Some pictures I omitted from earlier Uzbekistan posts.
Uzbekistan: The Final Day
As it turns out, my crumby day yesterday did not last even one full day.
After my post, I returned to my hotel, the Gulnara Guesthouse. It is on the edge of the old town near the bustling Chorsu market. I cannot comment on the rooms, because, as I mentioned, my reservation was screwed up and the only room they had for me wasn’t really a room, just a cot and electric fan, but I must say that I am quite happy with the accommodations. The owners are friendly and the rooms are all located around a pleasant courtyard with a huge apple tree and laundry strung up everywhere.
It is definitely a backpackers’ place, with everyone there being young and traveling with large backpacks or by bicycle. Almost everyone there seems to be French, although the Japanese girl i met in Samarkand (and saw again in Bukhara) is staying there as well.
Anyway, after my post, I went to my room and spent about 4 hours napping and listening to repeats of Bill Maher and Ricky Gervais podcasts on my ipod, which cheered me up immensely. After that, I went for an evening walk and had tea and a cigar on a busy corner, where I was joined by some Uzbek construction worker with some basic English skills. He said he had only seen cigars “in films”. He asked to buy one from me but I had only one left, so i didn’t sell.
All in all, it was a pleasant end to what started out as a crumby day.
This morning, after breakfast, I walked up to the Khast Imom, which is the holiest part of Tashkent. It is a collections of newish mosques and mausoleums and a small museum that houses a massive and old copy of the Koran. Surrounding the buildings were some very well manicured park areas, which were also home to many large stork-like birds (like storks, but bigger and with more intimidating beaks).
I then walked past many large and largely unattractive apartment blocks to Navoi Park, which is a big park containing some odd Soviet structures and a man made lake with beach areas, little paddle boats and small fair area with rides. I wandered there for a while and had some ice-cream-like frozen substance. I have on this trip mastered the pronunciation of the Russian word for ice cream, which had previously eluded me.
Now I am just sort of pleasantly killing time. My flight is at 9:00pm, but i plan to get there nice and early, as I could not check in on-line. I plan to stroll through the market again, see if i can spend my remaining Sum and then I will probably just hang around in the courtyard of my hotel and smoke my final cigar.
I may post again either from Tashkent or Seoul, internet access permitting.
d
Registan
Samarkand is amazing. It is a bit like Luxor, in the sense that it is just bursting with impossibly large, old and jaw droppingly beautiful monuments and mausoleums.
Obviously, the first place I had to go was the Registan. This is really the whole reason i am here, to see this collection of mosques and medrassas. It did not disappoint.
It is really hot here. It feels much hotter than Tashkent. The landscape is very deserty. On the train ride here, I watched as the land went from green and fertile to dusty and brown, with the odd, irrigated plot of land growing corn or green…something. It is definitely much more rural out here. People riding donkeys and tending to flocks of goats.
On my first evening here, I spent it handing out with Furkat at the hotel. We drank tea and ate bread and tomatos and cucumbers. I smoked a cigar. He told me does not smoke or drink, but then, minutes later he offered me cognac from a black bottle with cyrillic writing. “It is from Moldova,” he told me with what seemed like pride. We each had a glass of the vile liquor and i went to bed.
I have only met a couple of other travelers here. I met a couple from Colorado who have been on the road for one year. Staying at my hotel are two Japanese girls, each traveling solo, with whom I shared breakfast and as many stories as were possible given their limited English and my non-existent Japanese. It is nice to see other, solo female travelers.
It is so hot here that during the late afternoon, i retire to my room to enjoy the AC and have a nap, leaving me free for night time wanderings.
d
Tashkent: day 2
hello again.
After breakfast I went to the train station and bought my ticket to Samarkand for tomorrow morning. I took the metro (a few times today actually). The subways here are very similar to those in Moscow. They are quite elaborately decorated (not as much as the nicest of those in Moscow, but lovely nevertheless). I wanted to take photos, but it is forbidden, and there are police everywhere here. They haven’t given me any trouble but i have seen them stop random people and look in their bags.
