, Tajiks, Turkmen, Khazaks and Kyrgyz, almost everyone but the Kyrgyz are of Turkish descent. Apparently due to their nomadic nature they never really mixed with the neighbouring tribes and have maintained their unique culture since something like 2nd Century BC. Believe it or not, the mountains and surrounding valleys are deeply ingrained in their way of life with many farming horses and cattle and living in these round tents called Yurts. We saw them everywhere and spent our first night in Kyrgyzstan in one (see Shell's blog on our night at Tash Rabat). They aren't exactly backward though with many a post modern Kyrgyz yurt dweller quite happy to tie up his horse next to his Mercedes or BMW that are frequently parked besides the yurt.. There is also a large Russian population whom, despite being ethnically Russian and potentially predisposed to being lets say gruff, seemed to share the laid back and friendly Kyrgyz attitude that we met along the way.

So let's see: mountains? Check. Yurts? Check. People? Check. Aged and crumbling Soviet Infrastructure? Hmmmm, where to start. Lets start at the border. We crossed into Kyrgyzstan from China via the 3700m Torugart Pass. For such a high pass it was not actually that dramatic as to get there we pretty much drove up a valley and then up a mountain road that is not even as steep as the Mt Dandenong Tourist Road. The road up to the pass was typically Chinese: probably over engineered but comfortable and well made. Once we hit the border though, we were in a different world.

Firstly there was the immigration building. This totally 100% matched my expectations of what a Soviet built mountain administrative building should look like, expectations that were in no small part formed when playing the James Bond 007 game on the Nintendo 64, where you have to sneak through buildings shooting bad guys. The building itself looked like it had been on the wrong end of a couple of earthquakes; a roofline that was no where near 90 degrees and bits of concrete actually falling off the walls like water dripping from a tap. Inside it was more of the same: a marble floor with large cracks and peices missing from the pavers, hydronic heating pipes leaning on the walls and a bunch of fluro lights barely hanging from the ceiling that were not actually in use, the light being provided by a single globe dangling from electric wiring strung along the walls.

I thought it was great, although the toilet that I used was even more shoddily constucted than the rest of the place. It was almost as if they designed the shitter to retain the stench and attack the unsuspecting user as they entered. Had they invented the technology to dispense smells via the Internet you could feel my pain, but until then you will just have to take my word that it was bad and I could feel my eyeballs being burnt by the exposure.

However, in the Crappy Infrastructure Olympics that is Kyrgyzstan, the toilets in are no match
for the roads. To say they are bad is an insult to bad roads in the rest of the world, even Laos. You would almost think the potholes were dug on purpose, such is scientific precision and planning necessary to make a road as bad as these were. From gravel roads with spine jarring corrugations to tarred roads with ruts 2 feet deep and everything imaginable in between the Kyrgyz road system has to be felt to be believed. I guess that most of it is caused by the heavy truck traffic that rockets along roads simply not designed to carry vehicles that heavy, but for whatever reason it is hard work.

Generally most of the buildings such as houses and shops (but excluding border posts!) are in better repair than the roads but you wouldn't know it from looking from the outside. In fact lots of the building look as though they had just or were just about to collapse, however they seem to maintain the facade to ward off bad spirits or perhaps criminals as once inside pretty much everywhere was really nice. Special mentions msut go to the homestay in Kochkor whose interior looked EXACTLY like a house in Port Melbourne I went to an open inspection for that was owned by an old Greek couple. The only difference was the Kyrgyz house had carpets hanging on the walls where the greeks had pictures of the Madonna. Scary.

Another legacy of the Russian influence is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet which is inordinately confusing. A breif sysnopsis follows:

A is A
B looks like a 6
C doesn't exist
D looks like an A
E is an E
F is weird
G is a 90 degree angle
H doesn't exist
I is a backwards N
J is sort of an asterisk but is pronounced "zh"
K is K
L is like a square with no bottom with the left side falling away
M is M
N escapes me at the moment
O is O
P is like the aforementioned square without the bottom but is all straight
Q doesn't exist
R is P
S is C
T is T
U is about 60 different characters, all with subtle sounds that are very difficult to distinguish
V is B
X is nothing
Y is probably wrapped up in the U's somewhere
Z is a backwards 3

Complicating matters is the fact that many signs have whatever they are trying to display written in Russian and Kyrgyz (and sometimes English) so you never know what bloody language you are trying to read. Once you get the hang of it it is not actually that hard but geez louise you wouldn't want to be dropped off here your own just with a phrasebook and a smile. I, for one, would not get very far.

So that is a brief introduction to Kyrgyzstan. We saw the mountains, sunbaked and swam in a beautiful alpine lake, went on what must be one of the most scenic drives in the world along side a hydro electric resevoir and dam, watched the Olympic opening ceremony in a classy sports bar in Bishkek, stayed in a Yurt, rode horses through the mountains, drank many glasses of beer and vodka and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely, placing Kyrgyzstan well ahead of the pack of countries we have visited so far and making it our number 1 favourite country thus far on the excellent adventure!

Брок Миллс (Brock Mills in Cyrillic! Cool eh?)

