The bus trip from Samarkand to Tashkent should have been memorable for the girl who kept repeatedly vomiting into a plastic bag because of motion sickness. She valiantly hung onto the bag with its colourful and nutritious contents for most of the trip but the journey was a long one and she managed to fall asleep at some stage. I sat watching her from the back with fascinated horror as the bag dangled loosely in her limp hands. It was another 20 minutes before her fingers finally let go and the bag fell onto the floor, the flimsy plastic bursting open and vomit splattering everywhere. There was an intolerable putrid stench immediately after that that just wouldn't dissipate no matter how many windows were hurriedly opened.
But the trip shall remain etched in my memory because it was on that bus that I met the Uzbek family of Tajik ethnicity from the Fergana valley. I had spent half of my last day in Samarkand with a Dutch photojournalist named Pieter, an interesting guy who had been to Afghanistan for work a couple of times. The next day we had decided to travel onwards together and took the slow public bus from Samarkand to Tashkent. During the long ride, a large and particularly friendly family plucked up the courage to engage us in conversation. Well, Pieter did most of the talking on our behalf as he knew some basic Tajik. When they found out that we were tourists they insisted that we come and visit them in the Fergana valley and stay at their place. They wouldn't take no for an answer and we were more than happy to promise that we would visit them a few days later.
However, we first spent a day in Tashkent sorting out various administrative details. We stayed at a pretty guesthouse owned by an obnoxious proprietor who seemed to be forever peeping into the rooms to check on what you were doing. However, he compensated for this annoying habit of his by playing a mean dutar, a 2-stringed instrument, on which he pumped out some beautiful traditional songs for our benefit as we sat out and sipped chai on the courtyard at night.
Every time I took the metro system in Tashkent there were always a couple of policemen lying in wait for me on the platform. These were invariably young new recruits who would get stationed on the underground platforms for the whole day as a punishment for their sin of being young. Not much to do here beside watch the trains come and go every five minutes so I suppose it was natural that they would make a beeline for me as soon as they saw me in order for some much needed entertainment. They would inevitably detain me for about five minutes whilst they perused through every stamp in my passport before finally letting me of with a polite smile. No harm done but very annoying and frustrating as I stood there patiently feeling like a criminal in front of everyone else.
The Fergana valley is known as the breadbasket of Central Asia and is very green with crops and fruit groves in contrast to the desert found in the rest of the country. It is that bit of Uzbekistan that juts out strangely from its Eastern aspect and is surrounded almost entirely by Tajikistan. This stems back to Soviet days when Stalin decided to deliberately design the ridiculous border here in order to cause division among the ethnic tribes and so make it easier for them to declare their allegiance to the Soviet Union. I stayed in a dodgy Soviet Hotel for my first night in the valley. The room had dodgy peeling wallpaper, a doorknob that wouldn't work and a dodgy shower that couldn't be stopped from running. Very typical for these Soviet monstrosities. I watched the Russian version of MTV all night. Every single music video consisted of girls singing whilst cavorting around in sexy lingerie. All the singers from the different videos also looked very similar, like they had been churned out of some Barbie doll processing factory.
I then ended up going to the town of Margilon during my second day in the Fergana valley and catching up with the family we'd met on the bus. I managed to locate the family's house and as I was ushered in I noticed that Pieter had already made it there a bit earlier. He was reclining like a king on a divan and gorging himself on a feast of food spread out on platters before him. Plov, watermelon, rockmelon, almonds, grapes, bread and a couple of types of sweet dip were present on the large mat and I was unceremoniously shoved onto the mat and urged to start eating as well. Pieter's eyes already had the look of surrender in them and I soon figured out why. I had a few polite mouthfuls before saying that I had had enough food. However, it was clearly not up to me to decide how much was enough for me and I was sternly told to keep eating or else. There was no use pretending that we were full because they kept on stuffing us with more and more food regardless. We got force fed until both of us could not move from our divans and felt like we would explode. There also seemed to be an endless pot of chai on the table that got miraculously refilled without me ever noticing who was doing the refilling. I have never ever had so much chai in my whole life. In fact, if you add up how much chai I've drunk in the last month, it would easily surpass the amount of chai that I've drunk in the past 10 years. I soon gave up with my feeble attempts to refuse any more pots of chai as they were immediately and expertly silenced with strict tut-tuts and angry stares.
