Outside, standing at the same Kazakh polluted border we had arrived at and got harassed the previous night, we quickly flagged down a Lada, and agreed a price to take us to the nearest town.
Why hadn’t we just asked the guy to take us all the way to Uzbekistan?
Simple, the car was a bucket and the guy was drunk. Not falling over drunk but you could smell it on him.
So, we agreed $10 and off we went. His driving was crazy, and he then tried in broken English to double the price.
Within five miles, we’d had enough, told him to stop as we were getting out. I gave him the $10 and he pulled over.
As we got out, the guy grabbed my mate’s bag and wouldn’t let it go. Now my mate’s a big guy, so I just looked at the drunk man and said, “You’re brave!”
After thirty seconds of shouting the driver calmed down, accepted the original price and on we drove.
We parted company with our drunk driver in the town of Merki, took another taxi to Taras a couple of hours away (where we stocked up on water and bananas).
The last leg was the biggie – approx 350ks to the Uzbek border, but after bargaining in a café we easily got a nice guy with a decent car and agreed on $80.
It was, though, a long, slow drive which took us about five hours.
Indescribable vehicle pollution gave us both serious heads and we also had to endure a couple of emergency roadside diarrhoea stops. Eventually the border came into view, jams of cars right across the road, it looked like utter chaos.
We thanked and paid our driver who waved us off, smiled and shook his head at us (interesting that people from these countries all think we’re mad to go into the next country, which in their mind is of course always worse than their own country.)
We walked up to the border, cleared the Kazakh side no problem, then headed towards a set of huge locked gates and the official border to The Republic of Uzbekistan.
It was very Islamic. It even had an Arabic feel to it. Inside customs, loads of official paperwork had to be filled in and I had some problems as a customs guy wasn’t happy with my mine and made me fill the things in all again.
I bit my tongue and just did it. A few more stamps on various pieces of paper and we were granted entry into Uzbekistan.
Thankfully, the capital Tashkent was only around 20ks away so we quickly agreed a price with a driver and headed to the city centre.
He was a great guy, and even drove in past his flat to pick up his fifteen-year-old son who spoke English and would want to chat with us. A dictatorship country certainly, but very friendly locals to the few souls who make it here.
We were now travelling in our third country in 24 hours, both almost defeated, sweating like beasts, full of pollution and sore heads so were very grateful when we finally checked into a cheap hotel for the night.
To put you in the picture re Uzbekistan – Human Rights Watch 2014 report says that Uzbekistan’s human rights record is “abysmal”. Freedom of expression is severely limited, while forced labour of adults and children continues. State run torture is endemic.
As a visitor you do not under any circumstances openly criticise the regime. Never get into political discussions with a local as you have no idea who they are and they may inform on you.
Loose lips sink ships as they used to say. In other words – keep yer trap shut Georgie and your political opinions to yourself!
Despite our tiredness, we both slept really badly, our room being right on a noisy street, and of course the 40-year-old air con didn’t work so it was like sleeping in a sauna. Never mind, in the morning I had my first shower for three days and changed my pants! Excellent!
We spent the day wandering Tashkent, but the heat was stifling, so we took refuge in the stunning Metro.
There was also a very strong and noticeable police presence everywhere and my gut feeling was – I have no desire to cross these guys. We went online for an hour to catch up on news but couldn’t get access to any BBC sites from any search engine. All totally blocked by the Uzbek government…
The money? Insane. Thousands of Soms to the £. I changed sterling, euros, dollars, and got back a third of a million soms. The highest value note is worth around 35p so I had a wad of cash, I kid you not. Worst thing is, everything is so cheap which means you never seem to be able to get rid of the stuff.
At 6pm we boarded a train for a four-hour journey through the deserts of Uzbekistan, which felt like going back in time with each mile travelled. The train was like a furnace and half the country’s population and their worldly goods seemed to join us for the ride.
As I sat, rivers of sweat ran down me and I wondered what it would be like when we reached our destination of Samarkand?
Little did I know, the temperature there would push 122F.
NEXT WEEK: The land that time forgot.