Uncle Travelling Matt

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

19th August, 2002 – Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Awakening earlier than we’d have perhaps liked to, we showered and then set off on the annoying yet seemingly necessary task of acquiring OVIR permission to let us purchase a railway ticket onwards. It was a shame, since it put us in an irritable mood from the word go, which otherwise we doubtless would not have had since our hotel was pleasant, the breakfast spread more than acceptable and our dining companions, two mountain-climbing Poles, interesting. What’s more, just as we were finishing off our tea, a familiar face descended the iron staircase from the upper rooms to join us. And as you can imagine, familiar faces are not all that common in deepest darkest Uzbekistan.

“Is that an Irishman I see?” hollered I.

Brian Connellan looked up in surprise. “Good morning, gentlemen. I didn’t expect to find you here. How are things?”

He joined us and we caught up with the events of the last few days. He had been unable to join us at Almaty station as registering at his hotel had taken around two hours. If he’d have said that a week ago, I doubt that I’d have doubted the truthfulness of the statement. As it was, after a mere five days in the Stans, I had no doubt as to his integrity. We related our near miss in the underground system and the episode with the bank clerk on the railway platform.

“You were the lucky ones,” said Brian, “the police got me good and proper in Almaty.”

Apparently, he’d decided to save some money by walking back from the city centre to the railway station. This had proved to be a big mistake, since with his baggage he was a very visible target. Stopped by the police, ‘to check his visa’, they’d ordered him to turn out his wallet, which he did and was then passed amongst them, and duly handed back with a ‘Thanks for your co-operation.’ It was only when he was on the train later, that he noticed that $150 had gone missing. The episode had so distressed our friend from the Emerald Isle that he had done nothing in Tashkent but sit inside his hotel, not wishing to encounter anymore members of the constabulary. We hadn’t the heart to tell him that Tashkent had been our favourite Central Asian city so far, although perhaps with his love of all things Islamic and distaste of all things totalitarian, he’d have been less impressed.

And so it was that we set off with somewhat lighter hearts, yet still wearisome, knowing that the seemingly simple task ahead of us had numerous potential pitfalls.

Things did not start well. After impressing strongly upon the taxi driver, to which OVIR office we wanted to be taken, he proceeded to escort us to the wrong one, and when we did eventually reach the correct place, there the waiting game began. Eventually however, after an hour or so in the corridor, we saw the man that we needed, who took our details and told us that passes were now being prepared. In order to save time, I suggested that the Lowlander go on ahead to the bank and get the money on his credit card, (remember, all the banks had been shut in Bukhara), and so off he went and it was about half an hour later that I was able to join him.

I arrived at the bank to find my Dutch comrade a far from happy man. After having waited for some considerable length of time at a window with a MasterCard symbol emblazoned upon it, he had been rather rudely told that they didn’t do that aforesaid credit card. “But this is the MasterCard symbol!” he protested, pointing to the merging red and yellow globes. The woman apparently looked at him as if it say ‘It says Oxo on a bus, but it isn’t’. This was a problem. Not only did I have a fuming Netherlander on my hands, but we were also now with far less money than was comfortable, and no way of getting any extra.

“Still, at least we have the bloody OVIR passes now,” I said, trying to cheer my companion up a little, as we piled into the railway station-bound taxi.

Not wanting any of the hassles of the last journey, we ordered first class berths this time. The lady, who was thinner, prettier and altogether politer than her colleague the previous evening gave us a sum in sum which we proceeded to shell out.

“And here’s our OVIR permissions,” I added, handing over those two precious gems of Uzbeki bureaucracy.

She picked them up and gave them a derogatory glance. “These are not required anymore,” she snorted, handing those not-so-precious-after-all bits of paper back to their dismayed owners.

The episode last night, the early start, several taxi rides and an hour and a half’s wait. For what? Nothing! Grr…

But as good old Monty Python had said, ‘Always look on the bright side of life.’ That was the past and now, not only were our tickets to Urgench safely in our wallets, but we had the remainder of this sunny day ahead of us to explore the fabled city of Samarkand, and so off we went , straight to the best bit of course. “Taxi! To the Registan please.”

More than any other Silk Road city, Samarkand has left its mark on the imagination of the world. It is the setting for many of Sheherezade’s tales, the subject of a poem by James Elroy Flecker, and its name cannot be uttered without evoking exotic images of Genghis Khan or Marco Polo.

