A LAWYER AT LARGE

Following the Silk Road:
tourism the Eastern way

Oliver Meister leaves behind the trappings of a busy London lifestyle to go hiking in Uzbekistan
June 2004

Whilst defencelessly strapped up after tearing knee ligaments in Courcheval 1850 earlier this year, I confirmed to two of my fellow skiers that my wife and I would indeed be travelling to Uzbekistan with them in May to visit Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and the countryside in between.

This promise was put to the back of my mind whilst I hobbled to Romania and Ukraine on my usual weekly commutes to Eastern Europe until I realised that visas had to be obtained for both places whilst I would be out of the country most weekdays until our flight to Moscow on 28 April.

Through the good offices of Andrew's Travel House (London and Moscow, very good for CIS visas) my wife and I both paid an ìemergencyî tax for both our Russian and Uzbek visas for a bargain $1,200, approximately the cost of the Central Asian part of the holiday. At least the Uzbek visa was a rather attractive bright blue and green colour, although being former Soviet countries each visa took up two precious pages in my ever filling passport.

With the final Uzbek visa placed in our passports the very day before we flew, we headed for Moscow for a 24-hour stopover before flying down to Bukhara (just north of Afghanistan if you're not sure). Moscow was its usual self, loads of traffic, a great restaurant (Buscuit, a close second behind the visa in cost) and people who made me feel decidedly uncool and poor.

A trip on the Metro is advised if this happens to remind you that the majority of the populace don't have it quite so good as those haring down Tvarskya in Mercedes and BMWs. There is now even a Bentley showroom opposite the Lubyanka (of KGB fame) above which a Ferrari showroom opens this month.

This brief stopover ended late on 30th April when we picked up three friends from Moscow and headed for the airport to catch the 01.40 am flight to Bukhara. Rather worryingly the Russian customs officer informed us that it was pointless visiting Uzbekistan and that we were stupid to do so. Things worsened as the Famous Five approached the aeroplane with five boarding passes reserved so we could sit together for the flight.

Upon entering the flight we were told it was, literally, a free-for-all. Eventually we bagged some central seats in an enormous Ilushyn-86, the remainder of which was filled with Uzbek peasants returning from selling produce in Moscow. Most had clearly been saving money by staying in hostels that didn't offer much in the way of sanitation or running water of any kind.

The Uzbeks clearly viewed the flight as some glorified local bus service which resulted in at least 50 people immediately opening all the luggage compartments immediately upon touchdown whilst the plane hurtled at well over 150km/h down the Bukharan runway.

Such was the enthusiasm to disembark (through the luggage hold where we passed two spare tyres ñ to be changed mid-flight if there was a puncture??) that the Uzbeks forgot the plethora of Asian shopping bags (the cheap checked numbers to be found at Gara de Nord and occasionally at Otopeni, normally carried by two people due to their immense size and weight) that they had brought on to the plane.

We walked around the back of the plane to the ëterminal' that was little more than a classroom sized shack. Several of the Uzbeks took the short cut under the plane and its burning hot engines leading to predictable results. Upon arriving at the customs point it became immediately clear that things were not going to move quickly. About 250 people were trying to simultaneously place their passports in front of two customs officers (a further half dozen loitered around to ensure nothing was accomplished with any undue haste).

In true British fashion we allowed everyone through so we finally cleared customs 90 minutes later. The wait was made a little easier thanks to a couple of humorous moments provided by one of the Uzbek officials.

The first was a question to the entire population of the aircraft just after we arrived, asking if Ivan Ivanov was in the hall. A lone answer that he wasn't was inexplicably accepted by the guard. The same man returned 30 minutes later to ask who had left a dog on the plane. After the laughter had died down he confirmed that this had indeed happened along with several of the abovementioned Asian shopping bags that had been offloaded after the idiotic locals had fled the plane without them.

As we later cleared yet another line of customs (duplicate declarations that listed the contents of our bags, ìclothesî appeared to suffice) a small puppy was noted chained to a radiator still awaiting collection.

Some two and a half hours after landing we finally arrived at our truly welcoming and wonderful six-bedroom hotel (with authentic Uzbek courtyard and low table placed in large bed to sit around and drink tea). Our rooms had hot water, air conditioning and great hosts who kept a stream of green and black teas, pistachio nuts and tasty dinners (lamb orientated to put it mildly) over the next three days. The sixth member of the party joined us direct from London (well, actually BA via Yeravan and Tashkent then an 8-hour drive to Bukhara).

Bukhara contains several beautiful madrassas (Islamic seminaries) as well as mosques and mausoleums dating back to the 10th century (see the pictures scattered around this article). The madrassas were teaching advanced mathematics and astronomy in the 1400s whilst Romania and the UK were, in the main, kicking around in the mud.

Near to the sights were several bazaars selling world famous Bukharan carpets as well as beautiful cotton and silk rugs, throws and bed sheets, along with Uzbek caps and hats, water jugs and local paintings all for a ìspecial discount price to you sirî. After three days we had managed to acquire enough to require the acquisition of one of the much-hated Asian shopping bags ourselves to carry the stuff in.