I went to the Chorsu bazaar today. It is mostly food items: produce and bread, spices and nuts, eggs, meats, etc., but there are also stall selling woven items, pottery, musical instruments, at whatnot. The Uzbekistan bread is very sacred to them. They incorporate it into ceremonies and pictures of it seems to be on all of their tourist advertising. Basically, the bread is this round, flat but with high edges, golden brown bread with sesame seeds. Sometimes they have intricate designs on them. The thing is, as i discovered today, it isn’t that great. I mean, it would be great with some hummus or a hearty mutton stew, but on its own, it left much to be desired.
Also while walking around the market, I had fruit, pistachios, and various types of honey. I watched a goat (or sheep) get hacked apart with a small axe in the butcher’ section. I also help collect fluffy yellow chicks that escaped from a structurally challenged cardboard box and were running away. My good deed for the day.
After the market I walked around the old city, which is entirely unlike the more modern parts of the city. It is rather decrepit and tangled, but charming. I visited a few mosques and a medrassa, but basically I walked…all day.
It was about 37 degrees today. I don’t know if this is the heat I was warned about; the heat that was supposed to crush me and force me inside in the midday with it oppressive hotness. I don’t know, but I thought it was beautiful out today. Hot and sunny and dry. Perfect.
Late afternoon I stopped for a coffee, smoke, and ice cream at some cafe. I read the menu, perusing the assortment of tongue and organ meats, when I read the last page of the menu, it said: “Payment for dish brakes”. And below that was a list of breakable dishes and prices. Apparently, if I had broken a plate it would have cost $5, but if I break a table it would be $75. This raises the obvious question: does this mean that I am allowed to break the table as long as I pay for it? Or, more importantly, how often does this sort of behavior go on?
Very strange and amusing.
Anyway, I walked some more, went to some parks and Independence Square and then to dinner at a Russian restaurant, which was delicious.
I think that’s it for today. My train is early in the morning and I want to be well-rested for the first day of the focus of my trip: Samarkand.
I’m sure I have more anecdotes, but they escape me at the moment.
Later. d
Sunday in Seoul
Hello! I have made it as far as South Korea. I left on Friday and flew to Los Angeles, where i had a tedious 3 hour layover (how can such an important city have such a crummy airport?). I then flew about 12 and a half hours to Seoul. It was a delightful flight, I barely slept, but it flew by. Arrived in Seoul at about 4:40 am.
I caught the first train into the city. It took just under an hour and takes one right from the airport to downtown Seoul. For some reason my transit card wouldn’t open up the turnstile gates at the other end, so I couldn’t get out. Some man suggested through the universal magic of charades that I jump the turnstile, which I did. I figure, if a local says I should do it, it must be ok, right? That is the first turnstile I ever jumped.
After my act of delinquency, I then went to Namdaemun Market. I figured if I only had a few hours, that would be a god place to start. It is, except that at 7am on sunday morning, there isn’t a lot going on. Most of the stalls were closed and some were just setting up, hauling in carts of meat and produce, knock off handbags, and K-Pop souveniers. I did manage to find a charmingly decrepit restaurant and managed to say in Korean that I did not eat meat. They brought me kimchee and a steaming bowl of rice and odd spicy vegetables. I think it was a bibimbap, but I can’t be sure. It was really good.
After that I decided to walk to the Insadong neighborhood. It was a pleasant walk, but the city was pretty quiet. When I reached Insadong, everything was still closed. I am glad I will be back here in 2 weeks so I can actually visit some of these places when they are open.
On my initial glances, Seoul is not very attractive, but it is interesting. On the face of it, everything seems painfully western; I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing a collection of Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, TGI Fridays, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme… you get the idea. But from what I could tell, there are a lot of cool looking dirty alleys with interesting eateries and shops that are decidedly not American. I guess it would take more then 6 hours to figure it all out. I kept walking around in disbelief, thinking, “I can’t believe I’m in Seoul.” It just isn’t a place I ever thought I’d be.
Anyway, I enjoyed my walk; it took me back to the market, at which point it was much livelier. I wandered around taking pictures of large pig heads, sitting out in front of eateries. I imagined they were all Lord of the Flies theme restaurants.
