Uzbekistan 10/08/26

The drive to Samarkand was indeed long and arduous. We had to find a shared taxi, and Jusso cut a path through the drivers crowding round us by being huge and shouting FUCK OFF and DAVAI. Surprisingly, we ended up getting a very good price for a taxi.

I got to know Jusso better in the taxi. He told me about the opioid and crystal meth and cannabis and speed and Chinese research chemical habits he’d beaten back home. He was training to be a computer scientist, in fact he was supposed to currently be in classes right now, and used to be a plumber. He was one of the more mundane characters I travelled alongside in Uzbekistan.

SAMARKAND

I had been excited to go to Samarkand and soak in it’s cultural significance as the heart of the silk road for a long time. We arrive in the evening and head to see Registan Square lit up and go for food with some people from the hostel. We arrive back at the hostel and it is here we meet Sahar. More background on him to follow. Jusso wants one quick drink in a bar. We go over the road to a bar with a contingent. The bar is like a badly decorated living room from 2008. Sahar speaks some russian so we make friends with a group of uzbek men. They look mid 40s but tell us they’re in their 20s and I’m unsure if it’s a lifestyle or a translation issue. They teach us how to drink the bar’s home made cognac with cherry liqueur as chaser. You can smoke inside. We leave a few hours after the bar closes.

The next morning we saw a few sights in the city. The necropolis was the best. We also go to a bazaar and the guys on stalls show us magic tricks. We walk into a fancy hotel and sit by their pool all day, until Jusso gets irate that we aren’t doing anything cultural, bizarrely, and so we go to the Necropolis, which is actually very cool. We then repeat the trick of getting blasted at the same bar and I almost miss my train to Bukhara. Me and Jusso must part ways here. I tell the closed curtain across his bunk what a privilege it’s been to travel with him, and he pushes a hand through the curtain for me to shake and tells me he has a headache.

BUKHARA

Many of the brigade from the hostel are also at the same hostel in Bukhara.

The blog must now descend into cliche where I say it’s all about the people you meet, because I had the most fun here just ‘hanging out’. We saw the sights of Bukhara in about 4 hours and I’m none the wiser on their cultural or historical significance so we spend the next few days sitting in cafes talking with an additional rotation of more characters. We do try and find a pool, like the fancy hotel in Samarkand, but instead go to a public swimming pool with only local blokes in that smells like cock and shit.

So, yes, Uzbekistan is really about the people. I spent a lot of time with Jusso, ‘The Juice’. We could talk for hours, mainly because he’s not averse to thinking for a good 2 minutes before replying. I asked him how he learnt such great English and he told me from playing Grand Theft Auto V online. It makes sense as I enjoy hearing the hideously offensive phrases that come from his mouth in a lyrical Finnish accent. He mainly enjoys pressganging people in a hostel into playing a card game called Bullshit, the rules of which he has adjusted to make sure you drink more, and often rigs the game so he’s the one that has to drink from the vodka, beer and wine he keeps handy round the table.

Another notable character was Saha. I’ve never met anyone with the same charisma, energy and ability to bring a room together. He was Jewish, moving to Israel. I realised I’d only known one Jewish person (a girl at school who incidentally was also lovely), but I had prejudices from people, from media and current events. He challenged them though his presence. We didn’t talk about Israel/Palestine because it was irrelevant, we were just two guys. What it did make me realise is that everyone is intensely proud of their heritage and culture, because it is home and life to them, and that this is both a human flaw or something great about us at the same time.

TASHKENT

I’d booked a hostel that was very clean, comfortable and modern. This meant it was not sociable at all. You can have a pleasant living environment or you can meet other people when travelling in hostels, you can not have both.

“Come to my hostel, it is sociable and has a pool” Jusso said. He has been in Tashkent for 3 days already. I cancel my remaining nights and move to Jusso’s hostel. I arrive at the hostel’s social area, which is barren, save for Jusso. Don’t go in the pool, says Jusso, someone went in yesterday and got the water in their mouth and was sick.

Naturally, we see absolutely nothing in Tashkent besides walking around two markets. We briefly see Tashkent’s version of Disneyland, but it closes as The Juice wanted to drink beers before, and we head back to our hostel with some guys to drink more beers and play cards.

Overall, I had a very good time in Uzbekistan, even though I didn’t see very much of it. Now, I’m leaving Central Asia and heading to Sri Lanka.