Yet good old Genghis did the city no favours. In fact in 1220, like most of the places that he visited, he flattened the place. The Samarkand of mosques and minarets, shimmering in the sand, didn’t come along until sometime later in the fourteenth century when Amir Timur, decided to make it his capital and constructed a city like no other on Earth.

Amir Timur, (or 'Tamerlane' as he is sometimes known), is a massive figure in Turkestan history. Son of a tribal chieftain, he claimed descent from Genghis Khan and started to rebuild Samarkand as his capital in 1370. Most of his time however, was spent outside of the city waging military campaigns, firstly against Persia that occupied him until 1387, then in the Caucasus (1392), against the Russians (13968) before turning his attention to India and destroying the Delhi Sultanate. Later in life he once again advanced into the Levant, capturing Baghdad and in 1402 Angora (Ankara). He died in 1404, whilst planning an invasion of China, as one of the most feared and renowned military commanders that the world has ever seen, and Samarkand was his magnificent legacy.

His city of palaces, mosques and medrassahs proclaimed the glory of Islamic culture to the world and from it much of that world, (or at least the Central Asian section of it), was ruled.

The Registan

Nowadays however, not much of it is left. His empire was divided up after his death and Samarkand declined in importance, eventually becoming subordinate to the Emirate of Bukhara in 1555. The whole place fell into disrepair and was virtually abandoned and didn't start to become important again until the Russians came along and made it their capital of Turkestan, (soon transferred to Tashkent). Today's Samarkand is a strange mix; a Soviet city, far richer and pleasanter than Bukhara, dotted with monuments and ruins that are testament to the might of Timur. Individually the architecture here is the best in Uzbekistan, but unlike Bukhara or Khiva there is no ancient centre worth speaking of, and sadly, overall the whole Arabian Nights atmosphere is lacking.

One part of Timur's [not so] eternal capital that has survived largely intact is it's grand centrepiece, the Registan, the most potent symbol of Central Asia. This vast square, once crowded with market stalls, is flanked by two medrassahs and a mosque all huge and constructed in the stunning intricate blue tilework for which the city is famous. It truly is one of the Wonders of the World, and even after being a bit 'medrassahed out' after Bukhara, we were impressed. We had our photos taken by the buildings that are on the cover of every tourist brochure for miles around, and then wandered inside, marvelling at the spectacular ceilings and interiors. Despite the hassles involved in getting here, this was an amazing sight to see and unlike in Bukhara, there were no feelings of disappointment.

At the Registan

Problem was though, after doing the best, where the go next? We consulted the guidebook and spotting another concentration of historical sites including the highly recommended Bibi Khan Mosque, a short distance to the north, so off we went, stopping for shashlik en route. This proved to be a mistake as the fayre turned out to be neither tasty or cheap, and when I needed a toilet, I was informed that there wasn't one. Hurriedly I dived into the streets behind the restaurant and found myself in an area akin to that around Char Minar in Bukhara, with traditional houses and narrow streets; it was what was left of the old centre. Nice as that might have been though, the problem was that traditional Turkestan housing areas contain absolutely no areas in which one may relieve oneself, and I wandered around for what seemed like an age before finding a dire lavatory next to a shady square complete with drinking fountain.

Moving onwards we encountered Brian once more, this time accompanied by a sightseeing companion from Italy, (or Colombia, I'm not sure which, they're both remarkable similar places anyway I'm sure), with a long lens camera and the name of Valentino. We bid them luck on their touristic mission and then continued on ours.

I have to say, that the Bibi Khan Mosque amazed me. More than any other building that we'd seen, including those of the Registan, it staggered the senses. It was huge, yet somehow human in its scale, and altogether exquisite. Sadly, my photos did not do it justice; it was perhaps the sort of structure that never comes out well on camera anyway since I've never seen any photograph of it that does do it justice? But whatever the case may be, it is in my humble opinion, Central Asia's finest asset.

The Bibi Khan Mosque

Construction on the structure commenced in 1399 whilst Timur was on a campaign in Hindustan as a monument to his much-loved (and reputedly not only by him!) wife, and it was eventually completed in 1404. It was by far the biggest of Timur's edifices and was to surpass all else that he erected, the aim being ably summed up by the Court Historian of the day, Sherefeddin Ali Yezdi who declared 'The dome would be unique were not the dome of Heaven its equal, unique would be the archway were not the Milky Way its match.'

