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Uzbekistan Adventures
By mjavins
Uzbekistan had appealed to me ever since I'd gotten interested in the Silk Road in 1998. I'd visited Tabriz, Iran, and was fascinated by the intricate tilework and blue domes of the fifteenth-century Timurids.
Land of Mystery
"Uzbekistan was my favorite place to visit," said my friend Lynne, who has been to over sixty countries in a decade of avid traveling. My guidebook confirmed that her excitement was not unfounded. "Samarkand plus Bukhara and Khiva are virtual outdoor museums," it said, and the photos I saw left me salivating. Though the secular Soviets destroyed many of Central Asia's religious buildings, they fortunately recognized the value of ancient architectural and historical masterpieces. Not only did they leave Uzbekistan's most fantastic buildings intact, but restored and preserved them.
Uzbekistan was closed to mass tourism from the early 20th century until 1991, and the only tourism it encourages now involves 40 foreigners and a large bus. The country is largely untouched by tourism, and its cultural mix of Islam and Russian makes for a rare and exciting visit. No banana pancakes! No McDonald's! Raw, unique, a stable government, and filled with history. Uzbekistan is located due north of Afghanistan, and while the Great Game left South Asia squarely in the hands of the British, the Iron Curtain had snapped shut across Uzbekistan's southern border, rending it mysterious and remote for seventy years.
I was reminding myself of Uzbekistan's appeal as I stood in a small, windowless cement room in a Tashkent metro station, surrounded by corrupt policemen. Uzbek police shakedowns of independent travelers are well-documented on the internet, so I was not surprised. The police had my passport and appeared to be holding it hostage in exchange for my cooperation.
After an unpleasant confrontation I was shaken and unhappy, a far cry from the delighted tourist I'd been on the previous night. I had wandered the streets of Tashkent by day, and gone to an Uzbek opera at night. I loved Tashkent, with its cool weather, green trees, and wide boulevards. Tashkent was Muslim, but liberal in approach to dress, and the long-sleeved shirt I had brought along had stayed in my hotel room. The opera is a way of life in Uzbekistan, and caters to the poor as well as the rich. For $1.15, I watched La-Pharoni. I wasn't sure what the story was about, but had enjoyed the show, which seemed to be a combination of The Tempest and Lawrence of Arabia.
I got out of the capital quickly, and headed to the historic cities out west.
My first stop was Khiva, the perfectly-preserved walled city in remote western Uzbekistan. Parts of it date back to the 12th century, but most of it has been destroyed by time or fire, and much of Khiva is newer, built during 17th and 18th century Khanates. Most of the old city wall was destroyed in 1920 and rebuilt by the Soviets.
An Uzbek guide from nearby Urgench took me on a city tour. She surprised me by showing up in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. The local women all wore long cotton dresses and made me uncomfortable by staring at my legs. My knees were covered, but I was wearing trousers - an unusual sight on a woman in Khiva.
We toured palaces, museums, minarets, and medressas (ancient Islamic colleges). The city was mostly filled with busloads of tourists, as few people actually live in Khiva. No one may move into Khiva unless their ancestors live there or unless they marry into a family that already resides there. There was a single camel in the town, and his job was to pose for tourists. Wandering through a nearly-dead city, full of history but no people, was a strange experience.
Khiva was brown and tan, any color bleached out of it by the strong sun. But the ancient tile work was brilliant turquoise and blue, and the 218 carved wooden pillars of the shady "Jami Mosque" charmed me. My guide explained to me that women in Uzbekistan generally marry by age 20, but she herself was divorced, with one child. She also mentioned that many Uzbeks were concerned about the proximity and possible influence of the conservative Afghan government.
"Once the men in our government said that Uzbek women should wear the veil. So the women said, fine, then the men must shave their heads and wear traditional pantaloons. That was the last we heard of the veil."
The next day I caught a bus to Bukhara, discovering the hard way that Uzbekistan is not geared towards independent travelers. The hotel and local people could not believe that I wanted to take the public bus instead of a private taxi. Tourists just don't take public buses, I was told. It isn't comfortable, said the travel agents and hotel workers. Nevertheless, I convinced a Swiss couple to join me and we found public transport to Urgench, taking a Bukhara-bound bus from there. The price difference was $58 each.
The Uzbeks on the bus were delighted to have tourists on board. They tore through my phrasebook, asking questions and smiling whenever we managed to communicate. We drove through a tiny corner of Turkmenistan, but it was uneventful. One of the swarthy passengers had an Abba tape, which he put on the bus stereo, and everyone had a great time over the nine-hour ride to Bukhara.
The old section of Bukhara is a maze, filled with tiny, anonymous dirt passageways. I spent an hour trying to find my guesthouse, until a Russian restaurant worker at the Lyabi-Hauz - the square man-made pool in the center of town - took pity on me and helped me to find my hotel. It had no sign, the alley it was in was unnamed, and I had walked past it a half-dozen times.
I spent four days in Bukhara, exploring the 300-year old Jewish merchant's quarter and shopping for silk carpets. The old city, unlike Khiva, was completely inhabited. Some of the minarets and medressas were museums, but many of the mosques were active. And most of the museums, far from being sterile sights, were inhabited by entrepreneurs anxious to sell silk and spices to the busloads of tourists.
Unfortunately, not many of the entrepreneurs have set up restaurants. Uzbekistan is tough on vegetarians and anyone trying to eat vaguely healthy. Meat-on-a-stick is the meal of choice in Bukhara, and it is sold in only a few locations around town. I arrived one night at an ex-bathhouse-turned-restaurant and begged them to make me a salad. Whenever the staff saw me after that, they greeted me in Russian with "hello, vegetarian!"
Moving on from Bukhara again proved to be difficult. No one knew where to catch the bus, or if there was a bus. Surely tourists should take private cars! On the day of my planned departure, after arguing with my travel agent over the exorbitant fees they charged for booking me into three hotels, I went to the bus station. I caught a shared taxi to the next town, where I found a shared taxi to a second town, where I negotiated passage to Samarkand in a Peugeot.
The Registan of Samarkand is ostentatious and spectacular in its massive size and grand Timurid architecture. Some have called it "Central Asia's Taj Mahal," and it is worthy of the tag. There are three giant medressas on a square, all excessively tiled with different styles of zig-zagging brilliant blue and tan ceramics. The east and west medressas feature double minarets, which the guard allows tourists to climb for a small fee. The middle medressa was flanked by two turquoise-domed towers. All three medressas featured grand blue domes and exquisitely detailed interiors. One medressa is unique in that it features images of lions - Islam art forbids the representation of living things, which is why the art is usually stylized beyond recognition. Vendors inhabited all the old student rooms on the ground floors, selling their souvenirs and Uzbek wares.
Samarkand, and all of Uzbekistan, is the near outdoor-museum my guidebook had claimed it was. But I was tired after ten days in the country. The sun was merciless, the hotels were pricey and not good value as there was no competition, it was hard to get information about public transport, and I was tired of eating meat-on-a-stick. Exhausted, I went back to Tashkent where I spent two days dodging the police.
Later, I asked my friend Lynne about her trip of a lifetime to Uzbekistan. I had loved the art and architecture but could only recommend solo travel there if someone was ready for the challenge of forging blindly out into the great unknown.
"When you went to Uzbekistan," I asked Lynne. "Did you go by yourself?"
"No, I went with my boyfriend on a group tour. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason," I replied. She had an easier time in Uzbekistan than me, and had traveled to more countries than I had, but I got to party to Abba on an Uzbek public bus.
