The End

Well, my time in Uzbekistan has come to end. It's been great, it really has. But at this point I haven't left Central Asia in 6 months and I'm very ready to head home.
My landlord is coming over to get the key in about an hour. I'm not sure what to expect. I mean the apartment is very clean, there's no damage and from what I can tell she's a decent person who wouldn't make ridiculous claims about me breaking things that I haven't. Really though, the only thing that would help me if something did go wrong and we did end up in a conflict over something would be UN Security. And that's one of my, I guess, underlying themes from my time here. People have no fallback, no security blanket. Call the militia? ha! So far there's no move to rename them here like in Russia and, from what I've read at least (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong though) in Ukraine.
Flights going west from here tend to leave at odd hours. So I'll have a few hours, as a tourist again, to wander the streets of Tashkent. Then I will go to the airport. Airports in this part of the world are a special kind of hell. I've been to 7-8 of them and Tashkent is the worst, at least coming in. Everytime I've left Uzbekistan it's been overland and even that has been very difficult. For starters exit customs and immigration are ubiquitous in Central Asia. And very thorough. That of course is coupled with officials, who may be looking for a little something extra to help, uh, facilitate your experience. Anyway, it'll be fine, hopefully it's a slow night.
So thank you very much for reading, this will be my last entry. Time to move on with life.

Gold Teeth and Construction Projects

Just a couple of quick anecdotes from the past week. As my time in Tashkent comes to a close I find I'm having less and less to talk about. I'm starting to concentrate more on life post-Uze.
One of the Uzbek guys in the office and I had planned to go for dinner yesterday after work. Just after lunch he came to my office and asked if we could postpone till next week. He said he was having some dental work done, it wasn't finished and he was worried about the food damaging the work. Of course I agreed and then asked what dental work he was having done as more than one sitting sounded serious. He's getting 9 new false teeth. 9. The guy is two years older then me. I mean, fair dental care is not as advanced here as it is the west. Uzbekistan is a......developing country and things like going for dental checkups twice per year aren't that high on people's minds when they're just trying to survive. He assured me though that we was not going to get gold teeth, which is what most false teeth are still made of here, and was instead going to get ones that look like regular teeth. So that's progress....I think.
Construction projects can be impressive affairs here. Of course I have no idea as to the quality of the work or the wages paid to the workers, but the sheer number of people assigned to projects is amazing. This afternoon, I was walking by the main theatre in the centre of town. There's a small square to one side that I guess the government decided needed some re-doing. There were hundreds of workers there. This is a square that is not even the size of a typical Canadian city block. And it'll probalby be completely re-made in about 3 days. I just won't be sitting under any new structures that are built on it.

Variable Tip Rates, Couchsurfing and Interac Security

"Service" is often included in the bill at restaurants here. It varies from 10-20% depending on the place. During the World Cup the group that I usually spend time with started going to a restaurant called 'SV'. They have a big outdoor patio and during the games put up a big screen, it was very nice and the food was good. We've continued going after the games and, no longer needing a good view of the screen, have started siting on the tapchans, which are basically tables you can lie down on as well. As food is so cheap here we never really spend too much time checking the bill. However, this week some backpackers were staying with one of the group and, being beingpackers, needed to watch their money. Fair enough. One night we ended up at SV and they noticed that while the menu said a 10% service charge would be added to the bill, the bill showed that they had in fact added a 20% charge. Oh Uzbekistan. Anyway, I got to be the one to ask about it and the reason was, 'oh you're in the nice table, so we add more of a service charge.'
I hosted a couchsurfer for a night this week. I think I mentioned couchsurfing a few blogs back but I guess it's a website where people can organize both hosting and stays for free, couchsurfering, around the world. I haven't actually signed up for it myself but another person here who does it had so many poeople staying with him that he asked if I could take one of them. The guy was nice, and Canadian. Still, I'm not sure if I would do it myself. I mean if you're really travelling on a budget it could extend your trip, but in Uzbekistan it just brings about so much potential for trouble. The reason is that you have to be officially registered where you're staying and you can't do it if you're on a tourist visa and staying at a private residence. You can have gaps for a few nights but if it gets, apparently, beyond 3 days and you get noticed by the police you'll be fined and deported. It happened to some couchsurfers who were in town a few months back.
Debit machines have slowly started to make their way into businesses in Tashkent. As far as I know they're only for Uzbek bank cards. Until this week though I'd never seen anyone using one. Anyway, I was at a small grocery store near my apartment, waiting in line to pay and the woman in front of me pulled out here bank card to pay. She handed it to the cashier. The cashier stuck the card in the machine, which looked exactly like ones you see in Canada, and asked her for her pin. She told him and he entered it. I guess security precautions will come later. Yeesh.