Mosquitos, Perspective and the Norm

I had heard that mosquitos would start to be a problem here as the weather got warmer but, as I often do, didn't really pay any attention and completely forget to ask my landlord to install screens on the windows.
I still haven't turned on the air conditioning (other than to make sure it works) so when I get back from work I open the windows as the place is boiling hot (been in the 30's the past few days). So yesterday, like usual, I did that and closed them just before I went to bed. I woke up at 2am with about 50 mosquito bites. damnit. Why didn't I feel it after 5 or even 20?! I will be speaking with my landlord this weekend.

Perspective is an interesting thing. I don't get into political-type conversations too much here, especially with locals about local events. Obviously I talk to other ex-pats about it and I'm starting to find that some of the Russians, even those with Uzbek passports are a bit more open, at least to talking about what's going on with Russia. One of my Russian teachers, Inna, is one of the people I've been talking to. She's Russian, but holds an Uzbek passport, between 45 and 50 and teaches how I conceive of Soviet teachers teaching- basically rote learning. Anyway, I've been trying to break up my 3-times per week sessions of basically memorizing lists of words with some conversation. She's agreed it's a good idea and usually starts it off with some sort of a question about how the west perceives Russia (hmmmm...sound familiar to Canadians?) on a particular issue or how on earth the west could think one way about an issue when Russia's opinion is so clearly the right one. She'll then lay out why the Russian perpective is the right one (we were talking about the war in Georgia today) and does it so well she usually has me convinced. Anyway, just interesting.

I'm finding that things have become a lot more normal. Ok that's the wrong word, I'm getting used to being here. Probably why I'm not posting so often. I will make more of an effort for the next 4 months! Yikes, already two months in.

The Rate, The Conversation and Fruit!

Well it turns out that money changer I refused to change with last week was right. Over the past few days the black market rate has been just about killed. Damn. There's a big conference in town next week so we're all hoping things will go back to normal after that. Man I donn't even know where an offical money changer is.

Last night I attended a small house party with a number of local expats. At one point I ended up in a conversation with two people who's first language was French and one who's first language was Spanish. The easiest language to communicate in was Russian so that's what we spoke. I know that sounds pompous, but whatever it was kind of cool and it's a tough laguage to learn.

Summer fruit has finally come to the bazaars. I just came back from buying two kilos of strawberries and I will be eating them all today. Didn't even negotiate. I heard last that they were now in stock and almost ran to get some this morning. So good, and not all white on the inside like the 'roid berries we get in Canada.

Not much else going on...short post today I guess. Go Canucks!

Conspiracy (yes, I said it!), Chevys, My Street Vendor and МВД

Conspiracy theories abound here. I mean obviously and I am defiitely not gonna get into them all on this public blog. However, one that has affected most of us who exist in hard currency lately has been the plummeting black market exchange rate. I went to my usual spot to change money on Tuesday evening and the guy I found told me the rate was 2100 soums to the dollar. I was like, 'wtf last week it was 2300'. I asked him what the deal was and he said the government was trying to drive down the the black market rate to make it more comparable to the official rate. Not sure what that is exactly right now but you can find it on xe.com for example. It's way lower. I told him to forget it and I left. However the next day I tried somewhere else and while the rate was better it wasn't much better...maybe the first guy was right. Damnit, I hope prices come down accordingly but I suspect they won't.

What else....the most common car in Uzbekistan are Chevrolets. I bet you wouldn't have thought that. It surprised the heck outtta me too. They're the same Chevy models we'd find in North Americo too. Well at least the same as in Canada. I finally asked someone about it. Apparently and I haven't confirmed this, but there used to be a Daewoo (sp?) factory here that Chevy bought out a few years back. Everyone used to drive a Daewoo but now all locally produced (read: affordable) cars are Chevys. Apparently they can't even be exported to Russia (again, just what I've heard).

