Geez it's been hot here this week. mid to high 30's since last weekend. It's not like Eastern Canada with the humidity, but it's still pretty toasty. I asked a guy in the office on friday, 'hey, so is this hot for you?'. He said, 'meh, it's getting warm.' Apparently 50 is quite common during July which is the hottest month. I will be living air conditioner to air conditioner.
The World Cup started yesterday. I'm fairly ambivalent about soccer...wait I mean football, but lots of people here are excited so I tagged along to watch the first game betwen Mexico and South Africa. What a surprise, it was a tie. I think Uzbekistan comes about as close to qualifying as Canada but there was a bit of pride that the ref was an Uzbek. Seemed to a bit strange to me, but, well, whatever it's soccer.
I've got a really good Saturday (sometimes Sunday) morning routine going. I get up, laze around for a while and then wander over to the bazaar which is about a 20 minute walk. The different products are all grouped together and in eachother area, after buying from everyone I've found what I think are the best people for, say, fresh fruit. It's nice. They all greet me with, 'брать, брать!' which means brother, brother, trying to get my attention. I stand firm though and just get what I came for. At least they aren't trying to scam me (as much) anymore. I then head over to the grocery store for stuff like meat, which I really prefer to purchase refrigerated....at the bazaar it often lies in the open on tables. Gross.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Futsol, Rerouting of Goods, Paying Utilities, Dancing, Cockroaches
The Asian Futsol (indoor soccer) Championships were in Tashkent recently. Myself and another expat went to the third place game last Sunday between Japan and China. Actually pretty exciting to watch. Japan was the way better team though and won easily. The game ended at about 4 and the final, between Iran and UZ-BEK-I-STAN (lots of chanting even during the third place game) didn't start till 6 so we decided not to stick around. On the way out we saw something that, well, was a good exmaple of state-society relations here, at least I thought so. We got to the exit and people were already starting to arrive for the final. Rather than letting them on, or just letting them wait outside, the police formed a barrier between the stadium and the waiting crowd. Seemed a little tense...we got out and moved along quickly.
I often see things in the stores here that make me think, 'hmmmm I don't think that was originally meant to be sold here.' It's nothing overly exciting but for example, yesterday I went to the corner store to buy sugar cubes. The only ones they had were packaged in Uzbek Airways boxes. Ah well, worked well for me.
Bills here are moistly pay-as-you-go, including basic utilities. It means that if you are not completely paid in full at the start of the billing period they will cut you off, either immediatley or within about 4-5 days. I can pay my internet bill myself but electricity, water, gas and my home phone have to get paid by my landlord. She's been very good about paying it but was out of town this week and just come back yesterday. Anyway, I met up with her last night to pay rent and give the monthly meter readings for all the utilities which she then pays at the post office. No sooner has she left than the house phone rang with a recorded message from the phone company saying the house phone would be shut off if not paid soon (I didn't catch when exaclty). I called my landlord and she said she'd pay today, and she will. But geeez, some things are quite strict here.
Last night I went for dinner with a few others at a restaurant called Sim-Sim. It's a good place, very big with large rooms that get rented out for parties. A bit expensive for here, but then I paid about $8 for a huge meal and drinks, so overall not too bad. Sitting nearby our group was a table of 5-6 middle-age teachers celebrating the end of the school year. They were really celebrating too, polishing off bottle after bottle of vodka. Eventually a band that was making the rounds between the different rooms made it to where we were siting. Pretty cool actually, they just sat down at a table in the room and starting playing. Anyway, those Uzbek teachers loved to dance, with eachother. Did I mention they were all men? I guess it's very common here, but was still definitely a site to behold.
Later in the evening I was walking back to my apartment. You can still smoke indoors in Uzbekistan so my eyes stinging a bit and I was rubbing them which I guess pushed my contacts out of place. I was walking through an underpass and thought, 'weird, the ground seems to be moving a bit.' I stopped, blinked for a few second to let me eyes clear and then I realized...cockroaches. Everywhere. I got through there pretty quick.