Having done the big boys, the Lowlander and I now decided to head out of town to see some of the highlights there, of which there were many, but as far as I was concerned, two that particularly intrigued me. The first was the Observatory of Ulug Bek, a man who although often cast into shadow beneath his might grandfather, Timur, was in many respects the far greater of the two. Whereas Timur's forte was conquering and subduing, Ulug Bek was a man of learning who founded a university and achieved fame for his astronomical discoveries, most of which were made at his Observatory, which was by far the greatest on Earth at the time. All this discovery and learning however did not please everyone, and the religious authorities grew angry at his interference in the realm of God, beheading the king and after his death, razing the famous site of star-gazing to the ground, and as the years rolled by many began to wonder if it were all but a legend? But in the late twentieth century the site was rediscovered by archaeologists and excavated in 1970. Ok, so there wouldn't be a lot there barring a circular track for a telescope, (an amazing forty-eight metres in diameter), but it should be seen, if only to pay tribute to one of the few Central Asians who thought it better to study than slay.

And so we went and saw the circle, and the statue of old Ulug himself, and indeed meditated upon his greatness. We did not however, pay the fee to see the exhibition, (in Uzbeki), and so all too soon we were off to examine the second out-of-town attraction, the Tomb of Daniel.

Ulug Bek

Daniel, yes, Daniel. Remember him? Lion's den, protected by God, that's the one. Well, now he's in Samarkand, his body brought there by Timur so they say, and according to legend, his corpse gets longer by an inch or so each year, and so what we saw was no average tomb of a prophet, but instead a very long one indeed, eighteen metres long in fact. Thanks be to God!

And so we did the tourist stuff, or at least all that we could cope with for the time being, and so when we returned to the city, we went not to another mosque, museum or medrassah, but instead to a cafe by the Registan for what else, but tea and backgammon. Despite being in front of that famous square though, this cafe was obviously not on the regular tourist circuit, as tea here cost only fifty sum instead of the regular two hundred. We played our game and attracted the attentions of the local kids who crowded around before being shooed away by the proprietor. We were more interested however, in the game that the locals were playing, on a backgammon board but with completely different rules, whereby the aim seemed to be to leave as many single pieces on a spot as possible, as opposed to our rules whereby one tries to protect one's pieces by leaving two or more on a place.

Backgammon by the Registan

Once the tea was drunk, we hailed a taxi to the telephone exchange in the Soviet heart of the city. The reason for this was simple; we'd changed all our ready cash and it was fast becoming clear that Uzbekistan did not accept MasterCard. Yet that was all that we had, and our remaining sum was inadequate to get us a ticket to Moscow. What were we to do? Like ET. we'd phone home.

But alas, like so many other things in Uzbekistan, phoning home is not perhaps as simple as it should be. The telephone office used an extremely antiquated system, (which according to an unimpressed Lowlander, was put to shame by that used in Sub-Saharan Africa), whereby one had to write the number down that one was going to call, and specify the amount of time that the call would last, and then let Madame Operator do the dialling. And so we scribed the number of Huis van den Ouden Nederland, and asked for three minutes, and lo, it rang and even greater lo, someone answered. And thus the Lowlander spoke in his Lowland tongue for exactly three minutes before being cut off mid-sentence, and coming out of the cubicle looking grave. “It was my mother,” said he, “and she is not so good as my father for things like this. The connection was bad and then I got cut off. I don't think that she really understood what I was trying to say and I suspect that the same would happen if we tried a second time. What should we do?”

I thought for a moment before asking if he still had the email addresses of his friend and girlfriend that I'd emailed on his behalf whilst in China. Yes, he had, and so we popped into the internet cafe next door and I typed a message that he dictated, (I'm a faster typer), and sent it on to his charming young lady whom we hoped would pass it on to those with the dosh.

And that was all that we could do, and so we went to the park, dined on some of the by now very familiar shashlik, before walking back to the Registan via the Timur statue and Rukhabad Mausoleum (1380). It was now dark and although we had several hours until our train was to depart we fancied not walking the streets of Samarkand at night, so we returned to the hotel, collected our bags and took a taxi to the now deserted railway station; a huge Soviet affair with murals evoking the Timurian heritage of the city that it served. And thus we retired to the equally empty station bar, and I embarked upon a new book, (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding, something light for a change), and read, letting the hours slip peacefully by with only a barman and Dutchman for company.

But then, at around half eight, the door opened and someone walked in. Followed by someone else. And someone else, and someone else and... And within two minutes the place was heaving. What the hell was happening? We were mystified as these were not passengers but staff. What looked like the entire staff of the station in fact!

The answer soon came. The barman got up off his seat and switched on the tiny black and white TV set behind the counter. Sickly music started up, and pictures of rich and beautiful Latin Americans flashed across the screen accompanied by the word 'Esmerelda'. It was the nightly soap.