I really wish I had bothered to learn a few phrases in Korean. Almost no one speaks English, and I feel like a jackass opening a conversation in English. I just figured that for the limited time I’d be here, it wouldn’t be worth it. But tonight I’ll be in Uzbekistan, and my Russian is passable (for a North American).
It is fairly warm, but really humid here. I am only 2 days into my trip and I already look like a dirty bohemian. Soon I will smell like one too.
One other random note: I stupidly checked my cigars, so while I was wandering around today I didn’t have any and couldn’t find a cigar store. I did however find cigarettes that are supposedly made with cigar tobacco. For a cigarette they aren’t bad, but they’re a poor replacement for a cigar. I had to have a smoke though (all the other kids were doing it) and now that I am at the airport I can take advantage of their plentiful and civilized smoking lounges.
I am back at the airport now, readying myself for the third and final leg of my journey: Seoul to Tashkent. (How cool does that sound?)
d
Otavalo
Last night after blogging i went back to La Ronda. The street was even livelier last night. There were street musicians and performers and all of the restaurants and bars were filling with happy people. In the doorways women had skillets of unidentifiable meat and fish and bubbling cauldrons from which they were ladling cups of soup and hot drinks. (Really, they were proper cauldrons.) I had a glass of hot blackberry juice (which was sweet and tart and tasty) and I walked in the crowd. There didn´t seem to be many tourists there. It is only two blocks, but it is a great place to spend an evening.
Two little girls, about 5 years old walked around selling cigarettes from wicker baskets. It is amazing, all of the children who are out at night by themselves, working. Some of them seem very happy, but others look so tired and and sad. I saw a very little boy carrying a bag of potatos that was almost as big as he was. It is kind of tragic, really.
It is interesting, a number of people here have told me that the historic centre, where my hotel is, is dangerous after dark, but I have had the opposite experience. At night the streets are busy, with people and traffic everywhere. At no time did i feel even slightly uneasy.
This morning i left my hotel at 6am and took a taxi to the bus station north of town. From there i caught a bus to Otavalo. The ride was about 2.5 hours and cost $2. At first the bus wound through dry-looking mountains, but they soon gave way to lush farmlands surrounded by towering green mountains, the tops of which were obscured by mist.
I reached Otavalo and proceeded to make my way to the market – supposedly the largest in South America.
It is fantastic! There is an animal market where they sell pigs and cows and chickens and then there is the other market where they sell everything. Blocks and blocks of arts, crafts, hats, clothing, spices, fresh produce, an endless assortment of legumes and corn, and many stalls selling an array of food. There were at least a dozen enormous roasted pigs. Strolling vendors sold more food. I had a huge slice of watermelon and a small bag of mixed beans in a salsa type sauce. The prices for everything were reasonable, but bargaining is mandatory.
I must admit, i bought a lot of stuff; almost none of it for me. In fact i had to buy another bag to put all of purchases in.
I caught the bus back from Otavalo and then had dinner and a cigar on the plaza infront of the San Francisco monastery. Now i am back at the hotel and i am in for the evening. My flight to Houston is at 6-30 tomorrow morning. I have a long layover in Houston and i plan to go into the city, so i may blog about that if the mood strikes me.
Oh, a word about cigars. I brought some with me, enough for one a day, and i am glad i did, because i have seen only one cigar store here. It sold only Cubans and the prices were at least as high as in Canada, so i didn´t buy any.
So, that´s about it for Ecuador. It has been a marvellous trip. I must return someday and visit the Galapagos, but that is another trip for another time.
Buenas noches.
d
Photos from Turkey
As I am sure you all know, I did return from Turkey, somewhat reluctantly. My last night was spent on the roof of a hostel, smoking nargile, sitting on cushions and listening to this amazing French/Turkish band until about midnight. The trip home was looooonngg. For those of you who don’t know, there is a leather bondage gear store at the Munich airport. You’ve got to love the Germans.
Anyway, I have uploaded some photos here, mostly so that far away people (like my sister) can see them.
Thanks for following along.
