Travelog

This diary tracks our progress along the Silk Roads, with episodes appearing in date order, most recent first.  You can get to earlier entries by turning pages at the bottom of the screen.

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The longer I spend on this part of the journey, the less I understand what or even where Central Asia is, to the point of wondering whether there really is such a thing now in its own right:  Xinjiang province was a kind of Central Asia flavoured China; Kazakhstan a Central Asian Russia, and now we have reached Uzbekistan, the most archytypal 'Silk Road' country but also surprisingly Persian.  Has this incredible and vast region been rendered a mere flavouring by the constant tearing apart and restructuring by varied and salivating imperial interests over the past century?  Has this place, renowned for its hegemony, tolerance and vitality, where European scholars once came to learn about astronomy and algebra, where the same building was often used as both a mosque and synagogue, where ideas were traded as freely as goods from east to west and back, has it sunk forever under the weight of corpulent modernity or was Central Asia always an artificial construct that made less sense the closer you looked at it?

Either way, we are in Uzbekistan now and such considerations do not appear to have affected the locals who are both pragmatic and hospitable in the extreme.  Getting in was both unexpected and interesting: unexpected because the officials, who have a reputation for surliness at best and criminality in the form of extortion towards all westerners at worse, were and continue to be an absolute delight - smiling, helpful and appreciably unobtrusive.  Interesting because in order to be one of the lucky ones from the huge throng that make it through the tiny customs gate you need to have at least 5 years scrummaging expertise with the local rugby team.  Uzbekistan has the strongest damn grannies I have ever witnessed: I thought the English ones at jumble sales were pretty mean but they have nothing on this lot.  Luckily I do have 5 years scrummaging experience, and Ellen is not to be messed with at the best of times so we got through pretty unscathed and in no time were being organised again.  This is an expression that Ellen and I have had cause to use on an almost daily basis but do not worry: it doesn't signify that we have suddenly got our act together or anything.  In our case we are the objects of the organising, the subject being whatever random unfortunate local spots us and takes immediate pity.  Hence ''it seems that we are being organised again, dear'' tells of the means by which we have been propelled rudderlessly across far-flung lands in the hands of innumerable strangers far more capable than either of us, and how against unbelievable odds we seem to have achieved our original route to date.  Oh Serendipity, I do love you so.

We got here via the lovely Kazakh town of Shymkent where we stayed with Spanish and American Couchsurfing hosts who ran a film club in the evenings for local people wanting to improve their English: incongruously enough I found myself  in a small ex-Soviet film theatre  with a group of Kazakhs watching a pretty dreadful adaptation of a pretty dreadful Broadway musical 'Rent', La Boheme getting the West Side Story treatment but without the talent of its predecessor particularly with respect to the score.  Needless to say I loved every mediocre minute of it being such a sucker for a musical however bad.  I wept, laughed, cried, gnashed teeth, and was generally transported.  It doesn't take much: I have tried for years to reject musicals, I know they're just plain wrong, but I must face the fact that I'm just too sentimental.  Sob.

So to Tashkent, with its grandeur, modernity, and hugely wide sweeping boulevards.  It is a very chic place in a very poor land and as capitals go I love it.  The people have retained their fabled hospitality and friendliness, we didn't get shaken down once, and transport is mercifully easy as they have the Russian system whereby every car is a private taxi, willing to transport us to our destination for a few Som along great quality and queue-free roads.  We stayed the first night in a guest house in order to get our visas registered automatically, a lovely place in the old part of town laid out along traditional lines: 2 stories assembled around a tree-filled courtyard offering cool shade and lazy times.  Gulnara herself was a great cook and supplied the best plov tasted so far, as well as letting me use the phone when I needed to in order to hook up with our Hospitality Club host with whom we stayed the next night - a young man with near-perfect English from the hills near Kyrgyzstan who at the age of 23 already runs the front of house operation of a 5 star hotel in the centre and who dreams of foreign lands while working all the hours he can.  It made me realise again just how easy we have it as I cannot say with any certainty that however hard or well he works he will get to visit even parts of his own country as we have been able to.