I often see things in the stores here that make me think, 'hmmmm I don't think that was originally meant to be sold here.' It's nothing overly exciting but for example, yesterday I went to the corner store to buy sugar cubes. The only ones they had were packaged in Uzbek Airways boxes. Ah well, worked well for me.
Bills here are moistly pay-as-you-go, including basic utilities. It means that if you are not completely paid in full at the start of the billing period they will cut you off, either immediatley or within about 4-5 days. I can pay my internet bill myself but electricity, water, gas and my home phone have to get paid by my landlord. She's been very good about paying it but was out of town this week and just come back yesterday. Anyway, I met up with her last night to pay rent and give the monthly meter readings for all the utilities which she then pays at the post office. No sooner has she left than the house phone rang with a recorded message from the phone company saying the house phone would be shut off if not paid soon (I didn't catch when exaclty). I called my landlord and she said she'd pay today, and she will. But geeez, some things are quite strict here.
Last night I went for dinner with a few others at a restaurant called Sim-Sim. It's a good place, very big with large rooms that get rented out for parties. A bit expensive for here, but then I paid about $8 for a huge meal and drinks, so overall not too bad. Sitting nearby our group was a table of 5-6 middle-age teachers celebrating the end of the school year. They were really celebrating too, polishing off bottle after bottle of vodka. Eventually a band that was making the rounds between the different rooms made it to where we were siting. Pretty cool actually, they just sat down at a table in the room and starting playing. Anyway, those Uzbek teachers loved to dance, with eachother. Did I mention they were all men? I guess it's very common here, but was still definitely a site to behold.
Later in the evening I was walking back to my apartment. You can still smoke indoors in Uzbekistan so my eyes stinging a bit and I was rubbing them which I guess pushed my contacts out of place. I was walking through an underpass and thought, 'weird, the ground seems to be moving a bit.' I stopped, blinked for a few second to let me eyes clear and then I realized...cockroaches. Everywhere. I got through there pretty quick.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Halfway
Well that's half, or a little bit more than half actually. Excellent experience so far. Amazing how fast time passes. Seems about last week that I was standing in line at passport control here watching Canada win the gold medal game at the Olympics.
Hmmmmm....I'd say highlights so far have been the trip to Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, bowling (just because it seems to weird to do here) and just getting up every morning, walking out of my apartment and being in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan.
I don't think the next almost 3 months are going to see anything too too different. I very much want to get to Tajikistan. It's the only former Soviet Stan I haven't been too. It's close, bordering on Uzbekistan, but unfortunately the regimes to not have a good rapport and so there are no direct flights. Anyway, will just mean a bit of a longer drive, something for later June or July I think. I think that's probably going to be it for big trips. Apparently Tashkent will start to get progressively to the point of being unbearably right about the beginning of June. Good thing for air conditioning.
Anyway, it's been an astoundingly cultured week this week. On Tuesday I went to the Opera. It was Tosca in Russian. Ahhhh not a huge opera fan but the singing is certainly impressive. Yesterday the French Cultural Centre put on a concert by a classical guitar player, which was excellent. I guess all that's left is to go to the ballet....we'll see.
Hmmmmm....I'd say highlights so far have been the trip to Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, bowling (just because it seems to weird to do here) and just getting up every morning, walking out of my apartment and being in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan.
I don't think the next almost 3 months are going to see anything too too different. I very much want to get to Tajikistan. It's the only former Soviet Stan I haven't been too. It's close, bordering on Uzbekistan, but unfortunately the regimes to not have a good rapport and so there are no direct flights. Anyway, will just mean a bit of a longer drive, something for later June or July I think. I think that's probably going to be it for big trips. Apparently Tashkent will start to get progressively to the point of being unbearably right about the beginning of June. Good thing for air conditioning.
