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We’re packing a big old wedge in Uzbekistan! Not the result of a successful drug deal, but what you get if you change £100.
With the cost of most things being in the 100,000s we’re quite paranoid about accidentally overpaying by a factor of 10!
Bukhara, the second stop on our uber-tourist tour of Uzbekistan. There are literally more madresses and mosques here than you can shake a stick at. It’s took all the resolve I could muster to remain focussed over the day. Plus a lot of beer stops.
As you’ll recall from Part One, rather than attempt to take Brian into Uzbekistan, we packed him on his merry way to Atyrau, a small city in the far western part of Kazakhstan that we would be driving through on our way to Russia. It cost us $150 and was worth every cent just for the piece of mind.
So, with Brian safely on the hands of DHL, we rocked up early to the Tajikistan/Uzbekistan border the next morning without a care in the world. As we left the Tajikistan side and approached the Uzbekistan side of the border the gun toting guards became more frequent and the barbed wire sharper. And when I saw the huge van that X-rays cars I knew we had done the right thing posting Brian. Honestly, if we had had Brian in the car, I would have had a nervous breakdown. As I kept saying to Captain – Uzbekistan is: fundamentally a police state; in a period of political turmoil with the recent death of its long standing President and is a country with one of the worst human rights record in the world ……. what the hell were we even thinking considering smuggling a drone in?
It is against the law for any foreigner to take a drone into Uzbekistan so we always knew that Brian (our drone) was going to be problematic! Being optimistic people we decided that we’d solve the problem ‘nearer the time.’ And being also procrastinators (well mostly Captain) we found ourselves with only two days until our visa started to ‘solve the problem.’
We had two options:
Our time in Uzbekistan is going to be a bit of a whistle-stop tour as we have an immovable date at the Russian border on November 16th. So, for a change, we’re going to behave like proper tourists and only stop off at the 3 or 4 places you’re meant to stop at when in Uzbekistan.
First up is the ancient city of Samarkand.
Founded somewhere around 5BC, it steadily became an important crossroad on the silk route. By the 14th century Samarkand was quite the metropolis and many large medressas and mosques were built. Despite the region’s geological instability (think earthquakes!) and years as a part of the Soviet Union, many of the structures have survived to this very day.
As our journey continues, so too does our meteoric rise to fame!
Thanks to Frome Times 🙂
For most of the time we were in Tajikistan poor old Brian was stuck in his box. To begin with it was too windy; then we were alongside the Afghan border and flying him didn’t seem like the cleverest idea!!
So, instead of a video full of beautiful footage from Tajikistan, you’ve got a video of us going about our daily chores that just happened to be filmed in Tajikistan! Kind of a ‘day in the life’…. that keen-eyed continuity buffs will spot wasn’t actually filmed in a single day!
Watching all the footage again makes us both feel sad that this part of the trip is over.
I have no idea if this is a traditional thing or a new thing…in fact, I know nothing about it and I won’t pretend that I do.
But, from what I’ve seen in Central Asia, it seems that there is some sort of wedding custom that involves a fleet of cars. Yes, I hear you bemoan, the bride turning up in a car and then alighting from said car is also part of the Western tradition too. But I retort…does it involve someone sitting in the boot of a car (with the boot wide open I hasten to add) holding a huge movie camera while recording the entire drive? Does it involve several cars driving around and around town with hazards flashing; gleeful and frequent beeping; donutting; people lunging out of car windows; drones circulating above recording every move?
Now lets just hope they don’t crash 😉
