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The Bicycle box

UZBEKISTAN

Mar
2004-09-14 15:10:54

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our strategy of non-stop talking and never looking at them. Be especially prepared to know where you go to and where to get off the trains. A green-hat stops a man and from behind one of the pillars we can see that he has to get everything out of his bags. The subway stations itself are beautiful and look like temples. Very Soviet mostly, massive and wide scaled, finished to the detail but somehow they are all in need of restoration.

The vodka-drinking owner of Ali-Tur is now awake and studies our bicycles with a smile but it looks he’s too hang-over to talk. “One for vodka?” he asks and points to our water bottles. We can see the first example of the average four golden teeth that all Uzbeki’s have.

Bribing our way to Buchara
It’s Monday evening and the train to Buchara is ready to go when we arrive on the platform. We disassemble the bikes to make them fit the train and move towards our coupe. 12 ours in a train for $8 each is an okay-price, but we hope that no one claims the bed in our coupe where one of the bikes is stored. Raymond looks for the train conductor en finds him in a coupe undressing his chest. Good position to get some things done here! “Are all places fully booked?” asks Raymond. The conductor makes clear that indeed almost all places are taken but he notices the 6000 Som ($6) in Raymonds hand and he is okay with keeping our coupe for just the two of us.

The kick-off in Buchara
(15-07-2003) Mubinjons Guesthouse dates back to 237 AD and you can stay the night on a bed on the floor for $10. Mubinjon himself spends all his money on the restoration of the house that has been a family property for 5 generations. Amin is 25 and works for him as translator when we register and as guide. He tips us to ask Mubinjon for his rewards and without hesitation Mubinjon demonstrates how he ones run the 100 meter sprint in 10,4 seconds. ...