Day 149 (Uzbekistan): somewhere behind Guliston - Tashkent (not everyone is allowed to celebrate)

by markus

daily distance: 111km
total distance: 9567km
riding time: 5-6h

I had nothing much in mind but to get myself to Tashkent. It was a bit of a longish ride headwise and I just wanted to get it over with and get a couple of days of rest in. And nothing much happened during the biking part of the day. Got in, made it, done. The area was not particularly interesting, undulating terrain for the most part.

Once in the city, Islam had things set up for me. I was met by Abdiammon and a friend of his at the statue of Amir Timur in the center of the city as Islam was busy himself.

From there, we proceeded to the apartment of his sister who hasn’t yet moved in and so I have the place to myself for the time I am here.

After some relaxing, we set out to do some bazaar-hopping and then finally met up with Islam.

Funny thing, you never met someone, but you already have so much to thank this person for. Islam studied in my hometown, we have common friends and so it happens that he organized a great deal of things for me here in Tashkent. We met up over dinner with another friend of his (with whose family I stayed in Jizzax), had a great time chatting about his time in Gengenbach and about common friends and acquaintances. As is often the case these days, the topic of Georgia also came up - all of us wondering how differently the perceptions are in Russia and Europe/US over the issue. All of them remarked that the news they seen on BBC/CNN differ so widely from the Russian news that they don’t know what reality is about.

On a more thought-provoking note, meet the deportation bus. Yes, your eyes are fine. I was walking towards the bus when Abidammon gently moved me away from it. I looked at him kind of quizzically and he said it is a deportation bus. My look changed to a big question mark and he explained that the government moves certain people out of the city for the celebration of independence day. This is me being a lawyer maybe, but they are allowed to be in the city generally, they work, they pay taxes and all that fun stuff, but when other people celebrate, they are forced to leave the city for their hometowns.