Esmerelda turned out to show the trials and tribulations of the wealthy and glamourous who resided at the Esmerelda Ranch in Mexico. Maria was seeing Fernando behind the back of Carlos whilst Anna Rosa was expecting a baby that wasn't Manuel's. Question was, who's was it? Unfortunately, the closing credits started to roll before we knew the answer and by the time that the adverts came on, the cafe was deserted once more.

I was stunned. Never before have I seen mass devotion to a soap like that. And it wasn't even a very good one too. In fact, it was almost the worst that I've ever witnessed, only my misfortune of having sat through several episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful denying it top spot. The Lowlander and I looked at each other in amazement. This was one weird country indeed!

Our train arrived on time and we dived in, eager to shut ourselves in our private compartment and go to sleep soundly for the night. That however, was not to be our lot.

“You are in here,” said the attendant.

“I think not,” said I. “This ticket is for First Class, two people per compartment. There are already two occupants here.” I pointed at a pair of portly Uzbekis who were occupying half our compartment.

“No, no, this ticket is Second Class. In here!”

“But we asked for First Class, and [more importantly] paid for it!”

“Maybe so, maybe not. But this is a Second Class ticket.”

“But we demand First Class. That is what we paid for!”

“There is no First Class on this train, all coaches are Second Class.”

He was telling the truth, and we had been had. Of course how exactly is a mystery. The ticket definitely was First Class as I could read that much, and yet it was also for this particular, half-occupied compartment. I understood that much too. What I suspect had happened is, (like on the Almaty – Shumkent train), there'd been a shortage of First Class rolling stock, so they'd stuck a Second Class one on instead, intending only to use two of the beds in each compartment. But that was reckoning without the crooked coach commandants of course, and whether he'd doubled the capacity of our compartment to free another up for himself, or whether he was just selling off the spare bunks for personal profit, I know or care not. The fact was that we'd been diddled yet again, and instead of a nice cabin all to ourselves, we'd be sharing with a pair of rotund locals who'd obviously been drinking and snored extremely loudly.

All for First Class price.

Oh, the romance of travel!

Next part: 3g: Samarkand to Urgench

Technorati Tags: travel,blog,uncle travelling matt,matt pointon,tom van den ouden,lowlander,Bibi Khan Mosque,ulug bek,Rukhabad Mausoleum,uzbekistan,uzbek,samarkand,registan,mosque,medrassah,timur,tamerlane,daniel,tomb,astronomy,ovir,railways,brian connellan,backgammon

Monday, 19 August 2013

V-log 5: Barmouth Cliff Walk

Greetings!

We've not had a V-log for a while on UTM and for one very good reason: my camera packed up. However, I've got another now and although the zoom is rather dodgy, the rest is fine and so here we are with the fifth V-log.

This one's taken above the town of Barmouth in Mid Wales. I used to go on holiday to Barmouth every year as a kid and it's an incredible place. A lot of the places you visit when young, you remember as being amazing but then when you revisit them you realise that, actually, they weren't that special at all. Barmouth however, IS special and well worth checking out.

However, if you do go, after walking over the bridge, eating seafood in the harbour and lying on the beach, do not forget to head to the large church on the hillside and then take the clifftop walk that leads up the side of it. Want to know why? This video should explain everything...

And so that is all for now, back to Across Asia With A Lowlander on Friday. As for me, gues where I'm off to this weekend? Indeed, Mid Wales.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

PS. Wanna know more about the mines? Check out the this website.

Check out all my V-logs!

Oslo V-log: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

Friday, 16 August 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: Part 3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

Greetings!

A rather short extract this week but one of my favourites, particularly the passage about my granddad. I tried to find a suitable photo of him to illustrate it but there were none so just imagine instead a guy with glasses who was organised, precise, methodical and let you watch 18 certificate films when you were 12. Can I be as good an influence on the next generation? Well, so far I’m managing one out of four so… let’s just call it a work in progress, eh?

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

18th August, 2002 – Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Awaking fairly early in our plush, (well, by our standards), room, we stepped out onto the terrace to enjoy the fantastic breakfast provided by the establishment's proprietors. Dining with us was our neighbour, an Australian lady who was a very experienced traveller and liked both Bukhara and Uzbekistan, despite the fact that her husband had just had a heart attack and was in the local hospital recovering.

