#1 Practically every car is a white Chevrolet……and that really is no exaggeration
#2 Hardly any petrol or diesel. Most of the cars have been converted to run on gas. In Bukhara we had to queue for 1 1/2 hours to fill up 🙁
#3 Many of the buildings are painted creams, magnolias – think too of Angel Delight butterscotch
#4 Many farmers are forced to grow cotton (a legacy from the Soviet Union days) even though the climate and soil conditions don’t really lend themselves to the crop.
#5 All tourists exchange dollars on the black market – the exchange rate is practically twice as good as the official exchange rate
#6 The men, especially the older generation, wear long dark blue padded coats that look a bit like dressing gowns
#7 There is endless flat desert in Uzbekistan stretching east from Bukhara all the way to the Caspian Sea
#8 There are some very friendly cats
#9 There are quite a few housing estates where the houses are all identical – think Edward Scissorhands….and yes…they’re all magnolia
#10 Some stunning, if over renovated, old buildings in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva (see my blog Building with Botox!)