Bukhara

Disappointed in the construction site that I found at Samarqand, I hit the road and decided to make my way further into the desert of this wild and inexplicable country. This led to a total fiasco at the bus stand where we were the victims of racial discrimination in that we were not permitted to board the bus until it was clear that there were not enough Uzbeks to fill it. I got a little pissed, but Daniel lost it. After a couple more attempts on a couple more buses, we finally decided that the only option was to take a shared taxi. The price was negotiated, fixed, then elevated significantly and inexplicably.

As a result, Daniel had had enough and decided to go back to the capital, Tashkent (the city of the dead – like where is the action in a police state?). In a rash but understandable decision, he snapped and decided, get the hell outta here, to book a flight to Tehran and forget about hassles, visas and insipid taximen. As his Uzbek experience was drawing to a close, mine was picking up steam.

We rocketed over the busted up highway toward Bukhara with a couple of babushkas and an Uzbek guy in the back. The scenery consisted mainly of cotton fields and deserts. Cotton is an especially thirsty crop to plant in the desert, one of the main reasons behind the disappearance of the Aral sea. The inexplicable landscape was uninspiring at best and my thoughts began to drift. I feel weary and tired of moving around all the time. It may fall on unsympathetic ears, but I feel as if I have to find a place to relax for a while and recharge my batteries. But not yet:

The driver stopped halfway and we switched cars. I refused to pay because we had not reached our destination. While I was in the toilet, the driver took off, and when I returned a new driver told me that I could just pay him the entire sum. Strange but relatively simple right? No.

The new driver stopped a good 15 km short of the city limits and announced that we had arrived. Once he began demanding money, I responded by putting my hand to my brow, peering into the distance and repeating “Bukhara Where?” over and over. I think that the humiliation was growing stronger, but he was obviously not going to get off his fat ass to do anything about it. Instead of worrying about further renegotiation, I asked a nearby cabbie how much he wanted to go the rest of the way into town. For once, I took pleasure in hearing an exorbitant tourist price: I deducted the amount from the original fare, shrugged my shoulders and said goodbye to fatass, to whom gestured with humility and offered many thanks. Nice to come out ahead sometimes.

I hate to fill the blog with tales of bargaining and negotiation, but alas, this is the principal activity that seems to occupy my days in this pitiful place. It could be so much and such a wonderful experience. It is destroyed by incompetence and corruption on all levels, where restaurant bills have to be renegotiated even after the food is finished.

My perseverance paid off as Bukhara is like an oasis of ancient Islamic architecture in the middle of the Uzbek desert. Sure all of the buildings are carpet shops, and vendors quote ridiculous prices for everything, but the town is beautiful and the old buildings are compact, forming a skyline of colourful domes and minarets. Walking the streets at night is magic.

It’s disappointing to move through a place like this without encountering more than a handful of friendly locals. People are rude, and always on the prowl for tourist cash. This has been my experience, and is confirmed at virtually every interaction I have, not to mention in the stories that circulate round the guesthouse in the evening.

One exception to this has been the Uzbek guy with whom I shared the cab over here. He seems to be in the process of destroying himself with smokes and booze, but is a really nice guy. In fact, he followed me to my hotel on the first day and has refused to allow me to pay for anything ever since. The story is that he was deported back here after twenty years working in other countries, and I suspect that this has created a profound depression. He hates it here, and complains more about Uzbekistan than anyone that I have met.

When we ate dinner, he attempted to fix me up with our waitress. I don’t know what he said, but she took a quick look at me and offered a very brief response in the negative. He was half pissed on vodka, but informed me that she did not like me because I get in lots of fights. I don’t know what the hell gave her that idea, but I wasn’t terribly interested to begin with, so I took the rejection in stride. We then took a taxi that detoured four or five kilometres around the 500 metre route back to the hotel on account of the fact that I didn’t know what I was talking about, i.e. the drunk knew better.

The guesthouse is a great building, hundreds of years old with arches in the wall and Islamic writing over the arches. The courtyard is a square in the centre with shady trees, and over a dozen wooden double-doors which open into large rooms with high ceilings. If only there was a functional shower and the toilet were not clogged...

I am happy that this place has been such a pleasant surprise. It is such a welcome relief after the disappointment that was Samarqand, and Uzbek “hospitality” in general. I hope to be back here on the eve of my 31st birthday to kick back and relax, missing friends and family on the shady streets under colourful Medressas.

Soon I will be on my way to Moscow, standing at customs as officials inspect the ridiculous scraps of paper in my passport, the registration slips for a bunch of crappy hotels. Hours later will be customs again, and hopefully the end of the corrupt and idiotic bureaucracy that I have been dealing with of late. At least for a while. I am flying the vast distance on account of ridiculous visa complications and the three days of my life that would have expired on a post-soviet rail journey through a barren wasteland. From there it is south, just south, until the land ends and so does my journey. Thousands of miles and a world away from here.