Our bellies filled, we set out to see the city's one remaining attraction, the beautifully-proportioned Char Minar, once the gateway to a medrassah, and now hidden away in the maze of narrow streets that is the Old Town.

Char Minar (Four towers and two thumbs)

That accomplished, (nice as it was, there was nothing inside bar a carpet seller), we had no more touristic ways of occupying our day. What's more, we had very little money left as well, so we decided to head for the New Bukhara Hotel where we were told that we could get money on credit card. That was in the New Town and not too far away, so we decided to walk it through the hot Turkestan sunshine.

The contrast between Bukhara's Old and New towns is scarcely believable. The former, a museum city of the highest calibre is enveloped by the latter, a Soviet expanse of incredible ugliness, drabness and neglect, (and trust me, for drabness and neglect to stand out around here, it must be bad). We strolled through an overgrown park with a hideous huge crumbling war memorial, (to the Second World War?), where inquisitive schoolchildren mobbed us. The New Bukhara Hotel was monolithic, concrete, ugly and obviously the place where the jet-setting tour groups are accommodated.

“No credit cards,” said the man behind the desk. “Dollars?”

But we didn't have any of those, our hard cash totalling only ten euros by now. He took those and with a little breathing space, (financially speaking), we left the hotel and walked back to our own accommodation through the Old Town with its blank-walled houses, narrow streets and a fascinating crumbling mausoleum that we came across; perhaps the resting-place of some long-forgotten Sufi saint?

The rest of the day we whiled away sat on a be-cushioned double-bed outside a cafe by the Labi Haus pool, (What a great idea, take a double bed, cover it with cushions, put a low table across the middle to place your drinks on and then relax in the sunshine. I announced to the Lowlander there and then, that my primary goal in life is to one day buy a house with a double-bed outside on the patio), whilst drinking tea, eating shashlik and playing backgammon. What greater pleasures can life provide? The only drawback were the flies.

When the time for our train began to draw near, we took a taxi to the railway station which we shared with a dead sheep's carcass, (it was in the boot), that was dropped off inexplicably at the local primary school. We arrived in plenty of time however, although I had to rush a little towards the end since I'd been trying to assist with my bad Russian, three French people who wanted tickets for our train. The booking clerk however, was refusing to sell at anything less than twice the foreigner price, and they were refusing to pay that. Eventually I had to leave them to it, joining the Lowlander in boarding our carriage only to find to our dismay that neither the air con or lights worked and that the window wouldn't open. Within minutes we were streaming with perspiration and so headed out into the corridor where we fell into conversation with a Farsi-speaking Tadzhik,[1] who was a student of boxing, and his attractive ladyfriend. They both liked to talk politics and when I asked about the present-day situation both assured me that things were far better during the good old days of the USSR. After some time, we headed back into the cabin to read, but very soon the heat became too much again.

I stepped out of the sweltering cabin and gazed out of the corridor window. Outside all was dark, the train speeding past fields of grain, the line of electric gantries snaking away into the distance. 'So, I'm here at last,' I thought. 'In the Soviet Union.' Well, eleven years too late to be technically correct, but nonetheless, I was there, in the one country that I'd always dreamt of seeing.

But why had I always dreamt of it? After all, whilst perhaps not the complete failure that it's often made out to be, the Soviet Union was hardly mankind's most rip-roaring success either. Ok, so Lenin and Co. had very little to work with, but so did the pioneers of North America and Australasia. They had virtually nothing in fact, yet I know where most people would prefer to live nowadays if asked. But Australasia and North America, successful though they might be, never captured my imagination in the way that the USSR did, and in many ways, still does. The fact is, I am in love with the socialist dream still, even though it has by and large failed.

And I am not the first, let's face it. Countless millions have read Marx and been awed by him. A human would be hard-pressed not to be. It's a pretty low sort of being after all, who doesn't want to help the poor and downtrodden and create a fair society, and Marx offers us a way to do just that in simple, strong language. Ok, so it didn't exactly work in practice, but wouldn't it be great if it had?

But the socialist dream is far more than that. Removing the class barriers is easy, breaking the bourgeoisie can be done in a revolution. It's what comes after that counts; the stage that the old Red demagogues used to call 'The Era of Socialist Construction'. That was the dream that I'd fallen in love with, and as I watched my mighty train rumble across the plain, electric wires whirring overhead, I realised who had given me the enthusiasm for that dream. That person was a man named Thomas Edwin Earlam. That man was my grandfather.

