August 10, 2011
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The Silk Road (Sort Of) Overland
Sunday 7 August 2011
When I took a taxi to the train station this morning, I realise my idea of Bukhara having a small-town feel was somewhat misguided. The taxi took me through street after street with modern buildings with lots of shops. Funny to discover that this large and modern area of the city lay just outside my Lonely Planet map.
This morning’s train journey to Tashkent was uneventful. I had a first-class ticket this time, but I think the second-class train ride two days ago was on a better train. We had no air-conditioning to speak of, which surprised me since my ticket was, after all, a first-class ticket. Another thing that annoyed me was that the restaurant car didn’t have any cold Coke (Why should I pay USD 1.20 for a small bottle of lukewarm Coke?!). The minute buffet-style restaurant didn’t seem to offer more than cold drinks, and if your job is to sell cold drinks, I would imagine your job description is rather straightforward, probably looking something like this:
- Make sure you have drinks to sell.
- Make sure they are cold.
I had to wait for three hours before we reached Samarkand, where I found a no-fuss lady entrepreneur walking up and down the platform selling cold drinks. We were also delayed by one hour, so after eight hours in a non-A/C environment, I felt rather grumpy.
Oh, I almost forgot. About four and a half hours after we left Bukhara, the train drove through an area of mountains that looked very much like Oman. I took a lot of pictures.
Bahrom met me at the train station, he helped me to get a hotel and then we went to his and Sevara’s flat for dinner. Bahrom tried to de-grumpify me the whole way there, but didn’t really succeed (I’m ashamed to say – Bahrom is a good de-grumpifier).
Sevara had prepared a wonderful dinner and we were joined by Bahrom’s mum, Inoyat, and one of Bahrom’s friends, Taha, who also turned out to be a translator. Enjoying Sevara’s wonderful cooking and being surrounded by my wonderful Uzbek friends made my grumpiness quickly disappear.
