I’ve been on the Silk Road this past week, doing security reviews on offices, a factory and a tobacco leaf fermentation plant. (300km from Afghanistan, which is as close as I ever want to get, thank you very much.) It was hectic schedule with rotten weather over some prety rough roads, so I didn’t have much time for sight-seeing, but I snapped a couple of shots with the iPhone:
A pit-stop on the road between Tashkent and Samarkand. The pomegranates were delicious. I was thinking of buying a bottle of fresh grenadine for tequila sunrises, but thought better of it – the pomegranates, (how do you spell that?) were in their skins, after all, but who knows where the juice was pressed. (I have a healthy respect for hep A and B…)
Just to show that it’s not always business class hotels – this is the restaurant where we had lunch on the way back from Samarkand to Tashkent. The meal was ‘plov,’ (pilaff,) and it was piping hot, straight out of the pot, so I reckoned it was safe enough – it was also delicious. A couple of diners were reclining on the Turkish-style divan at the back of the room, but they left before I took the shot. I don’t know how they manage to eat lying down, I’d probably choke!
…and this was the restroom…
More fruit on the way back to Tashkent. I learned the other day – as another charioteer posted, never too old to learn new stuff – that the apple originated in Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan, apparently you can trace the dna of modern apples all the way back to it’s origins in this area. These were delicious, too, though not the most attractive-looking apples you’ll ever see, a bit battered and bruised for Tesco’s, but they were crisp, juicy and sweet with just a trace of sourness and very refreshing after a quick wash with Milton’s fluid. (Never leave home without it 🙂 )
Paying the bill after the final night in an English pub in Samarkand – fish and chips, very good, too, it tasted as if the chips had been properly cooked in lard, none of that healthy crap, and a couple of pints of Russian-brewed IPA, which was also surprisingly good!
As you see, when you go out in Uzbekistan, you have to carry a couple of bricks of cash, unless you want to risk your credit card… The brick still in its wrapper is 50k ‘sum’ – about 18 quid, and there’s about another 30k loose on top, so about a bit less than 30 quid for meals and drinks, (beers, vodka – always vodka,) for three people, much cheaper than Tashkent where a similar evening a week ago Friday cost around 260 quid!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Thanks Bravo, really interesting. 😀
Thanks for the photos – and the information. I was really fascinated to learn about apples.
The ‘restroom’ looks only slightly less well-finished than the loo I used in a Paris bar when I was sixteen… although, to be fair, I think that did have a chain… 🙂
I do like the look on my American daughter-in-law’s face when I say I am going for a rest! Fortunately, most of the “rest rooms” in her neck of the woods are a bit more civilised!
Interesting post.
Good grief you do get around.
Did the google map thingy, started with Tashkent, had to zoom out, out, out more outs (I lost count of the outs) just to get an idea where you are, finally got it, sort of north of Afghanistan, remarkable.
Super post, will you be anywhere near the north pole at Christmas? 🙂
Soutie, I’ll be in Cyprus for Christmas. I finish my contract here on the 11th December – it’s been fun.
btw. There was nowhere for the ‘p’ in pit stop. We finished up doing exactly what those two guys in the left background are doing, on the bank of an irrigation channel in plain sight. No-one took a blind bit of notice, of course. 😀
Thanks for your post, bravo. It’s a road I’ve always wanted to travel.
Interesting,
I reckon they saw you coming with the prices, have you ever tried to pay them in new dollar bills out there?
Evidently the apricots are to die for too in that neck of the woods.
Was there any loo paper? In a lot of places you get a tub of clean stones offered, quite makes the eyes water! No paper mills and can’t afford to import the stuff.
The boy got arrested on the Uzbek border with his entourage, in the end they let him go because they couldn’t actually think of anything to charge him with, they all stood and shouted at each other for 6 hours! After that they just used to cross over down a side street and dodge the formal crossing, seriously bizarre.
Mind you, you can do the same here between the USA and Canada if you know the old roads and cart tracks.
The pictures look amazing, Bravo. I’ve long wanted to see Central Asia because it just looks so different. Keep the pictures coming.
Tina, the prices are printed in the menu…
Didn’t see any loo paper or shiny stones either. Not that the Uzbeks are any more observant muslims than the Kazakhs – vodka abounding 🙂
Fabulous collection of pictures – I just love the colours, (The flow of colours throughout this sequence would make for a magical silk scarf.) It is so interesting reading of your trips. The I phone takes great pictures!
Wot Christopher said.
OZ
Superb photos and very interesting, probably a bit too basic for a holiday for me, I do like a proper loo and shower. Good idea to take the milton with you.