I'm still not a big fan of the bazaars here. They're huge, noisy, very much Uzbek affairs and I always feel like I'm getting scammed. Well, actually I know I'm always getting scammed. Not sure huge amounts, but still. Anyway one of the Uzbek guyss in my office has introduced me to the street vendor he goes too. She's Kazakh (or so he thinks) and sits three days a week with a few boxes of fruits on a street corner near my office. She doesn't jack up her prices and brings in only fruit that she thinks people will want. Best of all, all her front teeth are gold (it's a thing here). Anyway at least I'm eating more fruit now.

Finally, I think the news that Moscow Dinamo, one of the oldes hockey clubs in Russia, is likely going to fold, has been in the news in the west this morning. Well, I know it was because I spend half my day on cbc.ca and tsn.ca. Anyway, I've been wathching the KHL finals between AK BARS Kazan and МВД (which is the Russian Interior Ministry's team...so weird). Anyway, what I've found most amusing is their love for the 'Hey Hey Hey Goodbye' song. Even when the hometeam is losing it will come over the PA system. I guess it's just associated with hockey, but still kind of funny.

Back in Tashkent

Well it's been a fairly uneventful week. I flew back from Baku on Monday afternoon and went straight into the office- fun times. I really need to remember that there are two passport control areas at the Tashkent Airport. In one the Uzbeks only line is on right and in the other it's on the left. Everytime I've flown in it's taken me about a half hour to realize I am not in fact Uzbek and that I need to go to the back of one of the foreigners lines-yeesh.
Ummmm yeah, nothing too exciting. On Wednesday I had a drink with a few of the expats I usually hang out with. Once of them had a couple of new Couchsurfers staying with him. Have people heard about Couchsurfing? I hadn't. Not sure if it's couchsurfing.com or .org but apparently it's the ultimate in budget backpacking- a free couch (obviously). Anyway only one of these two couchsurfers came to the bar. Moscovites, these guys had hitchhiked from Moscow to Tashkent. I can't even imagine what that would have been like. This guy was very nice, quite interesting to talk to and definitely liked to travel the hard way. They're on their way, eventually, to Afghanistan. Good luck with that.
Today I was out an about running errands and noticed way more police on the streets than unusual. That's actually really saying somehing as sometimes it seems that half the population of Tashkent is walking around in stylish almost lime-green jumpsuits. I even had my backback swept with a medal detector when I was going into the Metro, which has not happened before. The thought occurs to me that it may have something to do with what happened in Kyrgyzstan (I've heard the border is closed). Could also just be that it was one of the first really nice spring days and the whole city was out today. Just part of the scenery I suppose.