Anyway, it's been an astoundingly cultured week this week. On Tuesday I went to the Opera. It was Tosca in Russian. Ahhhh not a huge opera fan but the singing is certainly impressive. Yesterday the French Cultural Centre put on a concert by a classical guitar player, which was excellent. I guess all that's left is to go to the ballet....we'll see.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Swimming up a Mountain
About a week ago, I finally signed up for one of the hiking groups that takes, mostly ex-pats, out to the local mountains for hikes of varying degrees of difficulty. I mostly signed up because the hike offered this week by the group I signed up with was described as 'easy'. This morning I rolled outta bed about 6 (which is not that much fun on Saturday morning) and noticed that the sky was looking a little dark. I met up with the group, which was organized by a guy from the British Embassy. We met at his house and let me just say, 'wow'. Anyway, as we were gathering the sky started to open up and we stood in a sheltered part of the guy's courtyard wondering what we were gonna do. We decided to be adventurous and set off. About 2 hours and 2 thousand metres higher we arrived at the starting point for the hiking. The entire trip out to the mountain, the rain came down increasingly harder and harder and the path we set out on was now doubling as a waterfall. We met it about an hour in, to the snowline (yeesh) when the rain and wind got so hard and cold we had to back into it. That was enough. I don't recall the last time I was so wet. Anyway, still nice to get outta the city, if even for a few, very wet hours!
Monday, May 17, 2010
The One-Eyed Taxi Driver and Camel Riding
Last Friday I stumbled out of my apartment at about 620am to start my usual trek to the university for my morning Russian lesson. I walked out to the street to hail a taxi, which is really just pay-hitchhiking here, but was having a bit of trouble getting someone to stop. Most of the cars were already full and returning from the airport which is close to my place. A couple of guys standing by a car about 20 metres away saw me and one of them yelled, 'hey where are you going?'. I told him and he said he'd take me. I got into his car thinking, 'there's something funny about this guy.' We drive off and he turns around and says, 'have you noticed that I only have one eye pointing at his clearly glass right eye. I though, 'Oh my god, I'm going to die.' He sensed/saw my nervousness (read: terror) and said, 'ah don't worry I have been driving this road for years....although I can really only drive it early in the mornings now (read: when there're no cars on the road). I had him stop waaaaaaay before I usually get out. Yeesh.
This weekend, myself and a few others decided to go camel riding in the desert. So Saturday morning we hoped on the train to Navoi which is, well, somewhere in Uzbekistan, far far from Tashkent. After 6 hours, 4.5 of which we spent listening to excruciating Uzbek music videos (one of our group eventually complained that not everyone on the train was Uzbek so they were turned off) we arrived in Navoi. We did not yet have train tickets back but were hoping to be able to return to Tashkent Sunday evening.
The camel trekking camp operator met us at the station and said, 'well it's now a 3 hour ride into the desert to get to the camp and so we'll get there at 6pm. There's a train back at 9am and a train back at 9pm. I suggest you take the 9pm.' (which turned to out to be 10 hours- gah!). So we agreed and went to buy tickets. We got up to the front of the ticket line and said what we wanted, as if there were options and were told there were no tickets. Getting a bit worried the camel man (Radek) said, 'what do you mean.....oh right, we'll pay more.' 'Ok there's tickets.' So we settled up and headed off into the desert.
After a somewhat jarring right we arrived at Radek's enormous camp way out in the middle of nowhere. He has 15 big yurts (tents), a more permanent kitchen complex and some kind of lean-to areas for eating. Huge and he wouldn't really say how he was able to set up something like it in the middle of Uzbekistan. So we unpacked and headed out to ride the camels. It was a short trek and we were guided the whole time. Still pretty cool though. Yikes, they are not fragrant beasts, that's for sure.
That night we had dinner with Radek (most of the time). He son, step-son, wife and a few employees were there too but they mostly stuck to working while Radek liked to sit and, well, hargangue with his opinions about things. At one point he invited me to come back in the fall after the camp was closed for the winter to go hunting with him. He assured me that after you kill once, you can kill anything. I said, '....yeaaass I will....call you.' geez.