The whole extended family had got together for the occasion and all the 10 sons and daughters and the 15 or so grandchildren gathered around in the courtyard. We tried to engage them in conversation but I knew no Uzbek or Russian and Pieter had only a rudimentary grasp of Tajik from his time in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, we managed through a combination of smiles, laughs and body language. For all I knew we were having two completely different conversations at the same time. We were then subjected to a video of the youngest grandson's circumcision ceremony on TV. The DVD of this had obviously been played a few times judging by how many times it kept getting stuck. I wasn't sure what to make of it all but I politely watched until finally the DVD got stuck and wouldn't play any further. Luckily, it stopped playing before things ended viciously for the baby.
Then came the dreaded dance session. I knew it was coming because they had cleared off a bit of a dance floor in one of the rooms. We were soon ushered into this room and, at first, a couple of the kids started innocently dancing away to the music whilst we all sat around in a circle and watched. However, it wasn't long before Pieter and I were dragged into the middle of the circle by a few of the guys and girls and were forced to dance in a dance-off with several members of the family We both tried to dance to the strange music but failed spectacularly. I just couldn't get any rhythm going for the simple reason that there was no detectable rhythm whatsoever in the local music that they were playing. So, I just waved my arms and legs about randomly. I'll be the first to admit that it looked very gay especially since towards the end it was just a bunch of us guys dancing away in the circle to slow Uzbek music. At one stage early in the night I committed a bit of a faux pas by grabbing one of the women and twirling her around and trying to introduce some jive into the dance arena. I don't think that the grandmother approved me of touching any of her grand- daughters of marrying age though but all that was soon forgotten after I backed away politely. I had a great time that night and there were plenty of laughs, mainly at our expense. And, yes, throughout this whole episode the 'ordeals' of the pots of chai and the plates of food continued. We were also given beautiful mattresses to sleep on in the privacy of the largest room whilst the rest of the family slept in crowded conditions in the other rooms. I had nightmares of an endless pot of chai that night and the next.
Pieter and I got taken fishing the following day by the grandfather of the family.The site he chose was a creek filled with bulrushes and we didn't manage to get a nibble all morning, allegedly because it was too windy. We did manage to score a couple of watermelons from a couple of farmers who happened to have their watermelon patch adjacent to our fishing spot though. They just saw us standing there with our rods and invited us to join them for their picnic lunch. They then proceeded to dissect one of their plumpest and ripest melons straight from the vine. Absolutely delicious. We also got given a watermelon to take home each which we promptly passed on to the host family who then fed us from it for the next day and a half.
Whilst we were out fishing, one of the daughters did my laundry for me in the stream that was flowing next to the house. I was amused with the way that they hung up my clothes though. All my underwear was placed on the line to dry but then T-shirts were placed over them to obscure the fact that they were hanging there. When I asked why this was the case, I was told that it was considered embarrassing to have underwear seen hanging on the washing line. I also had to bathe myself in some slimy water from a stream that went past the front of the house and did so with a small audience watching me curiously as I washed myself in my underwear. When I had to go to the toilet I had to relieve myself in a long-drop and this was the only place where I didn't get hassled for more chai by anyone.
That evening Pieter and I were paraded through the streets of the town under the pretence of visiting the houses of a few extended family members. I have a distinct feeling that the whole thing was concocted to give the family more prestige points in the eyes of their fellow townsfolk because they wanted everyone to know that they were clearly important enough to know some important foreigners. I had to shake the hands of about a hundred strangers, all of which was done with our collective hands held on our hearts, as we walked past them but I didn't mind. I spent the evening playing around with the kids whilst we got fed some more and got served yet more chai. I taught the kids some yoga which they picked up pretty quickly whereas they tried to teach me some breakdancing but this old dog didn't cope too well with that new trick.
On our last night there, the local police got wind of the fact that there were a couple of foreigners staying at the residence of one of the local families in their town. Whilst not technically illegal, this practice is frowned upon in Uzbekistan and foreign tourists are required to stay at hotels and register there for their whole stay in the country. We were all sitting down and chatting whilst eating and drinking chai (what else) when four police burst into the courtyard and demanded to see our passports. Once they'd ascertained that everything was in order they took several members of the family aside and began to interrogate them about why they were letting foreigners stay in their place. The conversation was conducted in Uzbek and so I couldn't exactly understand what was going on. I repeatedly asked if everything was OK and said that it was no problem for us to check into a hotel or a guesthouse if our staying with the family was a problem but the family had it under control and just winked at me to be quiet whilst they handled it. Some sort of discussion took place on the porch of the house and then the police left and all was good. When I was asked if they had to bribe the police the family denied that this was the case but I was left with the impression that money had exchanged hands.