We also managed to visit the Arc (a central fort, see pictured) where two of Queen Victoria's officers based in India had spent their last years. Both men were sent to Bukhara to try to cultivate the Emir of Bukhara to bring him onside with the British as part of the ìGreat Gameî that was being played out with the Russians in Central Asia at that time. The first of the men arrived without a letter from the Queen (only the Viceroy of India) and also failed to dismount from his horse as he approached the Emir.

Both of these faux pax damned the officer in question to several years in a pit full of vermin, where he was eventually joined by a second officer sent to free him. Both were beheaded after being partially eaten alive in the pit that is still on show today.

Since then the welcome to the British has improved to the extent that an overzealous trader is about as aggressive as it now gets (unless you catch one of the ìterroristî bombs that occasionally go off in Uzbekistan when the government co-incidentally is negotiating aid granted to it by the US as part of the war on terror). This war clearly doesn't extend to the terror under which President Karimov keeps his own population of 25 million people (some 8-9 million of which have to work abroad due to the lack of work and salaries). The owner of our hotel employed his own mother as her salary as a mathematics professor at the university was only $35.

Not a single person we met in eight days in Uzbekistan would discuss politics which is understandable once you are there. The main roads have Karimov slogans every few kilometres and police road blocs every 30-40 kilometres on all main roads where you have to stop and often hand over a bribe to avoid turning every journey into a marathon. A mother of a victim of Karimov's secret police who was boiled to death has only just been released from a 6-year sentence for complaining about her son's death. Her release only came about because it had been one of the very few items of news that had made international headlines.

After three days in Bukhara we escaped the heat of the town for the heat of the desert. Our trip was supposed to have included spending two days in a Yurt (a large, round Central Asian tent) and the accompanying camel trek was delayed after a predictable breakdown - an old Russian minibus - in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a road going straight for 30 kilometres in each direction. The moment we stopped and stepped outside of the vehicle to avoid self-immolation we noted that the side of the road was infested with hundreds of tortoises and iguana-type lizards. Whilst never considering where tortoises come from outside a pet shop, we were all somewhat surprised to imagine Uzbekistan was on the list of tortoise growers.

Two days of camel trekking through a desert to a beautiful lake was only blemished by a lack of camels that would accept passengers and anything beyond a fly infested rubbish filled reservoir at the end of a 15-kilometre walk across boiling hot sand. Whilst sounding awful it was actually quite pleasant (anything after being on an unstable, tic infested, green phlegm spewing camel is pleasant). We came across a shepherd's house where we drank from his well and watched a few minutes of Uzbek TV (Romanian state television circa 1986) and spoke to our camel guides that we assumed were two old men, who in fact turned out to be a couple of Kazakhs that were under 30 with dental and skin care issues.

The heat of the desert was left behind for three days of horse trekking. Or rather, it would have been three days of horse trekking if six horses had turned up to accommodate the six of us. Sadly the Uzbek guides appeared with a couple of mules for the rucksacks and three ìhorsesî of which only one could be described as equine in appearance. The others had four legs but were otherwise unrelated to the visions of six stallions galloping over the mountains with us.

By the end of the day the old nags were abandoned and we spent the next three days walking through the mountains. Whilst beautiful and healthy my torn ligaments from skiing didn't appreciate the 60-kilometre hike although we all felt healthy for the first time in months. Our Uzbek guides engaged us in conversation over the campfire but their knowledge of the UK (Beckham and Liverpool football club) meant that Uzbek affairs were the subject of conversation. As this took place in Russian (spoken by four of us and by them very poorly) didn't go much beyond the millionaire in the village we had spent an earlier evening with.

It was soon ascertained that the ìmillionaireî was the sheep farmer who had put us up in his house two nights before. When I was first introduced my eyes lit up at the offer of a shower. This turned out to be a bucket of warm water in a room with mud and straw walls with an annex kitchen in which a heap of lamb and flies was left to boil for a few hours before being served as our evening meal. The millionaire was apparently in local currency terms, which at three inches of local cash for $100 means a field of sheep and goats and a Lada.

The Uzbekistan part of the holiday concluded with a six-hour drive to Tashkent through nine police checkpoints and 1,001 Karimov slogans that I was fortunately unable to read due to my poor Uzbek linguistic skills.

Returning to Moscow was like an East German crossing into West Berlin in 1989. A final rest day in Moscow was spent in the Banja followed by some chilled Sancerre in Scandinavia and a wonderful meal at Café Pushkin (both just off Pushkin Square near Tvarskya metro stop). I never thought Russia would be such a welcome sight.

If the above doesn't put you off and you would like to visit Uzbekistan (my slogan for the trip ìworth visiting once but not twiceî) contact Farkhad at farkhadmaya@yahoo.com. He also has a website, www.farkhadmaya.addr.com.