Tashkent-Nukus-Kunye/Urgench-Darvaza-Ashgabat-Baku-Tashkent

Ugh, I am starting this post at 430am at the Baku Airport. The quick trip has come to an end and my buddy and I shared an early cab out here for our flights, to our, at least current, homes (can't quite bring myself to call Tashkent home). His flight is actually a few hours before mine but it's a bit of a pricey cab ride out here so we thought it'd be smarter to split it.
It's been a good trip. Furiously fast, but what's a vacation without a few good death marches right? We flew out of Tashkent last Tuesday evening to Nukus in the west of Uzbekistan. We were actually on a Tu-154. I mean I know the news is saying it was pilot error in Smolensk, but still a little creepy.
Nukus is the regional (provincial?) capital of Karakalpakstan. Karakalpaks are a separate ethnic group from Uzbeks, with their own language, although it's still a Turkic language.
So we arrived at the airport and while waiting for our bags were offered a ride by a taxi driver waiting in the baggage area. He asked for what we thought was a reasonable rate, so we accepted. Unfortunately the power then went out at the airport, just for a few minutes, but it dragged the wait out a bit. Feeling the need to make conversation and having asked 2(3?) times about the weather I asked him how big Nukus is? His immediate response was, 'I don't know, I'm not political.' And that was pretty much the end of the conversation.
In a country, where, well, not everything is open for discussion, Nukus and the surrounding region are even more sensitive because it's the closest city of any substantial size close to the Aral Sea. At least what's left of it.
The city is desolate, almost post-apocalyptic in appearance. It seems like a salt-coated rusted out hulk of a town that once had a fair amount of life.
After a night at a pretty decent hotel we headed for the border with Turkmenistan, about 30 kilometres away. Same cab driver, so it was a quiet ride. Watching Nukus go by doesn't exactly engender conversation though so at least it didn't for my friend and I.
So we got to the border and, again, won't say too much about state-related stuff (hopefully what I said about Nukus won't be an issue- note the changed blog title). For all border crossings here there are both entry and exit customs and immigration. While both the exiting and the entering were lengthy during this crossing what we both really noticed was the HUGE difference in, well, attitude by the guards on both sides of the border. To call the Uzbek side, which we obviously went through first, dour would be an understatement. After a couple of hours we got through and walked, a bit apprehensively, to the Turkmen side where the guards were very welcoming. I mean we were a curiosity to them, bit still, it was much appreciated after the first side of the process.
At Turkmen immigration, we met up with our guide (a requirement in Turkmenistan) Asis and once we cleared through everything met our driver Yazmurat.
Asis was, well still is, a young guy (26 as I recall) with good English and was, ostensibly, in charge for the trip south through to the capital Ashgabat.
Yazmurat is probably about 60, speaks about 10 words of English and grizzled does not even describe his appearance. But does he know the desert.
Oh, and to just set it up a bit better Uzbekistan is north of Turmenistan and we drove all the way through to the south of the country to the capital Ashgabat which is close to the Turkmen border with Iran.
So right of the bat we drove to Kunye-Urgench, the Turkmen border town, to change some money. Interestingly, and just anecdotally, while the level of economic development and environmental...devastation seemed similar on both aides of the border, there seemen to be much more, well, life on the Turkmen side. It could very well be that we were in Kunye-Urgench later in the day (we were through Nukus by 8am) but it was a Wednesday.
We arrived at the bazaar to change money and were pleasanty surprised to find that Turkmenistan has switched from the Manat to the New Manat. I have no idea how finance works but I can say that the last time I was in Turkmenistan 3 years ago changing 200 dollars would have resulted in an enormous stack of bills while 200 dollars is now worth about 570 New Manat- which easily fits in your pocket. Much easier to deal with. Unfortunately Uzbekistan has not followed suit. I will, eventually, send out a photo of the enormous pile of Soums I received when I recently changed 400 dollars in Tashkent.
Anyway, we changed money, saw some ruins in the north of the country and then headed south to the Darvaza gas crater located, I believe, in about the geographical centre of the country.
The plan was to camp in the desert, by the gas crater, for the evening and then continue on to Ashgabat the next day. The gas crater, which is enormous, formed in the early 1950's when Soviet engineers were working on a pipeline to pipe Turkmen gas well, somewhere (Russia I guess). Something went wrong and a huge pocket collapsed, caught fire, and has been burning ever since. I'd been there before bit it is truly an amazing experience. We arrived about midday and setup camp. The road south from almost the border has actually been greatly improved so it made for a much easier and faster trip than last time.
I can't say my buddy and I did a lot to help with the setup. We helped put up our tent, but that was about it. The rest was Yazmurat with help from Asis. Well my perception was that Yazmurat was barking orders (in Turkmen) and Asis was doing. Asia wasn't really the outdoorsy type.
