Anyway I am now sitting in the glory of Urgench International Airport, Uzbekistan, waiting for my local hop to the capital, Tashkent, where I shall leave later to Moscow, so that I can get ahead of the train and be there to have all in order when they arrive in 2 days time. I am surrounded by a silent gang of locals, all eyes glued on my slow-flashing fingers – seems laptops are not in daily use around here !!U
I got off the train last night, after we had spent the day exploring the ancient city of Khive and was driven to a hotel for the night. A bit daunting, as I was suddenly alone with a non English speaking driver, zooming off down unlit streets for what seemed like for ever. I’m not normally nervous about this, but we did seem to be driving an awful long way, when I was expecting a matter of minutes and then I had the awful feeling that the wires had been terribly crossed and he was driving me to Tashkent, which wudda taken all night, so in mixed English/Russian, I established I was being driven many miles to a hotel, so I could be brought back again in the morning.
The hotel was truly DREADFUL. Just wait til I tell the punters when they arrive in Moscow ! It was late and I was knackered, as several nights on trains are not good for my beauty sleep, so I was taken to a huge bleak room. It boasted three single beds and one small table and a huge equally bleak bathroom and that was IT. Discovered that the a/c didn’t work and there was only a sheet for the bed anyway which looked and smelled relatively clean. One small and I should think 100% acrylic towel in the bathroom, judging by its absorbent capacity. As no way of turning out the light from the bed, I had to count the steps to my bed first before I plunged the room into darkness. Later it got cold and I awoke frozen and unable to get warm – no point in looking for a blanket as there was nowhere they cudda hidden it. Oy Oy Oy. Christened the establishment the Minus Four Seasons.
I ran downstairs for my brekkie, as advertised at 0730 and found a grubby table with what was probably yesterday’s bread, a glass of yoghurt, some butter and good honey and a cup of coffee (exceedingly strong Nescafe) black, no milk available. so I wolfed it all down and then suddenly two fried eggs turned up – real eggs too, probably parted company with their maker yesterday as the whites were high and firm and the yolks dark and rich and I instantly awarded the hotel first place for Golden Egg Award for 2001. My minder turned up on sked and drove at breakneck speed, only slowing down for the speed checks, past the donkey carts going off to the cotton fields, driven by geriatric grandmas and grandpas whose skin patina had turned into the same grey shade as both the donkey and cart. If the women had not been wearing the lurid “Let’s wear as many colors as we can all at once…” Uzbek scenario, then it wudda been difficult to know just who was what or what was who. Schoolgirls walking along the road, smaller ones still with their hair tied up on top of their heads in the obligatory white fuzzy bow, which is a throwback to the Russian days. I was dumped at the airport at least 90 minutes earlier than needed and watched the information lady at work. Well this was a bit of an overstatement, as basically she did not care for the human race and had little information, as each supplicant was sent off with a shrug. Later she slopped off in her slippers and was not seen again. Probably having a cuppa and a bikkie and a bit of a lie down
Inflight with Uzbek.
Well I was expecting a nice Brit plane, the 146, but when we were released from the windowless waiting room at the airport, there instead was a nice dilapidated looking old Russian TU154 – slight gulp. Crew did no safety briefing … Oh UA, wherefore art thou ???? But they did give us a choice of Coke or water before take off and encouraged us to shove as much hand baggage as we could into the open overhead racks so that they could hopefully work their way free on take off and bounce down on to unsuspecting heads. ( I saw that many years ago in India, when the biggest and hardest sort of Samsonite briefcase worked its way free and descended almost in slow motion on to the bald pate of a man a few rows ahead – we took off to screams from pax and much blood gushing from him) – but I digress….they have given us a small pizza like thing, which I turned down and what we used to call “Gateau Nationale’ in Tunisia days – viz a lurid piece of sponge cake with garish icing – said icing turned out to be more like Polyfilla or perhaps sweetened spackling paste – denture wearers beware of Uzbekistan Airlines
Anyway we made it to Tashkent – bused from the aircraft – NOT to a terminal building, but rather a hole in the fence, guarded by armed sentries, which heads out straight to the road – must be fun in winter, as those of us with checked bags then had to stand around, waiting for the truck to turn up with same – we then had to walk back through the gates, as the truck had to stop short – I’m surprised that they didn’t make us go through security again !!! OY Oy. And then to make it worse, there was no minder waiting for me and I had 7 hours to kill, so everyone else melted away and left me with a lone taxi driver, nice older guy, who obviously saw me as good prey. But the flight was EARLY (we had taken off 10 mins BEFORE the advertised dep time too), so I waited in the sunshine for a while. Realised that the only way I was going to find help would be to call our agent in St Petersburg, so I whips out the trusty cellphone and within a minute am talking to my old totally over the top florid Russian mate Valentina, who controls all our movements around here and she was on the case immediately, screaming down the other line and had it all sorted out pronto. Breathless young man turned up 5 mins later – he had been caught speeding en route to me and was much red faced and will probably be beaten up by Valentina next time she comes this way. She ex Intourist (and probably SMERSH too) and can probably kill without showing any mark. Only giveaway would be the lingering smell of stale b o and sticky sweet perfume and possibly some angora fuzz from the heavily sequined fuzzy sweaters she fancies – get the picture ? Well you can’t cos the reality is far far worse than anything that you can imagine.
You get a break.
timothyvalentinestravels 