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Thursday and Friday in Uzbekistan, Khiva – Tashkent
– Yesterday in Khiva was actually relatively uneventful, just a laidback day of wandering through the old mud-brick city center, and the various mosques and medrassas that have been converted into museums. At one point though, I stepped in wet concrete and had to spend half an hour in a public bathroom rinsing that off of my shoes. There were no markings or signs pointing out that the concrete was wet – in fact, the guy who had done the work was away for a moment to collect some bricks that would serve as markers, but of course, he does that AFTER finishing up, not before or during the work. The only reason I realized the guy was nearby, was the fact he cursed me out for ruining the concrete. Well, let’s just say he could’ve easily prevented that.
FLYING BACK TO TASHKENT
– In the evening I was off to Urgench Airport, about 35 kilometers north of Khiva, for my domestic Uzbekistan Airways flight to Tashkent, which was…..interesting. I get to the airport well over 3 hours ahead of my 10 PM flight, mainly because when I bought the ticket the language barrier with the sales agent was too much to confirm whether the ticket was confirmed, so I figured I’d allow a little extra time incase something would come up. First step to entering the terminal was pushing and shoving my way through a crowd of 40-something people standing in front of a ridicously out-of-place outdoors security check, with one narrow, less than a metre wide door, opening into a tiny shed serving as the only entrance to the airport property. That’s not the actual security check, it’s just two police officers performing a half-hearted passport check while ignoring the pointless metal detector going off because of your about-to-be-checked-in bags. After you complete this security “check”, you may walk up to the door of the terminal where, surprise, there’s another security check to enter the actual terminal, this one however more serious than the first, as there’s a separate bag scanner. All information displays inside the terminal indicated that Uzbekistan 58 to Tashkent was on time for 10 PM, so I make my way over to the check-in counter.
-The check-in agent informs me that the flight is actually delayed until about 11:30 PM and check-in will not commence until 10 PM. At this point it’s 7:15 PM and I haven’t had dinner, so I go back to the entrance hall of the terminal where there were signs for a “kafe”. The café turned out to be two chairs with plastic tables in front of a counter, behind which were half-empty shelves with a couple of water bottles and a pair each of Snickers and Mars candy bar display boxes. Sure, “you’re not you when you’re hungry, eat a Snickers”, but I wasn’t in the mood for a dinner consisting of a half dozen chocolate bars, and even if I was, there was not one person in the café at all to sell them to me.
-I drag my suitcases back out in the breezy cold and offer a taxi driver 10.000 Uzbek Som (1.25 USD) to take me to literally any nearby restaurant in Urgench. The Uzbek word for restaurant is “restoran”, so there’s little misunderstanding of that, but the taxi driver was so confused to see someone exiting an airport with bags, that he asked me at least three times to confirm I didn’t need a hotel. Nope, I’m just hungry.
-Thankfully the taxi driver took me to an restaurant that had pictures on the menu, because I must admit I have been too lazy to learn every letter of the Cyrillic alphabet before going on this trip, so I can’t fully decode a menu, and the staff spoke not one word of English. They did however have WiFi, so I was able to send an e-mail to my B&B in Tashkent that I was expecting to arrive at 2-3 AM. After a cheap dinner it was back to the airport, and at this point, 8:30 PM, there was no line for the double security check to enter the airport terminal.
-At around 10 PM check-in begins, with Uzbekistan 58, the only departure to Tashkent that evening, still being indicated as “on time”. I was now to find out that Uzbekistan Airways ruined what I had looked forward to as one of the highlights of the entire trip. I was super excited about the chance to fly on the very rare Ilyushin Il-114, only operated by Uzbekistan Airways with a production numbering no more than 20 aircraft. With no prior warning to this, I was issued a boarding pass for Uzbekistan 18, so essentially they had rewritten the flight number on my reservation, to use a flight number that isn’t scheduled for Thursdays (but on other days), perhaps as an excuse to depart at a later time, and much worse, to change the aircraft to a plain and boring Airbus A320.
-The Urgench-Tashkent route that night was never served by an Uzbekistan Airways flight 58, being operated instead by Uzbekistan 18, the second leg of a Nukus-Urgench-Tashkent journey for that aircraft. I usually make a point out of flying domestic once with local airlines when I travel, to try them out and to cross them off the list, and it’s an experience that in 2nd and 3rd world countries almost always involves below-average service and delays. We landed in Tashkent just around an hour late, so that wasn’t too bad, but I still am quite upset that they swapped out the Ilyushin for an Airbus. Sure, the Airbus A320 is faster than the Ilyushin turboprop and it’s a newer aircraft, but I’m sure most of you can figure out which aircraft I had rather flown.
-I eventually got to my B&B at around 1:30 AM, and the outside gate was closed, and locked. Initially I thought maybe the B&B wasn’t actually expecting me until 2-3AM as per my e-mail, or that they maybe weren’t expecting me at all, but a couple of knocks on the door and rings of the doorbell brought out the owner of the place, albeit in his night robes. Phew.
exploring TASHKENT
-Today I’ve been in Tashkent, an interesting city for it’s mainly Soviet architecture mixed in with new government offices from the post-Soviet independence. There’s also something really strange about seeing Soviet apartments with Samsung smart phone ads on the side of them. Tashkent was a complete change from Khiva’s mud-brick old town, particularly because today’s Tashkent is mainly a rebuild after a devastating earthquake in 1966 that left hundreds of thousands homeless. It’s easy getting around Tashkent, thanks to the metro which was initially built during the Soviet days.
-In true Soviet style, the metro stations are decorated with all kinds of murals, one example being “Космонавтлар” (Kosmonavtlar), a station with murals of astronomers and Soviet cosmonauts, such as Yuri Gagarin. I’d love to show you plenty of pictures, but due to tight security measures, pictures are strictly forbidden, and there’s plenty of police officers to enforce that rule. I managed to sneak a pic of one of the murals, depicting Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov, who was actually born and raised in Tashkent, and it was mostly in his honor that this particular metro station was designed with an outer space theme.
KOREAN FOOD IN UZBEKISTAN
-Tashkent has a significant ethnic Korean population numbering thousands, mostly due to Joseph Stalin’s 1930s policy of forced relocation of Koreans away from the Russian/Korean border regions, so for lunch I had some delicious 불고기 (bulgogi). I usually try to stick to local food, so for dinner I went to a place called “National Food”, a very Uzbek restaurant where locals flock in large numbers and simply order Uzbek staples off the top of their mind, as this place has no menu. I went with “naryn”, a local speciality that consists of cold noodles served with horse meat. My apologies to all the animal lovers and horse riders I know, but different cultures makes for different types of cuisine, and as the saying goes, “when in Rome…”
-Tomorrow will essentially be my last day in Tashkent and Uzbekistan. Technically it depends on whether I clear immigration and get exit-stamped before or after midnight at Tashkent Airport, for my early Sunday morning flight to Istanbul. That Turkish Airlines flight has easily got the absolute worst departure time that I have ever experienced. What was I thinking when I booked a 4 AM flight?
Originally posted on my private Facebook account on November 3, 2017.