Mr. Earlam however, I should point out, was no socialist. Despite being working class, he actually voted Tory I think. He was however, an engineer, and as a child I would make the journey up the road once a week for my tea. And after eating a fine meal, (always chips, peas and something), cooked by my grandmother, we would sit down by the fire and he would talk.

“Do you know what mankind's first ever profession was?” he'd ask.

“Farmer?” I'd reply.

“No, before farmers.”

“Hunter.”

“Yes, but before a man can hunt, what must he do?”

“Make a weapon?”

“Precisely, a tool. The toolmaker's is the oldest profession!”

(He, incidentally, was a toolmaker).

Then he would go on about engineering. About how Mr. Rolls met Mr. Royce, how Whittle developed the jet engine and Mitchell designed the Spitfire, or the difficulties encountered in trying to weld a kettle together.

Of course he knew about the kettles. He worked with them after all, fridges and washing machines too, at the great Creda electronics plant three miles away, (“And did you know Matthew, that during the war it produced munitions and before that it was Roots Tyres?”). I know all about that place too; about how the young lads with university degrees and no idea whatsoever came in and messed everything up, and all about his boss, Jeff Long, whom I have never met but I swear that he shall die by my own right hand after all the atrocities he committed in the toolmaking department. And when we talked not of engineering, it was of the war, (the Germans: a clever and precise people, excellent designers, their tanks, planes and even the humble jerry can, what a stroke of genius, far superior to the British oil cans...), my future, (now is the time to forge your career, strike whilst the iron's hot!), or his days as a bus driver, (Bedfords, well engineered, but the company went downhill after Vauxhall took over...). Every Thursday I was filled with tales of the robust, precise, functioning and practical world of the engineer.

And at the same time, I collected stamps; coloured scraps of perforated gummed paper from the four corners of our cornerless globe. And in those dying days of the Warsaw Pact, it was Romania, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union that churned out the most numerous and the best works of philatelic art on earth. And what images did they contain? Why, naught but scenes from the worker's paradise from whence they came; electric trains whizzing through the night; red-starred rockets blasting off into space; mighty power stations pumping out the electricity which flowed through the rampant power lines that strode through the pages of my Stanley Gibbons album, giving light and power to the proletarian millions. And then huge combine harvesters crossing vast fields of grain; regiments of all-conquering tanks; jet planes, cars, lorries, satellites; all the achievements of lands populated by people in overalls with a spanner in their hand.

People like my granddad.

And above it all was the Hammer and Sickle. Two tools.

Man, first a toolmaker before all else. And with tools come progress.

The toolmaker's dream is the socialist dream, with its heavy industry, pre-fabricated apartments, automated farming, iron roads girdling the globe and happy, be-overalled population keeping it all shipshape.

But alas it is now but a dream, and like my granddad, dead and buried. But for an hour or so, speeding through the dark night on a huge Soviet-built electric train, that dream and my toolmaker mentor still lived.

And it is due to experiences like that, that I love to travel.

The Communist Dream in stamps

Arriving into Samarkand, we were greeted by our pre-arranged taxi driver to the hotel. We asked him to wait for a moment first though, whilst we booked our tickets onwards to Urgench, (we had not been able to do so in Bukhara since for some reason, Uzbeki railway booking offices only sell tickets for journeys starting from that particular station).

“How much for a First Class ticket to Urgench?” I asked the portly and miserable-looking lady behind the ticket window.

She quoted me a price in sum.

“Ok,” said I, “two please, for tomorrow.” I handed over the money.

“Nyet,” said she.

“Nyet?”

“You need OVIR permission to buy railway tickets.”

“OVIR permission?”

“Da.”

“But we never needed it before, in Tashkent and Bukhara!”

“You need it here,” replied that sturdy and surly example of Uzbeki bureaucracy.

And that was that! No tickets, and the prospect of an OVIR trip the following morning to get permission to get them. And for what reason? None! It was two very disgruntled travellers that entered Timur's fine city that night and lay down their heads to sleep in sight of his architectural wonders.

Wonders that they'd hardly noticed due to a train window that wouldn't open and a ticket office unwilling to sell.

Next part: 3f: Samarkand

Technorati Tags: uncle travelling matt,matt pointon,lowlander,tom van den ouden,uzbekistan,uzbeki,bukhara,samarkand,trains,railways,stamps,creda,new bukhara hotel,soviet union,ussr,medrassah,mosque,thomas earlam,toolmaker,communism,communist,ovir,urgench,tickets,char minar,bureau de change,labi hauz,sum

[1]Though born and bred in Uzbekistan. It must be remembered that the names of the countries in Central Asia bear little resemblance to the ethnicities of the people who reside in them.

