Pedaling from the Black Forest to the Yellow Sea

Another couple of uneventful days - so I am folding them into one posting again. There are also no pictures again. Taking a bit of a break from that as well. But more pictures will appear again soon (bandwidth permitting of course). Actually, there is one …

So, Monday I showed up early at the Chinese embassy to drop off my application for a visa. All forms in order, all the paperwork in one place it was a bit of a no-brainer.

“Application form?” - “Yes.”

“Passport?” - “Yes, here you go.” 

“Flight ticekt?” - “Yes.”

“Hotel reservation?” - “Yes, that one too.”

“Come back on Wednesday, one-day is not possible. The consul is not here.”

Bonk. The nice idea of making this as quick as possible just got thwarted. Same day was out of the question now. Oh well, let them keep the passport for two days (others have had it longer) and pick it up early morning on Wednesday. That’s what I did. So, keep your fingers crossed that two days from now I will at least have a Chinese visa. Then I can take care of the Tajik one - maybe that’s enough to cool the tempers there. That ’s the mild way of putting it I guess.

The problem is that I am running out of time on my Uzbek visa on Saturday with no onward visa at the moment. Who could have known that this process would take this long for the Tajik one? I had prepared things three weeks ago while still in Iran. You would think that it would be enough.

The remainder of the day was spent in an internet cafe - the large part of day 163 as well. I am downloading some podcasts for the next few days and weeks - this time without having to go through itunes, thank goodness. For all those owning an ipod and wanting to do without the big clunky program (or those who simply want to update on more than one computer), head over to podcastready and download a program called mypodder. Small, easy to use and not tied to one computer as you install it on your mp3 player as opposed to the computer you are using.

I was going to meet up with Ahmad - and met up with lots more people in the end. After getting together around mid-morning, Ahmad asked whether I wanted to head out of Tashkent with friends, both acquaintances from earlier seminars here in Tashkent.

It promised to be a good day and of course I said yes. So, after a brief visit to the home of one friend and packing up some stuff, we headed out of Tashkent to a lake by the name of Charvak.

It’s an intensely beautiful area and reminds me of the Alps …

The lake has a good deal of fluctuation between summer and winter as is visible from the picture below. Hint: take a look at the top of the picture and you see what I mean. People are also concerned about the general amount of water that the area has seen. It has steadily decreased over the last years I am told. And given that this area supplies most of Tashkent and beyond with water it is perfectly understandable why people should worry.

This is the day when nothing much happened. My batteries on my camera (the small one) both died a tragic death a little while ago, so I had to look for replacement batteries and a charger. This proved to be much easier than I thought. Together with Islam we went to a street filled to the breaking point with electronics stores and sure enough after four “No, we don’t have this kind of stuff”, we found what we were looking for. I am now in possession of an original Canon charger and two batteries. Let’s hope they do the job until the end of the trip.

Internet cafe time was followed by a long and interesting and extremely enlightening discussion over dinner with Islam before heading home to catch up on some more sleep.

Here is something to think about. Internet censorship is just as rampant here as it was in other places during the trip. But instead of reading an official message that this site is blocked, what happens here in Uzbekistan is interesting.

As a reminder, this is what happened in Iran. Sometimes it was this …

and most of the time it was this …

Here is the Uzbekistan blocking message.

You get re-routed to the MSN website. Now, maybe someone in the Uzbekistan blocking administration is a fan of that company up in Seattle. But maybe - though unlikely - said company has entered a contractual relationship with the Uzbekistan blocking administration. Or maybe someone paid someone something, aka as bribing (as is so often the case here). You never know.

This was the day of Dinara’s wedding - and also the day I was to get my Tajik visa (again).

Wedding celebrations start early here … as a matter of fact they start at 6 am. A bit of an early start given that I wanted to rest up. But how often do you get to participate in an Uzbek wedding?

The day starts off with a brief - half hour - invite of all people that cannot be invited to the wedding at night. This is a strictly male affair, the only woman I saw was Dinara’s mother towards the very end of things. It is also the opportunity for a sermon. Let’s just say that it was an interesting sermon about the role of women and the like … and the age of the imam couldn’t have been more than my own. So, after listening to the sermon (thanks for the translation, Ravshan) we had plov, a rice dish with lots of meat at 6:30 am. Good stuff to get you going. Then, one table after another gets up to leave and that was that. It is also the part of the day that the bride’s parents are organizing. The rest is up to the groom’s parents - the bride basically and most of the time, physically, moving into the family of her new husband. Thanks to Ravshan, a lot of the things that I saw made a lot more sense or were even comprehensible to me.

We still had time for the Tajik visa run to start and so Ravshan and I continued our conversation at his home until I dropped off my passport and hoped for the best. The hoping part took place in the city of Tashkent until I got a phone call later on in the day. I had high hopes that the pasting of the visas would happen today as I had not received a phone call that they wouldn’t do it. But when Oleg called he said that it was a no-go. Word had just been had that no new visas will be issued until September 1. Bonk!!! The official reason. Russian President Medvedev is in the Tajik capital Dushanbe for meeting of the Shanghai Coordination Council and thus no new visas will be issued. What? I would like to scream. You have to be kidding. The meeting will be over way before I would enter so that makes little sense. I am guessing this has to do with the Uzbek border closure and independence day festivities and no one I talk to can understand why there would be collateral damage by including the foreigners who happen to be in Uzbekistan at the time. So whatever the real reason may be (strange thoughts of an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I think), what I found even more strange was that the consulate accepted the passport and kept it all day long only to come back at the end of the day. I could have applied for the Chinese visa instead. But no such luck. No one really understands that move and the Medvedev-talk sounds highly implausible.

So, after the continuation of the visa woes, it was time for the wedding. Ravshan and I made our way there and it was festive to say the least.

It was from what I gather a rather modern wedding and looked rather similar in some ways to Western wedding, but still had a good number of surprises in store.

A tagging off of musicians and other artists. They came and went and came and went. As a matter of fact, most of them ran once their performance was over - from one wedding to the other. Traditional music instruments were followed by traditional dancing and then 1960s music from Uzbekistan - and then more modern music. All a lot of good fun. And all very, very loud.

The Uzbek state of course gave its blessing as well. And was talking very, very fast. Maybe she had to go to a different wedding still as well.

And needless to say, there was lots of good food and drinks …

And most importantly, a happy couple …

First off, thanks so much for all the comments over the last few days. Keep them coming … through the commentary function of th website or through email. It is always a big boost …

Second, some of you have asked whether it is OK to pass on the website. Yes, it is. Spread the word if you want to. The more readers, the merrier.

Otherwise, not much to report. I got up late. Slept. Still catching up with exhaustion, but feeling much better already. None of the headaches of the last few days … things are looking up. After heading out from Gorskiy, I spent some time updating the website in Kokand before being picked up by Islam and a friend who happened to be doing business in the Fergana Valley and so could give me a ride back. It was good to see the route again - especially heading up this time where because of road conditions, I really couldn’t see much of the surrounding terrain. It was beautiful and dramatic (I did catch a glimpse of that) and the road on the other side just as bad when going downhill. Dozed of peacefully at Islam’s house after the 4-hour ride.

As there are no pictures of the day, maybe this comparison may be interesting - though also to some degree scary. I just revisited the pictures of Day 1 earlier today with Sherzod.

Then …

… and now …

But just to allay any concerns, I am doing fine. And I now almost feel I was pretty chubby back then (granted this was after staying in bed with a virus infection for six weeks).