Leaving Uzbekistan

2009 08 05 – Day 40 – Tashkent to Almaty

Eastward travel to Almaty in Kazakhstan by rail requires a road border crossing an hour or so from Tashkent and another three hours by road on the other side to the nearest city with a station, Chimkent. With no regular transport link crossing the border, Sundowners had arranged for my hotel driver to drop me about hundred metres from the border, as close as general traffic could get, and have someone meet me on the Kazakh side.

A few hundred metres of walking in the rapidly strengthening sun were required to, between and from the border control buildings, which would be fine under normal circumstances, but that morning my stomach had taken a turn for the worse and all my limited energy became focused on keeping the lid on it.

Adding to my suffering at the Uzbek departure point were a confused throng of an eclectic mix of people, ranging from locals with a basket or two of unsettled chickens to some Brits taking part in the Mongol Rally, chasing a short supply of pens to be able to fill out departure cards. The uncomfortable queuing was an exercise in mind over matter. Only in hindsight did I realise that, despite the strong warnings regarding accountability, no one checked the accommodation registration and currency exchange receipts which had dogged my decision making and flexibility.

As with arrival in Uzbekistan, crossing into Kazakhstan I had to declare the value of Rubles and Dollars I was carrying. The baggage scanning machine was a border guard and a table. He looked at my passport and arrival card, looked at me, looked at my rucksack on the table, checked no one else was looking and said “$10”, clearly giving me the choice of an uncomfortable and drawn out inspection of my bag, or easy passage. In other circumstances I would have called his bluff, but my stomach cramps were controlling my brain and it was worth $10 to pass through the border swiftly and cleanly without anything passing out of me swiftly and not so cleanly. Fortunately for me, I only had $35 on me and $10 of that was in $1 bills. The guard didn't much like the look of those, I think people here suspect $1 bills are fakes, and he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of taking more than half of my Dollars with the $20 note, so he swiped the $5 and dismissed me to his colleague for passport stamping.


The drive from the border to Chimkent coincided with my realisation that nearly all Central Asian vehicles had a cracked windscreen.

After an unpleasant roadside snack of the local sour and salty milk and dry salty milk balls, that my driver was convinced would help my stomach, I was extremely grateful that, particularly as I was ill, I did to not need to squat over this pit toilet.

The few broken wooden slats masquerading as a floor would have made an Indiana Jones rope bridge seem stable.

Uzbek Money

2009 07-08 - Uzbekistan

The Uzbekistan currency is the Som. For the first few countries on my route, I had hoped to arrive with some local currency already in my pocket to provide flexibility, but you can't get Uzbek Soms at money changers in the UK. In fact, you can't get Kazak Tenge in the UK either, but my passage through Kazakhstan had been relatively painless, helped in no small part by their fully functional NCR cash machines. No such luxury in Uzbekistan, whose capital city, Tashkent, a city of at least 2 million people, only has cash machines in the really high end hotels, but, as I discovered on my first night, none of the machines work!
In both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Dollars and Rubles are accepted and easily exchanged, but I didnt' have much of either to minimise how much I could lose or have stolen. On entry and exit of Uzbekistan, you must declare, amongst other things, the value of US Dollars and Russian Rubles in your possession. The necessity of this declaration is no doubt due to the thriving currency black market in Uzbekistan... most likely just one of many black markets. The government is presumably to blame for the farce, because it's official exchange rate is US$1 = 1500 Som while any Joe on the street corner can give you a rate of US$1 = 1800 Som... not an insignificant difference and the street price must still be some way off the 'real' rate for it to be worth the risk to 'Joe' of being reprimanded. It was my understanding that, on exiting Uzbekistan, I would have to present receipts of money transactions during my stay and so, as I was there only a short time and not wanting to run into 'complications' with Uzbek border officials, I found a bank as soon as I could after arriving in Samarkand. Though they didn't accept travelers cheques, they did accept a VISA withdrawal, which was just as well because I was running short of options that didn't involve pawning possessions... Of course the VISA withdrawal carried a fee from the bank and had to be in US Dollars which I would then have to change into Soms at the government rate. When I eventually had my fists full of Soms, they really were full! Not because I was rich, expected a spending spree and changed loads of money, but because the biggest Uzbek note is 1000.... and 1000 Soms buys you....
a 2 Litre bottle of water.
The result is that I had to re-evaluate my approach to carrying money as I now I had two big slabs!

