The Fergana Valley (Damases, Valentina's Guesthouse and the Flood!)

The Fergana Valley is that part of Central Asia where Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are so tangled together it's almost impossible to make out where one ends and the others begin. Seriously, check it out on a map, that Joseph S was a maaaaad scientist. The Uzbek part of the valley is the most populated part of the country and generally considered to be the centre of, how would you put it...Uzbekiness? Tashkent is just a big cosmopolitan (really) city with lots of international influences whereas Bukhara and Samarkand are more Tajik than Uzbek.

Anyway, this past weekend was, yet another, long weekend for Victory Day. In Canada and I assume other places, I think we refer to it as VE Day. Unfortunately it was the last long weekend till the end of the summer so myself and 4 others decided to head to the valley to get off the beaten track a little bit. Most tourists end up going to Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva so we thought it'd be a good idea to just see somthing different. It's also a bit more conservatively muslim than the rest of the country with a recently restive past (google: 'Andijon' for more on that) but anyway off we went.

Sunday morning we met up at small square close to where we all live and grabbed taxis (city taxis won't usually take 5 people together) to the bazaar south of the city where long-distance taxis wait to take people to the valley. Unforunately the taxi I was in made it to the right parking lot while the other taxi got terribly lost. As soon as myself and the two others with me got out we were MOBBED by people wanting to take us absolutely anywhere in the Fergana Valley we wanted to go. I have never experienced anything like that. Madness and they wouldn't stop. I made the mistake of explaning where we were going, that we wanted a minivan (Daewoo Damases are the most common here- I just like saying the name) and that we were still waiting for two other people. So....they realized I could communicate and that the other two couldn't really. So while they walked around mostly unharassed I tried to shake the mob...it just didn't happen. Even when I told them off, a few would back off but then I'd walk a few metres and 20 more would come running. I mean I understand they're just trying to make a buck, but it was a bit overwhelming.
Eventually one of the drivers suggested we get in his van to look for our friends (smart) which we did. Anyway, we found them and were on our way.
Unforunately, the ride was quite a bit longer than we anticpated. 400km along a winding, climbing, pot-holed road takes a while. Beautiful scenery though, the road crosses a mountain range (Tien Shan I believe) with amazing views of the surrounding valleys. I guess really the only downside of the road were the roadblocks. Very big here. There's one at the Tashkent City limits and between every province. At the checkpoint entering and leaving the valley, which is also a province, we had to show our pasports and get registered at the checkpoint (sensitive area).
Anyway, we eventually made it to Margelon, our first desination and the site of a silk factory and, apparentley, the largest market in the country. But, the trip took way longer than we thought and markets close early in Uzbekistan so it was already closed by the time we got there. We decided to leave the silk factory to the following day and headed on to Fergana city which was about a half hour further and where we were planning to stay the night.
We arrived in Fergana around 3pm. Nice city, very green, very planned (read: Soviet) and lots of people speaking Russian. We eventually found a place to stay at Valentina's Guest House. Unfortunately the place we were hoping to stay was booked up, but good old Lonely Planet saved the day. The guesthouse was turned out to be a three bedroom apartment on the 4th floor of one of the, well, typically Soviet apartment blocks that are unbelievably ubiquitous in Central Asia. Valentina was pleasant enough and only charged 10 dollars each. The place was.....not that clean and due to a few unpleasant discoveries we suspected that Valentina was usually able to fill it even when it wasn't tourist season. Know what I mean?
After dumping out bags, we set out the explore Fergana, which really just meant finding a restaurant as we were all starving. I think we lucked upon the best place in the city. A great patio place called, I think, Art Cafe. So we sat down, ate shashlik after shashlik watched some locals going to town on vodka and listened to Victory Day songs (Sunday was Victory Day). Quite an experience actually.
Really the only other thing of note in Fegana was Club Infiniti where we ventured about 10pm after touring around the city for a few hours. We arrived and walked up the stairs and were promptly told that the 'club' was already closed and that we should come back tomorrow at 7. It was kind of like a banquent hall with faded green carpet, neon lights and at least one giant cockroach. I suspect there may have been a few more (damnit, I saw one in my place the other day too).
Monday morning we headed back to Margelon to see the silk factory there. We did a tour and saw, among other things, the way string is extracted from the cocoons and the painfully painstaking carpet weaving. I do not have the knees for that job!
After the silk factory we gorged on the homemade bread made in, it seemed, every shop along the street leading into the silk factory. Amazing, it would be worth it to open an bakery in Canada and just sell Uzbek bread, I've never had anything like it.
After Margelon we continued on to Kokand, one of the three ancient Khanates in Uzbekistan (Khiva and Bukhara being the others). Nice city, we toured around a bit. It was actaully the first time we had real trouble communicating in Russian. But whatever, nothing communicates what you want to eat like a good point.
We finished up around 3pm and went to find a taxi back to Tashkent. Not too difficult and we got on the road quickly (after the guy we originally found decided he didn't want to go and sold the fare to his friend when we were already halfway out of town- weird). It was a loooooong trip back. Made longer by the torrential rainstorm that washed out the main road back to Tashkent. Imagine 4 lanes of typically impatient Uzbek drivers being merged into one and then told to turn around by a soaked, angry and flustered policeman. I've actually never seen an Uzbek cop do something helpful before (seriously).
There was, thankfully, a kind of side road that only took us about 20 km's out of the day. It too was already in the process of being washed out but was still passable when we got there. Driving through a torrent of water in a shaky old Daewoo was quite on experience. But we made it. Got back to Tashkent around 10 last night. Good trip, now back to work.