The next morning we woke up and drove out to a surprisingly large lake to do a bit of hiking around and have lunch. Interesting place, tons of turtles and a few big lizards (as well as lotsa small once). I mean the big ones were probably a metre long at most but a bit shocking when you're walking on your own and almost step on one.
We got back to the camp around 3, thinking that we had to leave around 6 to get to the train on time. The plan was to take us in one of the two camp jeeps- very old, very Soviet. At about 4 Radek's son went to drop of some garbage at the local dump. About an hour later Radek got a call from him saying the jeep had broken down. Radek to the rescue and about an hour later both jeeps came, barely, creaking back into camp. Radek and his employees then debated which jeep to take up back to the station in. Eventually the one that hadn't broken down was chosen although about 10 mins into the trip it started to leak water and overheat. At one point I had to sit in the driver's set with my foot on the gas while Radek went under the hood to, among other things, pour a whole bucket of water (begged from some people in a house we were passing) into....well, the place you pour water in a car. Radek got back in, we we asked, 'uh, is it bad'. His only response was, 'very bad'. So we were bit a nervous, especially because we could never tell if he was being serious.
At one point, later in the trip we were flagged to stop by the traffic police at the road block into Navoi. Radek slowed to a crawl but didn't want to stop...so he opened the door (windows don't roll down on those things) and said, 'I can't stop the car now, I'll come back!' They nodded, so I think he's pretty well known/connected
Anyway, we got to the station on time. 10 hours back. Geeeez. Seemed like the train was stopping every 5 minutes. This weekend, I'm staying in Tashkent.
This weekend, myself and a few others decided to go camel riding in the desert. So Saturday morning we hoped on the train to Navoi which is, well, somewhere in Uzbekistan, far far from Tashkent. After 6 hours, 4.5 of which we spent listening to excruciating Uzbek music videos (one of our group eventually complained that not everyone on the train was Uzbek so they were turned off) we arrived in Navoi. We did not yet have train tickets back but were hoping to be able to return to Tashkent Sunday evening.
The camel trekking camp operator met us at the station and said, 'well it's now a 3 hour ride into the desert to get to the camp and so we'll get there at 6pm. There's a train back at 9am and a train back at 9pm. I suggest you take the 9pm.' (which turned to out to be 10 hours- gah!). So we agreed and went to buy tickets. We got up to the front of the ticket line and said what we wanted, as if there were options and were told there were no tickets. Getting a bit worried the camel man (Radek) said, 'what do you mean.....oh right, we'll pay more.' 'Ok there's tickets.' So we settled up and headed off into the desert.
After a somewhat jarring right we arrived at Radek's enormous camp way out in the middle of nowhere. He has 15 big yurts (tents), a more permanent kitchen complex and some kind of lean-to areas for eating. Huge and he wouldn't really say how he was able to set up something like it in the middle of Uzbekistan. So we unpacked and headed out to ride the camels. It was a short trek and we were guided the whole time. Still pretty cool though. Yikes, they are not fragrant beasts, that's for sure.
That night we had dinner with Radek (most of the time). He son, step-son, wife and a few employees were there too but they mostly stuck to working while Radek liked to sit and, well, hargangue with his opinions about things. At one point he invited me to come back in the fall after the camp was closed for the winter to go hunting with him. He assured me that after you kill once, you can kill anything. I said, '....yeaaass I will....call you.' geez.
The next morning we woke up and drove out to a surprisingly large lake to do a bit of hiking around and have lunch. Interesting place, tons of turtles and a few big lizards (as well as lotsa small once). I mean the big ones were probably a metre long at most but a bit shocking when you're walking on your own and almost step on one.