On the bus to Samarkand, while we waited to depart Tashkent, a man across the isle from me had stashed literally bricks of cash in plastic carrier bags and now I understood why.
Every hotel desk has an electronic note counting machine, not that they really need it since everyone in Uzbekistan can count large stacks of cash at lightning speed!

An Evening in Tashkent

2009 07 30 – Day 34 - Tashkent


It seems this is the way to get from one platform to another in this part of the world.
Arriving in Tashkent in the searing heat of early afternoon, I was glad to be met by someone from my hotel, who whisked me away to my air-conditioned room where I was glad to be able to wash, rest and hide from the heat.



The city is more human at dusk. The temperature is comfortable, the air friendly and it doesn't hurt to look at anything brighter than black. Sunlight disappears quickly, but the streetlife continues. Many people are out for dinner, drinks, shopping, a walk in the park. Although there's street lighting, it's not particularly strong and there are plenty of dark corners and shadowy areas – there's every reason for me to feel, uncomfortable and/or vulnerable walking by myself and unable to speak the language. But I don't. There are a couple of times I give some groups a wide berth or become a bit more alert for trouble, but more out of caution than anything else. I don't really feel threatened and it's nice to be able to wander anonymously amongst the locals.


Open air film screening at a nearby hotel.

Later that evening my hotel's driver takes me on a wild-goose chase around the bigger hotels in Tashkent. The big hotels have the only cash machines in town it seems... but none of them work! I feel like I'm in a film as we cruise the near-empty, wide avenues, chilled by his cool jazz radio.

Kazakh/Uzbek border crossing

2009 07 30 – Day 34 - Aralsk-Tashkent train

Crossing the border from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, a couple of hours from Tashkent, takes place entirely on the train. Guards with big hats, big guns and big alsatians come aboard and check that everything is as it should be before we leave Kazakhstan, including opening wall, floor or ceiling panels if necessary. Then, a few minutes down the track, we go through the whole thing again to enter Uzbekistan. With the train stopped, doors open, and officials coming and going, the stops are as uncomfortable from the heat as from the border guards attention.
Entering and exiting Uzbekistan you have to declare valuables and amount of US dollars and Russian rubles. As a result, I wasn't particularly surprised when the guard checking me and my belongings, after a half-hearted rummage in my well packed rucksack, wanted to go through the contents of my wallet and neck pouch. He demanded to see this and that and the next thing before leaving, seemingly satisfied. It wasn't until later in the day, sorting through my things, that I realised he must have pinched $15! He had pulled the old magicians art of misdirection on me, because by the time we were done, I had various things strewn on my bed and the small window table. My mistake was to not put each thing away after I'd shown it to him or at least have all the things in front of me all the time, but he flustered me with his grabbing and pointing and speed. At least I didn't have much money on me, so he wasn't able to take much.
For the crossing into Uzbekistan, we also had a team of medics come on the train, sweating into their synthetic white coats and face masks while they waited for their thermometers to provide our armpit temperature. Mine was 36.5°C. One who had a little English then interviewed me to establish if I was well... fortunately I was. I think they were checking for swine flu victims.

Best 50p breakfast ever?

2009 07 19 – Day 23 – Tallinn

My foot passenger ferry ticket cost me 300 EEK (Estonia Krooni – what a great name eh?) and for only 20 EEK (at that time roughly 50p) extra I could have breakfast on the ferry. This is what I got:

It was great! And it was a buffet too, so I could go back as much as I wanted! If only I'd been hungrier, I only ate what you see in the picture! (plus an extra glass of fresh orange & there's plenty of grub hidden by that lettuce leaf) (Viking Line advertisement deliberate because the breakfast was so goddamn good they earned it!)