We spent very little time in Tashkent, mostly doing the necessary administration for our Turkmen and Iranian visas (still being deliberated on by the powers that be so fingers crossed please!) and getting some cash out in advance of our time in Iran (no visa advances, no ATMs).  What sight-seeing we did was confined to the old areas where we stayed on the first night, around Chorsu bazaar,  an overwhelmingly huge vibrant market of winding lanes and covered stalls selling every imaginable goods.  It really made my head spin to think that I was on the silk road in a bazaar of vast proportions in the middle of Central Asia, and the stunning mosque and madrassa next to us really added to the exotic atmosphere.

An overnight train took us in Soviet-smooth comfort, through rainy desert, to Bukhara which in a way has been the chief object of the Silk Road part of this adventure: rising from the Kazil Kum desert this ancient city has been pre-eminent for centuries.  It is here, rather than the Middle East, that Islam first flourished and indeed it is known as the Cradle of Islam, and the religion that spilled out of here taught of tolerance rather than discrimination and encouraged learning in all aspects rather than the bigotry and ignorance peddled by today's religious fanatics from all kinds of faiths.  Bukhara is still known as the most holy city in Central Asia and in the old town you cannot move without tripping over towering ancient madrassas, mosques and minarets.  To me it is an exquisite gem of a city: against an azure sky (apart from day 1 which was overcast and spotting), and almost devoid of fellow tourists, we spend our days strolling through winding lanes from one treasure to the next: from the oldest madrassa in Central Asia where people from all over the then-known world came together to study mathematics and natural philosophy, to towering 12th century minarets displaying the very first example of the turquoise tiling that is now so synonymous with the region, and which cover huge domes of mosques across the Bukhara skyline.  Stroud it is not: any descriptions I attempt here will simply fail - hopefully the picture gallery will do the place more justice - but the sheer scale and beauty here is astonishing.  Even the octagonal courtyarded guest house we are staying is very old and was from the beginning a caravanserai, and to us it seems very fitting that we should spend our nights in this pearl of the Silk Road staying in an old trader's inn.  We are lucky enough to be here for Navrus tomorrow, the biggest Central Asian festival: Spring Equinox to us, New Year to the Muslim world.  From what we gather the town takes on a great festive atmosphere and the streets fill with traditional song, dance and games as well as more modern forms of entertainment; an unexpected bonus to our wonderful time here.

277 days without a cigarette.  0 days without the snuffles.

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I was searching the web for somewhere I can eat in Bukhara, when I found a mention of a nice teashop.  Not as in Ye Olde, (as Andy has pointed out, this most definitely is not Stroud.), so I dragged Andy off to investigate.  It turned out to be one of the most pleasant ways to while away an afternoon in Bukhara.

For a few thousand sum we were installed in a shady traditional courtyard and brought different "Silk Road" spice teas.  First a blend of herbs and spices, including mint, cardamon, bergamot, orange, oregano, clove, and something else.  Then ginger tea (just right for our colds), and finally saffron tea.  All accompanied by tiny nibbles of dried apricots/raisins, walnuts, crystal sugar, sesame halva, and something like ultra sweet fudge.  We drank our way through 3 teapots of delicious chay (the global name for tea) and chatting.  It took several hours and was a sumptuously lazy way to celebrate the fact that we have got this far.

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I completely forgot to mention in my last article (well Ellen forbade me from writing about it until we were out of the country, which we're still not, ha!) an amusing incident at the border.

We left our coach to go through Chinese customs, and for somewhere in the middle of absolutely bugger-all we were amused to find the station reflecting the teeming chaos of our bus with huge crowds of Kazakh traders being forced into some kind of order by men with guns.  This was our queue t do our now-perfect 'harmless yet stupid foreigner' act by walking along-side the aisles, ducking under the barrier, and standing gormlessly between the passport booth and the end of a queue.  On plunking our documents down in front of a guard we then proceeded to understand absolutely nothing until we were processed and sent through.  This is not the amusing bit, it is only the warm up,  However it did prompt me to wonder if this was arrogant behaviour, or fair play: certainly every single other person there would press home any advantage they had in order to get through painlessly, it just so happened that my advantage of being foreign, harmless and thick trumped there's.  My chess-playing instincts tell me that yes, its certainly unfair that I have an advantage but given that I do it would be irredeemably stupid not to use it.

