Greg and Mandy's Travels

Restaurants in central Asia are different to the west. In the west, a restaurant is one big room with lots of tables. In central Asia, a restaurant is a series of rooms off a corridor or central area. Bit like a hotel corridor. Each dinner party has their own room. 

It’s great. It’s quieter and you can hear others talk. For a group like ours, we can have a single conversation, or the tour leader can talk about the next day. A family group can sing Happy Birthday, or a couple can whisper sweet nothings.

Last night there would have been 30 rooms in our restaurant over two floors. Tonight there were 8 on our floor and goodness knows how many more elsewhere. Better than being in a crowded, noisy restaurant back home. 

Our hotel in Panjakent was only completed in April, but it’s crappy. Everybody came down to the lobby with a laundry list of things missing, things not working and things broken. But it was only one night, and they were obviously trying. 

A great example of unintended consequences.  In Tajikistan there are 3 reasons to be excused from compulsory military service – firstly you can be a full time student, secondly you can have two or more children, and lastly you can be the only son in a family. So guess what happens as a consequence? Everybody goes to college for 5 years, marries in first year, and pops out two kids before they graduate. Problem solved – well, at least till they turn two. 

Off to cross another border – this time to Uzbekistan. 

Usual circus at the border with all the locals swarming the gates waiting for arrivals, but blocking people who were leaving from getting through. In the end, our bus just barged through the crowd. Border formalities were straight forward and took around 40 minutes all up. No tests or vaccination certificates required. 

Full size bus. Luxury!

Our Turkmenistan guide was candid. “If you lose your car in Europe, you might see it later here in Turkmenistan.” They import large numbers of used cars, which is the only way most people can afford them, though having roads full of old cars does nothing for their pollution. However, here in Uzbekistan the government has put an exorbitant tax on imported cars to protect the local car industry. They manufacture Chevrolets under license at 12 local factories, so 95% of cars are Chevrolet. They make 12 models of cars and vans of all sizes, including mini delivery vans, and they all seem to be white.

Uzbekistan seems to be a more modern and affluent country. Most of their signs have the Uzbek words written in Latin letters rather than Cyrillic. 

Finally we are back on the Silk Road proper. The traders came down the Fergana Valley that we visited a few days ago in the east, through Tashkent and Samarkand which we be visiting shortly, before getting here to Bukhara then westwards on to Khiva, and eventually to Istanbul. Unfortunately this is as far west as we go on this trip.

Our hotel is in the middle of the old city of Bukhara, and only a few minutes walk from all the main sites. The original settlement is many thousands of years old, but the current city dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries. Unfortunately that warrior called Genghis Khan, who was both admired and feared, razed the city in the 14th century, only leaving the minaret intact. The madrasa, the mosque, the square, and all the trading buildings were reconstructed in the 16th century after the Mongol empire was no longer dominant.

In the afternoon we did a walking tour from our hotel, seeing the minaret, madrasa (Islamic school), mosque, market, baths and caravanserai (the ancient hotel for the traveling traders). The madrasa still has around 140 boys from 14 and upwards, but the mosque is under reconstruction, and is not currently functioning.

Later on we walked down to the main square and had dinner on the rooftop of a local restaurant, where the main course was slow-cooked in individual clay pots. Then enjoyed the floodlight main square on the way back.

Karavan Hotel, Bukhara