Go West , Young Man!

Hi Everyone (all 47 individual visitors since I installed tracking on the page!)

Well Michelle and I are finally smiling amidst the sunshine again and all we had to do was travel 3000km's away from Beijing! In fact we have left China behind in everything but purely administrative sense by arriving in Xinjiang (pronounced Shin-jiang) which is the westernmost province in China and not, in actual fact, really part of China at all. In one of those imperialist moves that the Chinese denounce when on the wrong end (read Shanghai circa 1927) but are more than happy to start when it suits them (did anyone say Tibet?) the Chinese took "responsibility" for the administration of Xinjiang way back in the day (2nd century BC) but have never really been accepted by the ethnic majority. But anyway China now own a large oil rich chunk of desert that is the home of 10 million Uyghur (pronounced sort of like Wiggar) who are ethnically closer to Turks than chinese.

It is a picture postcard place of stunning mountain ranges, alpine grasslands, forbidding deserts and oases. I think it looks like the Flinders Ranges (minus the snow capped peaks) but Shell reckons it is like Syria. The houses are all built out if mud bricks - you would love it Dad - with much desert and wilderness. It's also got extremes of everything, with the highest mountain in the region the mighty K2, topping out at about 8600 metres, a large desert basin that is the 2nd deepest point on the earth at 152 metres below sea level and some wicked weather that sees Turpan with an average tempreture of 11 degress C, but a 40 degree + and 30 degree - varience. It was about 42 when we were there and these dudes are all getting around in long pants! A great place and they grow excellent grapes, ie ones that you actually want to eat instead of the standard Chinese grape which looks good but tastes like a sour apple (or something. Suffice to say there are not good.)

Anyway after being in the real China for so long we loved the change - it was as good as a holiday! We got off our 36 hour train ride from Xi'an at 6:30 am in Turpan, but the train station is about 80k's from the city so we sat on the bus for another hour or so and then arrived. There is quite a bit of historical sight seeing to do around these parts so we did that including:

• the Flaming mountains, so named because they look and feel like they are on fire;
• the irrigation system at Karez which is a really cool series of tunnels they used to bring snow melt water into the desert via tunnels that were dug about 1600 years ago (And I can't even get my storm water drainage right).
• an ancient city called Jiaohe which is a really old city built out of mud and clay that was quite rich when they used the silk road for silk, rather than tourists; and finally
  
• a Uyghur cultural show was the best example of a cultural show we have seem on our trip so far
  

The next day we got another long train to Kashgar which is way out west. When we arrived the next day we kicked around town for a bit; Kashgar is probably one of the strictest muslim towns in China and there are quite a few women getting around wearing their carpets over their heads. And I'm not being culturally insensitive! They are actually wearing carpets and it is about 45 degrees. Anyway we ate some bagels and also at this great restaurant called Intezar which is legendary amongst locals and tourists alike for serving the most massive plate of chicken in existence. It's pretty good and we go to try other specialties such as yoghurt and bread (yes! finally real bread!!! It was a great day) and Laghman noodles and mutton dumplings which unfortunately taste like mutton.

The rest of our time in Kashgar was spent with me hanging out on the toilet thanks to a bug I'd aquired in Turpan and Shell sleeping, although we did manage to drag ourselves along with the tour to the animal market which is a big saleyard for Cattle, Sheep, Donkeys and Goats. Pretty smelly but lots of fun. Oh and we bought a totally excellent Fur hat at the main bazaar!

Anyway the next day we were to head for the border and Kyrgyzstan which we did despite a pretty nasty terrorist attack in Kashgar. For a detailed report check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Xinjiang_attack. This happened at 8am Beijing time (about 6am in reality but non official Kashgar time) and we left our hotel at about 10 BJT.

We didn't actually notice anything obvious rather than more than the normal amount of police cars tearing around town and a big road closed off. We had seen this occaisionally for dignitries and the like so we didn't think too much of it until Sandra, one of the members of our tour group, got the news on her Blackberry that said there was an attack against Border Security police in Kashgar. Now we were in Kashgar and heading for the border so we were a little concerned but we kept getting through the checkpoints so we figured there couldn't be too much going on at the border itself. And this was what happened:- we drove to the border, went through a great many number of checkpoints and eventually made it to our personal Shangri-La, KYRGYZSTAN!

So finally we had finished with China and frankly we were both sick to death of it. It is an amazing, brilliant, infuriating place filled with the nicest and meanest, most beautiful and most disgusting people and places on God's great earth. There was a great many things to admire in China and even more things to hope to hell they clean up, fix up and remove altogether before they take over the vacant Super Power of the World job. But happily for us we were done with it, although the insurgency that was present in Kashgar had spread to my stomach so I still had a couple of persistent reminders about our trip through China.

Next stop - KYRGYZSTAN, where we marvel again at the difference a border can make, go horse riding through the mountains like Jenghis Khan, get our preconceptions about Soviet Infrastructure brutally confirmed in a Kygryz toilet and wonder why they still use Asbestos Cement Sheeting for roofing in the year 2008! All that and more the next time I can be bothered using the Internet!