Moving  on through we got to no-man's land where in one reality, the one we should have  been in, we waited for our bus to come through and boarded it for the 3 km journey to the Kazakh entry point, and left on foot with all our bags to go through immigration.  Unfortunately we were not in that reality: in ours we hopped on the first mini-van leaving all our stuff behind on the coach, got to the Kazakh border ahead of practically everyone, breezed through immigration and spent 3 hours in a relatively empty coach-park scratching our heads wondering where everyone had got to as it slowly dawned on us that maybe, just maybe, we had made a little mistake.  This was confirmed when we saw our unseasonally grumpy driver bustling towards us gesticulating something about backpacks.  Ah.  We were frogmarched back to the coach by him who, understandably, had no intention of driving our stuff through himself (this is not after all an area where all traders behave themselves all the time), given our bags and told to go back through Kazakh customs.  This seemed fair enough, apart from the fact we now had our entry stamp but we were sure that would not be a sticking point; fair enough that is until we saw the crowds which by now had reached unbelievable proportions and which spelled another 3 hours of waiting to go through.

'Bugger' was the only coherent thought I had at the time, but luckily I spotted a couple of stern looking soldiers striding purposefully through the barrier on their way to the other side.  'Quick' I muttered to Ellen and tucked in behind the marching boys, smiling reassuringly at any official who cared to glance our way and nodding 'I'm with them'.  And so it was that with the utmost cheek we stole into Kazakhstan through the mother of all crowds in approximately 30 seconds without being processed, only realising when we got to the other side how mind-bogglingly stupid we had been and giggling uncontrollably at having got away with it this time.  I don't think we'll try the same stunt at the Iranian border though, eh?

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I quite enjoy being laughed and stared at.  I don't know why but I do, maybe I just like to see people smiling, but lately this has become a great advantage with respect to my choice of footwear.  Having sent my boots (and indeed my sleeping bag) back home many months ago, and having also become quite stingey, I have journeyed across Zinjiang with its ice and -15 degrees, up and over the beautifully jagged Tian Shan mountains, and arrived safely in Kazakhstan's snow-bound cultural capital Almaty in my sandals.  This has drawn crowds of incredulous Uyghurs, Chinese, Kazakhs and Russians all of whom now have me down as very simple-headed, and I'm afraid I have done little to dispel the image of English eccentricity.  It has been, if you excuse the pun, a great ice-breaker, I still have both feet , and have proudly maintained my reputation for being as daft as a brush.

The journey here was quite interesting - 24 hours on  a sleeper bus over the mountains, jam-packed with Kazakh traders and their wares who were carrying so much Chinese booty over that many of the bunks were full of goods.  Consequentially our beds, the last 2 available before a 3 day hiatus for Women's Day festivities, and which were part of a row of 4 unseparated mattresses at the back of the bus became a communal space for 5 of us, which was cosy to say the least.  All good fun, much laughter, and somehow eventually we arrived; as a bonus one of the traders very kindly got her son to drive us to our destination - a lovely couple (Yulia and Andrey) from HC that Ellen had organised.

Because of the festival we have more time in Almaty than we expected: both the OVIR office for registering  the Kazakh visa and the Uzbek embassy for applying for our next ones observe the festival, as do all official organisations across Central Asia.  This gave us time to explore the town at our leisure, and I'm glad for it - it is a delight: Almaty is a corruption of Alma Ata, meaning Father of Apples, as all apples in the world originally came from a forest on the Kakazh/Uzbek border.  Although the town as it stands now is relatively modern, having been built largely in 19th century, it must be incredibly green in summer as the planners chose to plant a forest here at the same time: there are plenty of gorgeous parks dense with trees; every road is thickly lined with oaks; every district is as if set in woodland and as a result the entire place feels very natural.

The people here are roughly a 50/50 mix of Kazakhs and Russians, all very friendly although because of our hosts we have spent time almost exclusively with Russians which has been wonderful: I often reflect on how good the Russian part of the journey was and its been nice to revisit it in some small way.  Russian hospitality is legendary and in the few days we have been here we've been really well looked after by out hosts, feasted on local specialities at Yulia's cousin Lena's apartment along with 2 other Russians, a Romanian and a Slovak (much cognac flowed), been taken up the mountains that come right down to the city (trickiest challenge yet for the sandals), driven around and been assisted enormously in our dealings with the typically Russian and mostly pointless bureaucracy.  Its so good to be able to access Hospitality Club again, with real life experiences, home cooking, and a little domestic stability, especially as Almaty is a surprisingly expensive city that would otherwise have destroyed our budget.