It finally came time to leave after two days of gluttony. They all wanted us to stay longer, of course, but we definitely didn't want to overstay our welcome. As we jumped into the cab we both tried to place some money in the hands of the grandmother of the family but she was having none of it and promptly threw the money back in the car with undisguised disgust and yelled and cursed at us for our cheek. Clearly, they hadn't been accommodating and feeding us in the hope for some money and were just doing it because it was in their nature to house and feed strangers. We eventually did manage to convince the eldest granddaughter, who accompanied us to the bus station, to accept some money under the pretext that it would be beneficial for the childrens' education. I have since had a chat to other travellers making their way through Central Asia and almost all of them have a story such as this one to report where they were taken in by strangers and smothered by hospitality. Our incident certainly wasn't an isolated one. I took a lot of video footage of the family when I was with them and have promised to send them a DVD, something I'm sure that they would appreciate.
An interesting observation about Uzbekistan is that the faces of the people here all appear weathered, whether young or old. This is one area of the world where everyone looks a lot older than they actually are. This works in favour of the old men here because they look infinitely wise with their white beards and wrinkled faces. Another interesting thing is that people here guess unerringly that I'm from India. I guess I'm close enough to India now for them to know. A few of them start speaking to me in what little Hindi they know and almost all of them start singing songs from Hindi movies to me. Bollywood is big in this part of the world.
I was a bit worried about it being Ramadan as from previous experience in the Middle East there was no food available during the day. However, I needn't have worried as I found out that Ramadan wasn't strictly observed in Central Asia. Most people here are Islamic and even though most of the locals would consider starving for the day, none of them would even contemplate not having their daily dose of vodka. The vodka consumption here is another legacy of the Soviet era. There is a quaint expression to say that someone is drunk over here. People just flick their throat with their middle finger to indicate that they either want a drink or that someone is drunk.
Because we had stayed in the private residence of the family in the Fergana valley for a couple of nights, we didn't have hotel registration slips for these nights and so I had to forge a registration slip by altering the dates on my other slips to make it look like I had stayed longer than I had in Tashkent. I hoped that this forgery wouldn't be detected when I left the country. I bade Pieter goodbye as he was heading straight for Tajikistan whereas I was heading north to Kazakhstan. I took a minibus to Tashkent before overnighting there and reaching the border the next day.
Ken: Salaam Waalekum
Border guard: Passport.
Ken: (hands over passport) Uzbekistan was very beautiful and the people were great. I thought that there was going to be a lot of corruption here but I didn't experience any.
Border guard: Big problem. You can't pass here. The border is closed.
Ken: But all these other people are passing through.
Border guard: They're all local residents but you're a tourist and this border is closed to tourists today.
Ken: Why is the border closed?
Border guard: It's the day before Independence Day today.
Ken: So, the holiday is tomorrow but the border is closed today?
Border guard: Yes. Now go away.
Ken: Is the border open tomorrow?
Border guard: Tomorrow is the Independence Day holiday. The border will be closed to foreigners.
Ken: I see. You explain it all so perfectly.
I didn't argue after that point. If I had asked him if the border was open the day after Independence day he would have surely replied that the border was closed to foreigners because it was the day after the Independence Day public holiday. It was very frustrating seeing all these Uzbek and Kazakh people going through whereas I had to turn back. I hopped on a taxi to go back to Tashkent. I was about halfway back before I had an epiphany and realised just where I was - Central Asia, of course. I turned the cab around and went back to the border and brazenly went back to the border guard.
Ken: Will the border be open today to foreigners for $US5?
Border guard: No.
Ken: What about $US10
Border guard: No
...... and so it went until I got to $US40 but he still said no. It wasn't worth it after that and, anyway, I realised that for whatever reason he was not going to let me or another foreigner through. I was actually very surprised that he wasn't interested in any monetary incentive to let me through.
So, once again I had to turn with my tail firmly in between my legs and head back to Tashkent. I got back to the capital and started to make plans to spend the next few days there. It was Independence Day after all and there would be celebrations and parades in the city. Then when I looked at the map I noticed that there was another border crossing 100km west at the town of Yallamah. As I had nothing to do in particular for the rest of the day I decided to give it a shot. Well, wouldn't you know it, for some reason this border didn't have the same issue with it being the day before Independence Day and I breezed straight through. They didn't even have a look through my registration slips that I had painstakingly collected and forged (for Fergana) during my stay in Uzbekistan. I did take care not to sneeze or sniffle as I went through the border crossing procedures. A couple I had met a week earlier had the misfortune of spending two whole days in quarantine at a hospital near this border because the boyfriend had coughed whilst crossing the border. They were only released when testing revealed that he didn't have the swine flu.