Friday, 9 August 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: Part 3d: Bukhara

Greetings!

And so, as my favourite cricket team win the Ashes in the rain in the present day, back in 2002 I journeyed on with the Lowlander to the fabled city of Bukhara, once one of the foremost centres of learning in the Islamic World, now one of the foremost centres of, well… mosques turned into carpet shops.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

17th August, 2002 – Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Bukhara's railway station turned out to be a whopping fifteen kilometres from the town centre. That apparently was due to the last Emir who was wary of these new iron monsters polluting his holy city. The Soviets thoughtfully however, built a spur from the main line into the city itself, but for reasons unknown, (and most probably completely Central Asian in logic), services on this were now suspended. That's why we were crowded into the back of a Lada taxi with a talkative driver and two young ladies whom he was trying to chat up. They left us in one of the first suburbs that we reached. “Sexy, eh?” he commented with a grin, before slapping a tape of Aqua's Barbie Girl on at full volume.

The modern city looked depressing. Not only had God failed to bless the region with any scenery whatsoever, but Man had done nothing to improve matters either, creating a settlement of dusty-grey apartment blocks, cracking roads and rusting factories, the only splash of colour being provided by the few Ladas and Daewoos on the streets and propaganda posters of the omni-scient and omni-present President Karimov. The only impressive feature of the town that I noticed, were the trolleybuses, but there again, these days, even trolleybuses aren't considered to be that cool.

We were dropped off in the centre, right next to the Taki-Telpak Furushon, an old covered bazaar or 'trade dome' that would have reeked of Arabian Nights had it not been full of carpet sellers and vendors of tourist kitsch. We however, were not buying but bathing, heading up the street to where the guidebook informed us there was a bath house. Like in Almaty, we were dirty after a night on the rails and we wished to freshen up before aught else.

The Misgaron Baths were certainly more atmospheric than the Arasan complex in Almaty. Although recently renovated, they dated from the sixteenth century and were a veritable, unlit by electricity, rabbit warren of dark steamy passages and hot sweaty chambers with tiny hexagonal skylights through which rays of sunlight streamed. It certainly was a trip back in time, but it did not compare with the Arasan as a bathing experience. The rooms simply weren't hot enough, nor as clean. Perhaps the good old days were not quite so good after all?

Freshened up, we then went out to seek our travel agent, Salom Travel, with whom we had arranged our visa support letters, and with whom we hoped to sort out some accommodation for the night and tickets onwards. We soon located them, a very professional outfit situated down a sidestreet near to the Labi Haus ensemble; a troika of medrassahs set around a pool.

We spent a good deal of time organising and paying for our letters, accommodation for the night in a pleasant guesthouse situated next-door, train tickets on to Samarkand and two plane tickets from Urgench to Tashkent.[1] And thus, after depositing our luggage in the guesthouse and most of our carrier bag full of cash in the travel agents, we were ready to set out and see the sights.

Bukhara, or at least the old part of it, is essentially a museum city. A whole Silk Road town in tact, or at least, largely so. One does not visit it to see a particular building, but to experience the whole. Therefore, it is hard to remember what exactly we saw and in what order we saw it, but since it is a rather small place, it will suffice to say that we saw most of what the city has to offer.

And most of those sights were medrassahs, the religious schools of Islam, and mosques. Bukhara, sometimes known as 'Bukhara I-Sharif' (Holy Bukhara). It is Central Asia's holy city, a centre of Islamic piety for centuries.

Or so the guidebook said. We alas, could not see it. Sure, there are lots of religious buildings there, almost too many to count, but the spiritual aspect that I'd hoped to find had obviously gone on holiday when the Soviets came to town and hasn't returned yet. Take the first building that we entered for example. The Magoki-Attan Camii, a small plain structure, set down below street-level. It is Central Asia's oldest mosque being built between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries over the remains of the earlier Mokh Mosque, and before that, a Zoroastrian fire temple. For millennia people have worshipped there. It is arguably Central Asia's holiest site. And what does one find inside? Local Muslims deep in prayer and meditation? Zoroastrian's from Iran reclaiming their ancient place of worship? Err, maybe not. Try a pushy carpet salesman. We were shocked.

Magoki-Attan Camii

And it was the same in every medrassah bar one, (the Miri Arab), and every mosque bar two, (the Kalyan and the Bolo-Hauz). Go inside and you'll find carpets, trinkets, paintings, soft drinks and photo films for sale. It was sad. These buildings were overwhelmingly beautiful with fine tilework and intricately-patterned ceilings, graceful arches and inside the medrassahs, beautiful gardens. But without a religious feeling it all seemed a bit hollow and empty somehow. Bukhara, the museum town, was well, a bit too museum-like for my tastes.