We got back to the camp around 3, thinking that we had to leave around 6 to get to the train on time. The plan was to take us in one of the two camp jeeps- very old, very Soviet. At about 4 Radek's son went to drop of some garbage at the local dump. About an hour later Radek got a call from him saying the jeep had broken down. Radek to the rescue and about an hour later both jeeps came, barely, creaking back into camp. Radek and his employees then debated which jeep to take up back to the station in. Eventually the one that hadn't broken down was chosen although about 10 mins into the trip it started to leak water and overheat. At one point I had to sit in the driver's set with my foot on the gas while Radek went under the hood to, among other things, pour a whole bucket of water (begged from some people in a house we were passing) into....well, the place you pour water in a car. Radek got back in, we we asked, 'uh, is it bad'. His only response was, 'very bad'. So we were bit a nervous, especially because we could never tell if he was being serious.
At one point, later in the trip we were flagged to stop by the traffic police at the road block into Navoi. Radek slowed to a crawl but didn't want to stop...so he opened the door (windows don't roll down on those things) and said, 'I can't stop the car now, I'll come back!' They nodded, so I think he's pretty well known/connected
Anyway, we got to the station on time. 10 hours back. Geeeez. Seemed like the train was stopping every 5 minutes. This weekend, I'm staying in Tashkent.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The Kitchen Sink, Married with Children, Uzbek News in English and my Canadian Accent? Really?
While my apartment is nice to look at, the fixtures and appliances (wait, are those the same thing?)tend to be quite fragile. For example, about a month ago my kitchen sink stopped draining. It wasn't because of food being pushed down it but because the hose beneath had become twisted. Unfortunately, attempting to untwist the hose separated the hose from the pipe directly beneath the sneak....and the sink was still full of water. Dissapointing. I did manage to kind of push everything back together but this Tuesday while making dinner (yes, I was cooking), I heard a big thunk under the sink. The whole thing had come crashing down again. Fortunately, I realized when the problem first started that I am not a professional plumber and had stuck a bucket under the sink. Still a mess but not as bad. Anyway, I called my landlord and the next day the repair guy came over. He took one look at it, pulled out the piece of pipe directly below the sink and connected the hose that had originally been twisted directly to the wall pipe (not sure how to describe it) and the sink itself and that was that. I asked him what to do with the piece of pipe he'd pulled out and he said, 'ah put it in a box somewhere'.
I may have mentioned this before but there is currently a Russian remake of Married with Children. It's called 'Happy Together' and from what I've been told it's an epipode by episode remake (I don't remember the original that well). Anyway, I watched it a couple of times and the only real difference, other than the language and actors of course, is that it takes place in an apartment. I don't know, I think like watching Married with Children re-runs now, it's just not as funny as it was in 1989.
I usually flick right by the Uzbek channels, I think I get 3-4 of them. I mean I can't understand a word. Anyway, I couple of days ago I happened to pause for a second and realized that the 'news' anchor was sort of speaking English. Turns out my theory about Uzbek news was right...unbelievably boring and nothing is said.
And last....is there a Canadian accent? I mean maybe the people reading this aren't the most objective to ask but several times in the last few weeks people have mentioned my accent. I guess it's that whole pespective thing again, but when I ask about it the only answer I get is, 'you say roof and aboot!'
I may have mentioned this before but there is currently a Russian remake of Married with Children. It's called 'Happy Together' and from what I've been told it's an epipode by episode remake (I don't remember the original that well). Anyway, I watched it a couple of times and the only real difference, other than the language and actors of course, is that it takes place in an apartment. I don't know, I think like watching Married with Children re-runs now, it's just not as funny as it was in 1989.
I usually flick right by the Uzbek channels, I think I get 3-4 of them. I mean I can't understand a word. Anyway, I couple of days ago I happened to pause for a second and realized that the 'news' anchor was sort of speaking English. Turns out my theory about Uzbek news was right...unbelievably boring and nothing is said.
And last....is there a Canadian accent? I mean maybe the people reading this aren't the most objective to ask but several times in the last few weeks people have mentioned my accent. I guess it's that whole pespective thing again, but when I ask about it the only answer I get is, 'you say roof and aboot!'
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