Today we hope to apply for our Uzbek visas, and if they are processed in good time we shall be in Uzbekistan by the weekend where we face the most challenging, but final, bureaucratic hurdles: applying for first the Iranian and then the Turkmen visas.  This process is unpredictable at best and may well lay waste to our careful plans to be back in Bruniquel for 3rd May.  But who knows: its true that our luck at every turn has been incredible so far, and each time we meet fellow travellers we realise what an easy time we are having.

Addendum: it seems our luck is holding out.  We reached the embassy this afternoon and despite their reputation for being autocratic, bureaucratic, officious, corrupt and generally painful we had a thoroughly pleasant time.  Everyone was incredibly kind and helpful to us, efficient, and more to the point processed our visa while we waited for no extra charge.  This is absolutely unheard of from what I gather, as it usually takes a week as standard which can be optionally shortened to 2 days by paying vast sums of money.  As it is we now have our documents and are back on schedule to reach Uzbekistan on 15th March - hurrah! 

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We are still in China, but only just (both culturally and geographically).  We are in fact in Xinjiang province in the far north-west of the country, somewhere far more akin to Central Asia than China as, despite the government's best efforts at shipping Han Chinese out here to settle, the Uyghurs are still a majority.  Related to Mongols and Kazakhs they are Central Asian Muslims and the influence is clear in all aspects of life, from cuisine to architecture, even language.
 
Precisely, we are in Urumqi which boasts the world record for furthest city from any ocean on Earth as it lies slap bang in the middle of Eurasia.  Its amazing to think that we can reach the very centre of this land-mass while still being in China, which stretches all the way from here to the Pacific.  The journey here certainly gave me the feeling of travelling to a remote land as it was 2 and a half days by train from Chengdu, mostly through desolate, barren wilderness.  Any romantic illusions I had about the desert were shattered after endless hours of nothingness, a landfill site without the rubbish: it really is deathly dull to observe.  The last part of the journey was at least different in that it was an icy desolate barren wilderness, but that only served to make me colder.  Urumqi is apparently wavering between -5C and -15C in the days at the moment, and with memories of snorkeling in turquoise tropical waters still fresh on my mind it has certainly been a shock to the system.
 
We arrived on a Thursday afternoon and headed straight to the Kazakh consulate to apply for our visa, only to be told that we had to come back on Monday, the next open day.  This was so frustrating after our earlier delays in Chengdu, and of course because of the cold, but in the end it was a blessing in disguise: we took the chance to use our 3 days by going to nearby Turfan which is in a depression 230 metres below sea-level, and as such regularly records the hottest temperatures in China in the summer.  Even in winter we found it to be a good 5-10 degrees warmer and a really great place to visit.  For one thing it is a very significant historical city in terms of the Silk Roads as it was a big trading centre for the region as well as being the point where the road west forks north (to Urumqi and Kazakhstan, our choice) and south (to Kashgar and Zyrgyzstan).  It is also a centre of Uyghur culture, has an amazingly interesting bazare and an old minaret with attached mosque that is not only the largest Muslim structure in Xinjiang but also is very beautiful and evocative of our Central Asian adventures to come.  We also had time to travel to a nearby Uyghur grape village, Tuyoq, where the main trade is to produce the famous Turfan raisin - still green because the grapes are dried in large aerated brick cubes on top of the houses, protected from the rays of the sun and incidentally absolutely delicious.  Visiting the red adobe village was like stepping back in time, and it seemed to emerge somehow straight from the mountains behind it.  It was set in a stunning valley where they were building an underground irrigation system for the crops, a technique learned from Iran centuries ago, and where at the end of the village there were many caves containing remains of Buddha paintings and engravings.  A wonderful day that was the perfect antidote to freezing, industrialised overwhelmingly huge Urumqi.
 
Tomorrow we (hopefully) collect our Kazakh visas and take a 24 hour bus journey through the mountains to Almaty - not a day too soon as the border closes behind us for 4 days during local festivities.  We were lucky again to get the last 2 seats on the bus as I really don't know if I could endure yet another delay; as it is we will have a little more time in Kazakhstan to apply for our Uzbek visas and do some exploring before moving on again.  While the journey continues to be amazing and wonderful I am glad that the pace is now picking up: it is definitely time for me to come home now; there are some things an Andy just can't live without.