After being made wait outdoors for 3 hours in the intense heat by the Turkmenistan border officials we eventually, thankfully, mercifully made it out with our sanity and into Uzbekistan where we had to go through their border procedures.
All the borders we’ve passed through followed the same routine. First checkpoint where you’d be approached by guys selling the next country’s currency, and a passport check. Next point machina passport check. Next point endless realms of red tape and big stamps. Next point machina search by officals where they look at your fancy camera and route around your belongings. Next point buy insurance or pay for some document that you need. Then its a ‘welcome to our country’ and away we go.
As regards the Uzbekistan border, we’d heard a lot of things about the police and how they were fond of the ole bribe or two but we had no problem at the border, in fact the men were quite handsome.
We exchanged some dollars with the black market money changing guys on the Uzbek side. They wouldnt touch the Turkmenistan manat and we’ve found this to be the case everywhere we’ve tried to change it so far. We dont blame them. Larry did the money changing business with them and used an impressive PJ Gallagher whistling action to interpret what he wanted. They laughed. PJ could do well over here.
We were elated to be out of Turkmenistan and celebrated with a big bottle of cold coca cola and fanta by the roadside.
On to the old town of Bukhara for us. Throughout central Asia there are numerous police checks where there’s little huts and barriers where you’re either signalled to pull in or continue. They’ve also discovered speed cameras and the police hide out in every nook and cranny of the roads to catch you. We were stopped by a couple of Uzbek police but we managed to have a laugh with them and we didnt have to pay out any bribes throughout our time in the country. Apparently it was a hell of a lot worse a couple of years ago where foreign tourists were stopped often and had to give money to corrupt officials.
There seemed to be more history and culture on show in Uzbekistan than Turkmenistan. In Bukhara we stayed in a lovely B&B set around a courtyard and decorated in the Uzbek style with a fridge and lots of colouredy walls and Islamic decor [will get pictures up on flickr soon...dire descriptions].
After Bukhara we went to Samarkand which is well known in central Asia for its beautiful old mosques and medressas [Islamic colleges] which are centuries old. And indeed they were lovely [pictures to follow when we find computers with USB ports!]
Lots of French and other tourists here in Uzbekistan surprisingly! This meant the food and service was better throughout the country. More meat on sticks.
After a dose of the trots which seems to have left its dirty hand on everyone on the rally so far, we left Samarkand and Uzbekistan and on to Kazakhstan….We liked Uzbekistan…did we mention that we didnt like Turkmenistan??
