54 degrees hot

Mausoleum Dome, Turkistan, Kazakhstan
Originally uploaded by rtw2007.

Having recovered from our waster water tank disaster, we drove south to Turkistan and visited the amazing Kozha Ahkmed Yassaui Mausoleum. This Kozha chap is a big dog (our guide book says “revered Sufi teacher and first great Turkic holy man”, but “big dog” is easier to remember) in both Kazakhstan and Turkey. He lived in Turkistan about 900 years ago. The Turkish government has paid for his mausoleum to be restored and it looks fantastic – huge fortress walls and an enormous mausoleum building with bright green domes and walls covered in intricate turquoise mosaic. It is an important Muslim pilgrimage site and there were lots of pilgrims walking around the building touching the walls; praying; and buying souvenirs such as mosque shaped alarm clocks, as any good pilgrim would. All very impressive and atmospheric (well, perhaps not the souvenirs). It really does feel like we are fully immersed in Central Asia now. All very exciting.

Our arrival into Uzbekistan was marked by five hours at the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, waiting for not very much at all except for repeated questions about whether we are carrying a bazooka (we kid you not); whether we drive along shooting at people out of the window; and whether we are carrying heroin in our van. Oh, and we also had the unpleasant spectacle of watching an Uzbek border official beating up a perfectly innocent-looking man with a stick. Very civilised.

We proceeded down the road for the usual 500 metres before being stopped by the police for registration (which we had already done at the border…. twice). Another two kilometres or so later, we were stopped again, this time by a policeman who tried to “arrest” our vehicle and insisted that we would drive no further. His reasons were threefold. Firstly, we have a right hand drive vehicle. This is not allowed in Uzbekistan, he said. We pointed out that we had just had our vehicle inspected at Customs by several officials, who had issued an importation licence and hadn’t mentioned anything about this. So he changed tack. His second attempt was to say that we are not allowed tinted windows in Uzbekistan. We pointed out that none of our front windows are tinted and that other cars on the road had rear tinting. He didn’t seem to care and insisted that he was keeping the vehicle there. We laughed in despair. Michael showed him the map of where we have driven so far, which distracted and threw him completely off the trail of tinted windows. Instead, he tried to get his mate to fine us USD20 for not having an “ecological permit”. We had already been told earlier in the day that we didn’t need an ecological permit, whatever one of those might be. We pointed this out; said that we wouldn’t pay USD20; and eventually his mate got bored enough that we were waved on. The fact that we are in a right hand drive, tinted, ecological permit-less vehicle suddenly seemed to have become irrelevant.

On arrival in Tashkent, we opted out of sleeping in the van (which is currently displaying an internal temperature of 54 degrees – it was mid-40s outside yesterday) and instead found an air-cooled hotel room, where we plan to spend the next couple of days whilst we apply for Tajik and Kyrgyz visas. Directly opposite our hotel is the Caravan Café, which is a bit of a traveller haunt, but has very good food and a big terrace with traditional Uzbek seating platforms covered in bright cushions – perfect for lazing around and relaxing over the next few days.

Uzbekistan so far seems incredibly cheap. The currency system is insane – the largest denomination note they have here is 1000 Uzbek Som, which is worth only about 40 pence, so everyone walks around with enormous thick rolls of banknotes and we get to feel vaguely Mafioso without actually having any cash. The real beauty of the whole system is that there aren’t actually enough Som to go round – banks are made redundant as none of them actually have any money; just bored bank clerks sitting around with nothing to do. It took three visits this afternoon to find a bank that would let us change $25 – grudgingly.

We had a hot, fresh lunch today from just around the corner, in a courtyard outside someone’s house – local noodles, plov (meat and rice), Uzbek flat-bread and drinks - served by very friendly people and all the for bargain price of £1.20. Now all we need is to get our visas; do the vast amounts of laundry which we have accumulated whilst on the road; and find someone who just happens to stock exactly the right spare parts to reattach a waste water tank to a VW camper van…..