Yey rest day! First 1200 miles done.
A day of resting, sightseeing and touristy things.
The only thing to report here is that whilst we were wandering around the 'Arc' a historic fortress museum Andy let out a really unpleasant fart. He was then pretty much chased out of the 'natural history' section, by a lady with a can of pungent air freshener!
;-)
Friday, 1 August 2014
1st of August -day off in Bukhara!
31st of July - 'B' is for bribe
We stated at 5am, intending to avoid the worst of the desert heat on our journey to Bukhara. We decided to avoid the hotel's breakfast offerings (based on our gut feeling) and opted for a picnic of foods from the local bazaar.
The 'tarmac' road to Bukhara was appalling. It had endless potholes (more potholed surface area than flat tarmac) crators, giant nobbles like someone had laid the tarmac on with a spoon, deep ridges and relentless roadworks, despite this we were making reasonable progress.
So far we had managed to avoid/evade police attention... This was not to last.
Within 2 hours we were stopped 3 times. The first time we were pulled in and fined for breaking a mythical speed limit. The officers kindly showed us the photo to prove to us that they had seen us! In fairness we were doing around 60 mph (briefly at best) and they said that the motorway limit was 45 mph. There was clearly no avoiding the payment. It then transpired that the 'fine' was $150 and would have to go to the local town (in the wrong direction) or we could pay them $30 'cash in hand' and they would not make the official report! We chose the latter!
We then got stopped by the police at a checkpoint less than a mile later. This time they were only interested in our documents. They were obviously bored. I struggled not to laugh watching them try to read Andy's driving licence. They clearly had no idea what they were reading! They then proceed to give me a lecture about not having any children. They told us that we should have at least 4 by now! They let us go soon after I sweetened them up by giving them souvenir stickers of London, that I had brought with us to give to children during the trip.
Time was ticking along. It was getting really hot, we were getting weary in the heat. The last thing that we needed was to be stopped by the police again.
Surprise surprise the next lot of corrupted officers wanted yet more money from us!
They started with the whole document reading regime, then once they had established that we were English tourists proceeded to tell us that we had been speeding again and that we had to pay a ridiculous fine!!! In the first instance we both thought fair enough, but this time we knew that we had kept to the limit. They showed us the same photo again. We were well and truly stitched up. After 45 minutes of negotiations, we failed to make any head way, we had no choice but to pay again! The injustice of this made me very angry and I was able to express this by politely smiling and swearing a lot at them in a language that luckily they did not understand. Another $30 cash in their pockets and we were on our way again.
The frustrating thing is that everyone else seems to speed past much faster than us.
So our grand plan of an early start to avoid the midday heat totally failed.
The corrupt police situation does not bode well for the next 700 miles of Uzbekistan. :-(
30th July - Tourist price $$$
we seemed to win the food roulette game as both of us started the day with 'everything in order'.
So on our journey to Samarkand, we decided to play the game again by eating lunch out of a cobbled roadside shack/tent. Whilst we were eating we watched the local police who were seated near by, set up an impromptu road check point for just 15 minutes. Perhaps they were short of cash for their lunch?! It seems to be how they operate here!
Once we had eaten Andy asked to pay for the meal. The shack owner attempted to charge us a ridiculous 75,000 som ($25) for a gristly 'meat' kebab. We couldn't help but laugh. After much chuckling we told them they were 'very funny' (via the Russian phrase book) and left them a generous 20,000 som. Andy also said 'good try' and we all knowingly shook hands. This also seems to be the norm.
Back on the road we amused ourselves by watching a great array of creative methods of transporting goods in vehicles including, a large double bed on the roof of a lada, a sheep loose in the back of a mini van, a full height fridge freezer wedged in to the open boot of a lada, a giant coil of waste pipe (3m wide) over the roof of a lada, a fine example of 'how many melons can you fit in a lada' (like sweeties in a jar game), a horse in the back of a pickup, and cows in a standard car trailer attached to the back of a saloon car.
We arrived in Samarkand and pulled up outside the best hotel that we had selected from the lonely planet guide book. At first glance it looked closed down, it's vast expanse of soviet concrete and marble looked lacklustre, the fountains were dried up, the plants and grass were over grown, weeds were sprouting out of the paths, and there was a general absence of any human activity.
At this point we should have driven on, but curiosity got the better of us and we decided to take a closer look.
To our surprise the hotel was actually open!
It was like stepping in to a vast marble cave, floor to ceiling marble, there were grand glass chandeliers hanging like stalactites from the ceiling and brass decorated every surface that wasn't marble. The reception was a least an acre big. It even had a post office and two full size pianos, one of which Andy couldn't resist playing. The interior did not match the exterior, it was very odd and gave me very sinister feeIing. I can imagine that in its heyday this 500 room monster would have been the most glamorous place in town.
Upon check in Andy asked where we could park the motorbike. He was given the entire moth balled 'museum bar' as a bike garage for the night.
Once we had checked in we decided to tick a few tourist boxes and go out and see the sights. Entry to the 'Registon' was another classic example of tourist extortion. In black and white on the price list was Uzbek price 1000 som, tourist price 15,000 som!
the Registon was stunning, an absolute feast to the eyes of patterns and mosaics. Whilst we were wandering around totally absorbed we had the oddest experience yet. Women started to point and stare at me, talking excitedly. At first I though that I may have had a wardrobe malfunction, but Andy reassured me that this was not the case. Then situation became even stranger, as we were asked for photos and what seemed like half of the museum jumped on the band wagon. We were obviously mistaken for some sort of celebrities!
Later when we arrived back at the hotel after dinner tired and thirsty, we thought that it would be no problem at all to obtain a bottle of drinking water, bearing in mind that the hotel boasted 5 bars and 500 rooms. WRONG! The receptionist told us that the nearest shop was more than one kilometre away, and offered to get us a taxi there. With the reception refusing to help, we decided to go back to the room. On our way we spied a massive private party, so managed to bribe one of the staff to open a bar and sell us water and beer.
It wouldn't have been right for us to go straight to bed, so we scared ourselves silly by exploring the maze of unused unlit corridors. It was like something out of the 'shining ' Andy said that he felt that he should have been riding a tricycle.
29th of July - Yamaha thirsty for fuel
So finally managed to get some fuel (91 octaine), after that it was a relatively easy and short ride to Tashkent. Checked in to a lovely hotel, who noticed on my passport that it was my birthday and gave us free wine (like sherry) and a bowl of fruit. Andy got stung by a large wasp down the back of his bike jacket whilst riding along. played food roulette by eating in plov in a street cafe (it's a 24 hour game!). Tashkent is a lovely city, nothing much else to report.
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