But back to the buildings themselves, and pride of place has to go to the ensemble of the Miri-Arab Medrassah, Kalyan Minaret and Kalyan Mosque. This is Bukhara's showpiece and rightly so. The symmetry and decoration of the buildings was exquisite and the minaret which stands at forty-five metres is easily the tallest structure of ancient Central Asia. So huge is it in fact, that when Genghis Khan took the city in 1219, he was so impressed that he ordered it to be spared. For everything else however, he reverted to his usual policy. Razed to the ground.

The Kalyan Mosque and Minaret

But Bukhara is a whole city, and cities consist of much more than just religious buildings. In her centre lies the huge Ark; the fortress and palace of the Emir with imposing mud walls. We went inside to have a look at the old despot's residence, but it was disappointing. Most was in complete ruin, more like waste ground than a historical site, and the buildings that remained dated largely from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Ark

Around the town can be found several large stagnant pools lined with stone steps. These were once the city's main source of water and it is unsurprising that disease was rife. We however, having no need to drink from them, instead opted to sit in a cafe by the famous Labi Haus pool, (the one surrounded by a trio of medrassahs), eating shashlik and supping tea.

Perhaps the only place where the unbelievable amount of vendors, (considering that there weren't that many tourists), seemed at home were the 'trade domes' or covered bazaars, of which the city boasts four, each one of which was once dedicated to a particular trade, (e.g. hats or jewellery). Although the wares were hardly fitting for a Sheherezade tale, these cavernous structures still evoked feelings of old Arabia.

And ancient cities were not only for the living. Around Bukhara were dotted several mausoleums of religious or political notables. We visited the Chashma Mausoleum, dedicated to an ancient saint of renown and reputedly built over a spring commanded to appear from the earth by Job. It was a haunting place where a young boy sat praying to the long gone saint. Next-door was a museum dedicated to Chashma's life and works. We were treated to a guided tour full of the usual Uzbeki government tirades against Muslim fundamentalists who according to our guide are 'warlike terrorists who completely pervert the Word of Allah.' And to back this up, he pointed to a saying by the Prophet which I quite liked. A scholar had just asked Mohammed 'Are any wars justified?' And his answer?

“Yes, those with yourself.”

That evening after shashlik and tea under the trees by the Bolo-Hauz Pool, we returned to the guesthouse and I did some emailing from Salom Travel's office next-door. Leaving the office, we were accosted by some English-speaking schoolgirls who asked us if we wanted to see their school. 'Why, of course! So we followed them as they unlocked the stout wooden door to the Jewish school and synagogue.

There has been a Jewish community in the city for centuries although these days it has largely disappeared due to migration to Israel.[2] There are obviously still some remnants left however, which is nice, although I have to say that if I was Jewish I don't think that I'd stay in Uzbekistan. We went into the classroom and had a chuckle at the painting of Israeli and Uzbeki children holding hands above the blackboard, and the quotations all over the walls by Karimov extolling Jewish and Uzbeki friendship. “Do you want to go to Israel?” I asked the lively girl who had opened up for us.

“Me? No, I'm Muslim. We all are here.” Oh. So why study at the Jewish school then? Perhaps like the Catholics in Britain, the Jews have a reputation for providing a good education? I know not.

Next part: 3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

Technorati Tags: uncle travelling matt,lowlander,tom van den ouden,matt pointon,uzbekistan,bukhara,islam,mosque,medrassah,minaret,char minar,zoroastrian,fire temple,ark,shashlik,jewish school,carpets,bath

[1]Ok, so this was a bit of a cop out since we'd said that we'd do the entire trip by land and sea alone, but we were getting worried about the time and besides, we'd have covered that particular journey by rail anyway, albeit only in one direction.

[2]The only Uzbeki that I have ever met outside the former USSR was a Jew who had emigrated to the Holy Land and was studying Hebrew on the kibbutz in the Negev Desert where the Lowlander and I were volunteering at the time.

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: Part 3c: Tashkent (I)

Greetings!

This week’s posting has been delayed a little, sorry about that but weekends are busy at the moment whilst the sun is shining. However, here we are, back in the only metropolis of the ‘Stans, the great city of Tashkent, a place where random people just come up to you offering bags of freshly-printed banknotes.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…