A New Year… Tashkent to Samarkand. 1/1/20

January 1, 2020

This morning we packed and headed to pick up our rental car. We took a taxi, and for a while it didn’t look too good. The driver was really lost, but eventually we made our way there. The car is an older model (maybe 10 years old?) Nissan Sentra, which fortunately has a very big trunk. We practically had to sign our life away to rent the car — lots of paperwork, some particular paper we need to show police if we get stopped, etc. When the guy took us out to the car he said… “Oh one thing, there is a crack on the windshield,” so he knows it’s not our fault. The crack goes all across the windshield from left to right… Anyway, we signed away and off we went. He repeated that we need to be sure to get petrol.. as opposed to gas (which is propane). We got familiar with the car and started the four-and-a-half-hour drive at around 1:30.

The drive from Tashkent to Samarkand was fairly boring — very flat – and at times we felt this must be what the end of the world will look like, especially because the heavy haze followed us the whole way. It’s not pollution; it really is just a heavy haze. Eventually we could see some mountains in the distance, and a little bit of agriculture. People line the roadside trying to hail a ride (an Uzbeki form of Uber?). No billboards, no real signs; even the signs for turn-offs just say “Termiz” or Exit… they don’t tell the name of the street or city.. Every 75 miles or so there are signs with destinations and number of kilometers left to go. The speed limits when you are approaching villages are posted and they make you go about 70 kph (40 mph) and slower as you really are driving through the town (50 kph/ 30 mph); people seem to take this seriously. Funny thing, when we asked at the hotel what the overall speed limit is when driving on the “highway” they said 90 kph (54 mph); we asked the same question at the rental car and they said 100 kph / 60 mph… Since there aren’t any signs telling you the speed limit for the non-village road, we’ve been trying to keep to under 100. Apparently there are many many cameras along the route and if you are speeding in a rental car a notice will go to the rental company and a fine will be added to our bill. The rental car company will know about the ticket within 24 hours after it is issued (electronically) and we will get a WhatsApp from the rental company. Oh, the roads are in pretty terrible shape, but definitely drivable.

We knew it was going to be a bit complicated to find the Bibkhanum Hotel because it is smack in the middle of the very oldest part of Samarkand and is practically at the front door of one of the largest mosques. We were doing fine with our GPS but we couldn’t figure out how to make this one left turn at the very end; we tried by making a u-turn and tried a third time, but somehow we couldn’t find the street. Then the GPS did a rerouting and we followed the new route which took us on dirt roads that were very very narrow with barely enough room for one car, let alone two cars (driving in opposite directions) to maneuver and no sidewalk – so the road or street was really just the space between the houses facing one another. On several occasions we needed to drive about one mile an hour to navigate with a car coming in the opposite direction… with people always coming out to yell how close we were or to maneuver differently. Unfortunately, we didn’t understand what they were saying. Mike was quite good at this, especially since it was dark by the time we were dealing with these streets. But then we sort of came to an end. We knew the little hotel was just a one minute walk, but we could go no further and there was no place to leave the car. We called the hotel and the guy seemed to know immediately where we were. He showed up and explained in limited English that we had come from the wrong side (that feisty left turn we couldn’t make!) So he said we needed to turn around and go back down and around and drive up the other side of the hill. There was really no way to just “turn around”… He said he could drive the car, but when he got inside he realized it was automatic transmission and said he only knows manual (??) So he called a friend “who is a very good driver with automatic”… He arrived and then many people emerged to also give directions to the guy.. and then we became passengers for five minutes or so as we re-navigated the route to emerge on the other side of the hotel and the hill.

Our car is now parked somewhere not too far from the hotel. I’ll describe the hotel tomorrow. We asked about dinner but he said the restaurant in the hotel was closed today for New Years, but he’d find a restaurant that would be open and we can walk to it. A few minutes later the front desk guy (the one who doesn’t drive automatic) knocked on our door to tell us that they called the “chef” and now the restaurant will be open. We went to the “restaurant” about 30 minutes later. Food was about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, but in a way it was the easiest thing to do.

Tomorrow we begin our exploration of Samarkand – one of the Silk Road cities.

Until then –

Fern