I arrived in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, in the early morning after disembarking from the night bus from Shymkent and my first point of call was the Chinese embassy. I arrived there an hour before opening time and put my name down on a list outside the gate. I was 21st on the list of people to be admitted into the embassy at this stage. By the time it got to opening time there was a huge crowd lined up outside. I use the words lined up very loosely. It was more of an unruly crowd. As soon as a security guard materialised from the other side of the gate there was a huge surge in the crowd and then it was well and truly on. I was pushed and shoved as if I was in the middle of a huge moshpit. Elbows dug into my midriff, heavy boots trampled on my toes and a short man's palm even clawed away at my face although I think that this latter action was in order to prevent himself from being trampled on by me as I was pushed forward. The piece of paper with the 100 odd names on it obviously meant nothing and promptly disappeared. I'll put money on the fact that someone simply decided to eat it. The security guard was only letting in a couple of people at a time. The bigger guys simply barged their way to the front and managed to get in first. Following the influx of the bigger guys I eventually managed to get to the front of the mob only for the security guard to adopt a radical and unexpected paradigm shift. He then decided to take pity on the old grannies standing quietly at the back of the mob and let them in next whilst I waited incredulously at the front. The upshot of all this was that I finally got in two and a half hours later. To rub salt into the wound, once inside I was told flat out by the embassy staff that I wasn't eligible for a visa as an independent traveller at this embassy and that I would have to get a visa through an agency, a procedure that promised to be a lot more expensive. I decided to give up and try for the Chinese visa elsewhere.
Almaty is no longer the capital because the Kazakh Government decided that Astana, a more central location, would have that privilege. However, it is still the largest city by far in Kazakhstan. I didn't enjoy my time in Almaty but my perceptions of the city were coloured because of the fact that it was raining for most of my stay there. The whole city slopes up from North to South so its a lot harder walking South than it is the other way. There were green, leafy trees on the streets which would have made for nice shade had it been sunny. There was a large park to walk through and lots of grand buildings with distinctly Soviet style architecture. There were also beautiful mountains in the background that were located surprisingly close to the city centre and this lent a majestic feeling to the city. I stayed in the Third Dormitory, the cheapest accommodation in town. The rooms were OK but everybody had to have their showers via birdbaths in the sink because the shower doors were firmly locked by the reception staff. Seemingly, the management wanted to encourage grottiness among the backpackers.
The weather forecast for the area promised more grey and rainy weather for the next week and so I decided to cut short my time in Kazakhstan and head down to Kyrgyzstan where there was a lot more sunshine promised. I booked myself on a minibus for the 4-hour trip from Almaty to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. What little I saw of Kazakhstan besides Almaty was not very interesting. There were vast tracts of empty steppes that occasionally had a horseman herding some cattle to break the monotony. Kamaz trucks plied up and down the highways carrying all sorts of goods, most of them making their way from China. there were a couple of oilfields in the distance. Kazakhstan has enormous oil reserves and this should hold it in good stead monetarily in the upcoming years.
What is it about Central Asia and crazy local people who decide to make their acquaintance with me as soon as I cross a border? First, there was that drunk guy in Uzbekistan who abused me and then insisted on giving me a lift. In Bishkek, I had just changed whatever Kazakh tenge I had for Kyrgyz som at the minibus station when an old woman approached me. I had a closer look at her and she looked decidedly rabid with traces of foam on her lips. She had apparently picked me out as her next victim and started yelling away at me in Kyrgyz about something or another and then started to follow me. I paid enough attention in Dental school to recognise from her facial profile that she didn't have any of her own teeth left and as such even if I understood Kyrgyz I'd have no chance of understanding what exactly she was rambling on about. She ended up tailing me for half an hour around the minibus station and then on the streets. There was absolutely no way I could shake her. I flagged down a local minibus and got into it but then she too jumped in and got off when I got off. I really had no idea what she wanted from me. I couldn't really jump over a wall or run away from her with my heavy backpack and so had to walk on with my head bowed as she kept yelling at me. I eventually made it to my guesthouse and as soon as I entered the gate I had great pleasure in slamming the door in her face. She poked her foot through the door but I was expecting this and kicked her foot away. Had it been a soccer ball it would have landed a considerable distance away.
The guesthouse in Bishkek was filled with backpackers and since it was the weekend and I was in a capital city it promised to be a fun couple of nights. However, the dreams about chai continued.
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