The past two months have been interesting as well as eye opening in a multitude of ways. There have been restrictions with the freedoms and choices that I am accustomed to. I knew it going it, but it does tend to wear you down at times. Simple things like a good cup of coffee, a cold beer or having a conversation who was not terrified because I was not a Muslim, when there was a woman to talk to. I am not talking about "hitting on some young hottie with hopeful gains". I am talking about being around dudes "All the freaking time" who are so used to living in a womanless social environment, that when a woman does enter their area (usually a tourist), they shut down and basically flee. What a life.
Nonetheless, due to the debacle in Pakistan, I managed to turn a 2 hour direct flight from Islamabad to Tashkent into a 9 hour journey from Islamabad to Tashkent via Dubai and now here I sit in Samarkand Uzbekistan, right in the heart of the Ancient Silk Road.
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| I was happy to see this welcome sign |
I was advised to plan my Uzbek trip the best I could and book all my tickets online well beforehand as they do sell out fast, so that is what I did. They were cheap enough, anywhere between $10 and $15 but 6 of them suddenly started to add up. My personal victory? I landed in Tashkent late on June 30th, checked in and then found an Irish pub. I got up early and the hostel provided a real nice breakfast buffet. I ordered an Uber who dropped me off in front on an old Soviet Style train station with 15 minutes to spare. I showed my ticket to a few workers who directed me to my train and I was in seat 40 on car number 8 with 10 minutes to spare. A small victory that put me back on track. I will take it.
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| Tashkent Train Station |
Canadians are visa exempt into Uzbek. The only questions I was asked was about my Afghanistan visa. The border/immigration guy wanted to know what it was like to visit there. He stamped my passport, my rucksack was one of the first to arrive and my airport pickup with there with his sign Kun Weiss, close enough. I was warned by my hostel that the taxi drivers will grab you as you leave the airport, some might even grab your legs. Yes, they were all over me, except the leg thing. My pickup was $10US and yes I could have found a taxi for about $3 to $4 but get me out of there. It was the best $10 I could have spent. The driver knew no English, I spoke no Uzbek or Russian so the ride was silent but not uncomfortable. I was checked into the Al Arda Avenue and out the door in about 30 minutes, to the Irish Pub for my first beer in 52 days. It was called Sarbast, an unfiltered Lager, and it was so good I had three. Total cost for three pints, 105,000 som, about $11.50 Canadian and I was told this was an expensive place. It was nice, but it was Russians trying way too hard to run an Irish Pub.
Fast forward to an uneventful three hour train ride from Tashkent to Samarkand. Remember, I now have no earbuds so I could not even zone out to the best of my musical listening ability. The touts and taxi drivers were just as aggressive as the airport in Tashkent, but manageable. I had ordered an Yandex (Uber) and almost every taxi driver told me that the app does not work and the taxi will not arrive, even as I was getting in my Yandex. The crazy thing is that the Yandex rides are cheap, I mean super cheap. It was just over $2 and the ride from the Train Station to my hostel was about 30 minutes with traffic. So, Yandex it is, although everything I want to see and do in Samarkand it within walking distance from what I saw on Google Maps.
First things first, and much like Tashkent, I know there is a pub and a cold beer somewhere near by, and I am going to find it.