By the time camp was set up and we'd eaten the sun was down and we headed down to explore the crater. Well, I'll send out photos but I guess I'd equate it, at least in appearance to a volcano. No flowing lava though.
After a, well, cozy night we packed up and continued on to Ashgabat. Unfortunately my buddy got stung 3 times by a scorpion just before we left. It hurt pretty good. We found it and showed it to Yazmurat who said it wasn't a bug we needed to be concerned about. He then said that drinking vodka could kill any venom. That didn't leave us feeling sure. But we drove on, nothing else we could do. The stings were on leg and didn't seem to be spreading which seemed good.
After a few more hours of driving we arrived in Ashgabat, although with one more stop outside the city so Yazmurat could wipe the dust off his car so he didn't get stopped by the traffic police.
Ashgabat is amazing. I mean it was a provincial Soviet town that since Turkmenistan's independence has been in large part, at least in the centre, almost entirely razed and replace by mammoth, almost always white buildings, monuments and especially fountains.
Our hote (Hotel Azia) is in a row of hotels, mostly empty that make up Berzengi, a suburb just outside of town. It's ok....had actually been somewhat renovated since the last time I stayed there in 2007.
For the next couple of days we explored Ashgabat. Again, I'll send out photos of us standing in front of various things in the next day or so.
On Friday we actaully did the Walk of Health. Actually we did part of one of the two walks, which are staircases built into the side of mountains outside of town. The long walk is 20+ km's, mostly up and crosses or a least hits the border with Iran- we gave that one a miss. We had to cab it out to the walks and the driver suggested we do the first two km's of the shorter, 8km walk and he'd wait for us. Was nice, very scenic, and probably staved off an unpleasant scene as by midday Friday both of us were starting to come down with some viscious food posioning that we are both still feeling today.
So, thanks for reading this far by the way, Friday evening we mostly stayed in to deal with....well, I'll spare everyone the gory details and then got up at a leisurely 130am for our flight to Baku, Azerbaijan. Flights from this part of the world heading west always seem to leave at ungodly hours (which is why we were at the Baku airport at 345 this morning-yeesh).
We got to the Ashgabat airport tired, sick and grumpy. The airport was a bit chaotic, but not too bad. We got through customs and immigration, headed for the gate and then we saw it. Shining on the runway, the most beautiful site I've seen since Feb 22nd- a Lufthansa Airbus A340, our flight to Baku (it starts in Ashgabat, stops in Baku and continues on to Franfurt). I love Lufthansa. Plus the plane was almost empty, I guess a lotta people get on in Baku. Was a nice luxury break. Very nice, almost too short. We both considered stowing away to Frankfurt.
Anyway, we arrived in Baku about 6am on Saturday morning. We had a place booked in the city centre and had to find a cab into town. We had a general idea how much to pay. We weren't sure of the current exchange rate but negotiated ruthlessly with the cab drivers. I think we were both getting sick of paying too much. Although I should note that when I say 'ruthlessly', what I actually mean was we went to the first guy we found and just kept refusing until he gave in. At least we thought he did. When we finally got to our place, he again demanded what he originally asked for at the airport. I, in no uncertain terms said, 'пошел ты!' (.....um let's say, 'pound sand') and we walked away.
The place we booked was a hostel and what a dump. A Private room with two beds and ensuite bathroom turned out to be large room with bunkbeds, many people and a very shared bathroom (and pronably a Turkish toilet, which neither if us were in any condition to use- gross!)
We walked in, took one look, decided we couldn't stay and walked out to find something else. Took a probably an hour and a half but we eventually got ourselves set up in a great mid-range place right in the city centre.
For the rest of Saturday and Sunday we explored Baku. Due to illness, it was a bit of a slow go but I think we got a good sense of the city. Even did a museum, gotta do one on a trip like this I figure. It was actually the Museum of Independence. We specifically saved our one museum trip ( and never more than one!) for it to see how recent Azeri history would be portrayed....I think the Armenian version would have a different perspective.
Baku is really a city under construction with lots and lots more foreigners than Tashkent (oil). Wandering around we found, more than once actually, groupsof several city blocks entirely under constructions.
And there were ATM's! Wonderful ATM's that I could actually get money out of. No Starbucks, dammit, but there is McDonalds, so we ate there yesterday afternoon. Don't eat it that often in Canada but it was definitely a nice taste of the west that is nowhere to be found in Tashkent.
Ok a bit of a footnote, It's now 8am (4 hours into this wait). About 45 minutes ago I went to have breakfast at a downstairs cafe by the arrivals area. I can't actually pass through security till check-in opens for my flight. Anyway I finished up and started heading back up to the departures level. As I was walking to the escalator who do I see walking towards me? Yup, the same taxi driver. I thought it might be a bit of a problem but he didn't recognize me and was just hustling for fares. I told him I was flying and he lost interest. Yeesh.

