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Wednesday 31 August 2011

Horse kebab anyone?

I’ve just got to the end of 3 highly productive days in Uzbekistan’s capital – Tashkent. Although the guide books don’t exactly rave about the city, after rough-round-the-edges Bishkek and the boiling hot train experience, I’m now completely enamoured with the place. Tashkent must be about as far east as you can get in Asia whilst still feeling like a modern European city. It is incredibly clean (much cleaner than London) with a fantastically cheap and efficient underground metro, huge wide tree lined streets, loads of fountains, beautiful buildings (and a few not so beautiful soviet ones) and very friendly people. I really like it, and I think it’s a great place for teams to start their adventures in Uzbekistan. Central Asia can be quite daunting, but Tashkent is so well organised that it softens the blow a bit.

I’ve been staying in the old town on the northern edge of Tashkent. It looks like the pictures of Afghanistan that you see on the news – ancient flat-roofed dried mud houses with dusty lanes between them, ramshackle market stalls, donkeys dozing against trees and old men playing chess in the shade – a complete contrast to the slick new city centre, though only 15 minutes away on the metro. The B&B I’ve been in is absolutely great though – the most delightfully friendly family, immaculate new bedrooms with ensuite, and delicious breakfasts (loads of fresh fruit, freshly baked bread with honey, and of course green tea). The owner is a lovely lady called Feruza who speaks good English. Like most people in Uzbekistan her family is Muslim and as it is Ramamdam at the moment that means no eating in the day, but each night they’ve very generously invited me to join them for supper where they break the fast, eating on cushions round a low table under a canopy in the courtyard. The food is delicious: plov (Uzbekistan’s national dish, a pilaf of rice, vegetables, raisins, mutton – a bit like Moroccan tagine), tomato and dill salad (dill is the most liberally used herb in Central Asia, sprinkled on everything – including pizzas and yoghurts!) and really tasty fresh peaches and melons. It’s been brilliant – really like staying as a guest in their family home. At the moment they’ve only got 13 beds, but next year Feruza is adding more rooms (inshallah) so will have beds for 20 people, in which case I can’t think of a better place for the teams to spend their first few nights in Uzbekistan.

I had a huge list of things to do in Tashkent over my 3 days in Tashkent, and somehow managed to get them all done. First stop was visiting Chorsu Bazaar – old town’s enormous farmers market. This will be a brilliant ‘first taste of Uzbekistan’ for teams. It’s very well laid out and organised, but huge and bustling, and you can buy pretty much anything you’d want, from handicrafts to electronic gadgets, hundreds of varieties of fruit and vegetables (July and August are the absolute best time to visit in terms of range of fresh produce), household items, and more varieties of rice than I ever knew existed. It’s not unlike the bazaars in Marrakech, except there’s not another tourist in sight, just rows and rows of ancient Uzbek babushkas with their billowing floral dresses, wide flat sandals and colourful headscarves. With the help of the Central Asia phrasebook I managed to get the price of some team essentials – a mobile phone, sim card, various quantities of rice and pasta – as well as establishing where to change money. There’s a gaping 30% gulf between the official and black market exchange rates, so the trick is finding somewhere were teams can change money at favourable rates without compromising safety and security.

Uzbekistan has surely the world’s most ridiculous currency – the Uzbek som comes in at around 2300 som to 1 US$, but with highest denomination note being 1000 som – i.e. less than $0.50! This means it’s impractical to change any more than $50 at a time – my money belt was struggling to zip shut and I was looking distinctly pregnant with $50 worth of som under my shirt. But it’s not going to be too much of a problem for the teams, as you can change dollars everywhere you’d need to, and in many places dollars are accepted outright. It means that the trusty World Challenge calculator has been well used though, as food bills are routinely running in to the 10’s of thousands!

After my first visit to Chorsu it was then on to inspect Gulnara’s B&B – an old town backpackers stalwart. Unless Feruza has her extra rooms finished in time for the first team, this is probably where teams will stay in Tashkent. It’s ideal – beds for 30 people (singles, twins, triples and dorms), a kitchen where you can prepare meals, a lovely shady courtyard full of trees where breakfast is served, and a very friendly and helpful owner. Then in to the city centre for 2 days of interviewing potential in-country agents, meeting with a local NGO to discuss projects, visiting the local supermarket to get an idea of food costs for if the teams are self catering, visiting the bus and train stations, checking out 3 other local guesthouses, and trying to find an internet cafe with a non-Cyrillic keyboard...

My proudest achievement of the last 3 days (after careful writing down and rehearsing – thanks again to the invaluable Central Asia pocket phrasebook) was going to the train station (where absolutely no-one speaks English), and in very slow and badly pronounced Uzbek asking for and buying a 2nd class train ticket for 2 days time on the express train from Samarkand to Bukhara. Left with ticket in hand feeling extraordinarily pleased with myself. It’s also good as it shows that, although challenging, this is well within the grasp of teams to do for themselves, without needing to get interpreters and travel agencies involved. Note to teams: get yourself a Central Asia pocket phrasebook and start practicing now!

My least proud achievement of the last 3 days though has been failing to correctly translate a Russian menu, and ending up inadvertently eating a horse kebab... Oh dear.

It’s been a busy but very satisfying 3 days in Tashkent, but it’s time to leave horse kebabs, the zippy metro and friendly Feruza behind me now and head west to the fabled golden cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, then in to the Kyzul-Kum desert for a camel back adventure... Next update when I’m
back from the desert.

Yöl bolsin!

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