BUKHARA & KHIVA & NUKUS, UZBEKISTAN

• Kilometres by train: 2,127 km
• Different methods of transport: 9
• Mosques seen: &%3€”9
• New friends made: 12

We are nearing the end of our Uzbekistan journey and it has been a memorable one. We have met the most friendly people, both fellow travellers and locals, everyone seems to be on a good mood here. I guess it requires a different kind of traveller than your average pool-side tourist to like it here. This is no beach holiday, and that’s the great thing about it.

On our last night in Samarkand we met a great Dutch couple who were cycling (bicycles) from Holland all the way through Europe and Central Asia to Thailand (or elsewhere in South East Asia). They had been on the road for months, and were next headed to Tadzikistan. They were actually waiting for visas to be confirmed, hence we had the chance to dine with them and get to know them better. I hope we will meet again one day! After Samarkand (we never made it to the Registon, on the last day it was closed again and we had to run for our train) we were headed onwards to Bukhara. This little town had a nice central square where all the fun was happening on the evenings. We met a group of school children who had come out to town for the day to find foreign tourists to speak English with. We had a photo together! We also met an Indian couple we had bumped into many times already.

In Bukhara we befriended a French woman who stayed in the same guest house, with whom I had the greatest experience in a hammam - a Turkish type of bath house where it’s all done for you. All you need to do is get butt naked and step into the sauna. They bring tea, towels, tell you exactly where to sit, and while you wait you can see the ritual done to other women. The heavy build girl (we later found out she was only 17…) takes me by the hand and sits me down on a bench. This is all happening inside a “sauna” - well, we Finns would not call a room with 45 degrees a sauna, but that’s what it was supposed to be - we are all sweating, including the washer woman, and we are all naked, except for the washer woman. She pours really hot water on me, then peels my skin with a special glove. Then she soaps my body thoroughly and rinses it, same for my hair. Then I lie on the stone floor on my stomach and she puts some weird brown stuff on my back and legs. I stay on the floor for 10 minutes, while my friend Camille is getting her massage in the next room, and all I can hear are loud slaps and “fist hitting meat” type of noise. I get a little nervous. Then it is my turn and boy did that massage feel good. She’s not just massaging but also twisting and stretching my limbs, hitting and slapping me. When it’s all over the wraps me in a lovely cotton towel and says bye bye (hardly any words of English were spoken throughout the performance). I feel a little disoriented but good, and in the dressing room Camille and I just look at each other and laugh. That was an experience! We had no water and all they gave us during the hour in the sauna was hot tea. We were dying for a cold beer, and once we found Kai, who had his own hammam experience, we all went for a drink and exchanged experiences.

The train to Khiva took about 5 hours and after a short walk from the station we stepped into the old town, that seemed like from another era. The tiny town was full of old madrassas and mosques, minarets and beautiful buildings we could not stop marvelling at. Our guest house was just a few steps from all the action and we loved every moment of Khiva. After seeing one of the most magnificent sunsets on the roof of one of those buildings, we had a tasty dinner outside the old town walls, where the locals lived, and it is quite different!

There was no train to Nukus, so we had to take a bus from Khiva to the nearby town of Urgench, a city taxi inside Urgench and then wait at a shared taxi station (under a tree) for an hour for the car to fill. We were only 3 people so Kai and I offered to pay for the 4th person so we could be on our way. In the last minute we received 8 boxes of AC units on their way to Nukus, which were tied on the roof of the taxi in a haphazard way. All passengers and units made it to Nukus in one piece in 3 hours of boiling heat and bumpy roads. Nukus has less tourists so us two walking in the local market was quite a sight for the locals.

The next morning we visited the only sight in the town, a museum of Soviet art, had a coffee (first good one in ages!) and made our way to the train station to board our night train back to Tashkent. 20 hours of joyful traveling, with a bottle of sparkling I had acquired with difficulty from a local store. Our cabin had 4 beds and while no one else boarded our cabin on our stop, we took the advantage of having the cabin to ourselves, drank the pretty awful tasting, sweet, non-bubbly shampanskaya bottle while playing cards. Soon two very old local ladies came in, took the lower bunk beds, forcing us off the card table onto the upper beds. We met Bayram, a local guy, in the corridor and decided to go look for a restaurant car together. The only food they sold there were eggs, sausages and hamburgers, and luckily cold beer. I skipped dinner and filled my belly with beer instead! We quickly made more friends standing in the bar, including an Australian/Lithuanian family and more locals that had the courage to come and talk to us, practice their English. We had such a good time, we all exchanged numbers and hope to meet again.

The last few days we will spend in the capital, making day trips to nearby destinations, and riding the metro all over the city (my favourite pastime) and trying more of the local delicacies. Kai will be meeting Abdullah again, the nice young man from the market, who we met last time in Tashkent. We are likely to meet our French Camille again on Friday as we are planning a trekking trip to the mountains, and maybe also the Aussie family. Nice to have made new friends!