Ok, well that was super long, hope it was somewhat interesting.

The American Embassy, Bukhara and Shiny Suits

Last week, middle of the week, I got an email forward from one the guys in the group I've been hanging out with. It was from the Sgt. of the US Marine section to(group?) at the US Embassy in Taskent inviting him and any guests he wanted to invite to the weekly Marine, well, party, at the embassy.
So on Friday night myself and about 6 others trooped out to the embassy to see what is was all about. Not too get into too much detail (public blog and all), but the US embassy in Tashkent is an unbelievably huge fortress. I'd say every Canadian embassy in the world could probably fit into it's courtyard.
The evening was mostly US embassy staff and a few other invited guests. Was actually quite fun. Felt a little strange to be there at first, but everyone was very friendly. Didn't stay late as my buddy was flying in at the usual Tashkent arrival time (4am) so I had to get out to the airport.
Having been the confused foreigner walking into the, well, mob scene at the arrivals area of the Tashkent airport a couple of times it was quite amusing to watch others doing it. You walk out of the customs area and are almost immediately into a kind of chute (park benches- seriously) of mostly cab drivers wanting to charge you $20 for the 2 minute ride into the city. It's pretty easy to tell who's arriving for the first time. Some people hurry down the chute, trying to look purposeful. Others stop and pretend like they're reaching for something in their bags, all the while nervvously looking around. It's a scene.
Anyway, my buddy arrived and we headed for Bukhara on a domestic flight. Bukhara is, according to Lonely Planet, the holiest city in Central Asia (or at least Uzbekistan). Regardless it's got lot of monuments and the weather is usually pretty nice. Was a good weekend. Anyway, we came back last night, he got a guide for the day today and I went back to work, not that exciting.
Oh and I've come to a very important life decision. I've decided I'm going to do my Phd. The genius theory that I've come up with is this: a country's political development is inversely proportional (proportionate?) to the percentage of the population wearing shiny suits. What do you think? Not to be too mean, but there're a lotta shiny suits in Uzbekistan. How do they stay so shiny?
Anyway, we are off to Nukus in the west of the country tomorrow and are then crossing the border into Turkmenistan on Wednesday morning. No internet will be happening in Turkmenistan, so I'll either blog from Baku on Saturday or hold off till I'm back in Tashkent on Monday. I'll try to remember all the weirdness! Oh wait, I mean the glory...yeah that's it.

Haggle Till you Drop

That's a description on how to negotiate given at some point in Lonely Plantet's Central Asia guide and it holds true for pretty any monetary transaction here. I mean there are exception but in any situation where there is not a pre-determined/labelled price you could really wind up paying anything.
'Taxis' can be the worst. '' because, like in Russia, you can stand at the side of road with your hand out and someone will stop almost immediately. Like hitchiking but it ain't free. You then say where you're going, the guy won't know, you explain in general terms, he says he knows (yeah right) and then ask how much. He then says, 'how much will you give me?' and the negotiation starts. When I first arrived I asked what were generally good prices to go, for example, from my apartment to downtown. However, stupidly, I was at first starting with what I thought was a reasonable prince meaning what I thought I should be paying. Of course that ended up meaning that I was paying quite a bit more than I should have been. I hate doing it, haggling over pennies (seriously, it costs about a dollar to get downtown from my place), but at the same time it's annoying when a guy asks way too much because he knows I'm a foreigner- I'm probably the only person in Tashkent wearing a red shirt today (black clothes are very popular). My solution has just been to massively low-ball and then take whatever he comes back with as it's probably reasonable.
Sometimes it doesn't work, which is ok as I then get into the next car that has inevitably pulled up behind hopeing to get my fare instead of the first car.

The Turkmen and Azeri visas came through which is excellent. My friend arrrives on the weekend. We're going to Bukhara till Sunday night then back to Tashkent so he can explore for a couple days while I work. Then on Tuesday night it's off to Nukus (still in Uzbekistan) and then we're driving across the Turkmen border on Wednesday morning. Should be a great trip. Unfortunately we won't have time for the ferry across the caspian, so we're flying, but at least that'll give us more time in Ashgabat, Baku and most importantly, the giant, flaming, gas crater (I will send out photos).