18 September 2024
(Wednesday) – Tashkent
Coach trip to
various local attractions
Having got to bed at six o’clock in the morning
the rep said that the plan for the morning was to catch up on sleep. But with
limited time in Tashkent I decided that sleep was for wimps. I’m not convinced
that “er indoors TM” agreed, but she was
scoffing brekkie with me not three hours after we’d gone to kip.
Brekkie was odd;
I had a bowl of muesli that tasted of cheap bubblegum and followed it with a
plate of cheese and curried tomatoes.
We went for a
little walk. As always when anywhere new I sparked up the geocaching map. The
noble art of hunting Tupperware is still in its infancy in Uzbekistan, but we
still scored three smiley faces (it’s a geo-thing), and as we did we
found Independence Square, loads of fountains, and a statue of Amir Timur too.
We made our way
back to the hotel. Having thought that Uzbekistan would be random huts in a
desert we’d been rather shocked to find that Tashkent was not entirely unlike
London, Paris or any other large Western city.
Once at the
hotel we got a pint and sat outside watching the busy world go by. And it was
busy.
At mid-day we
went to the hotel’s lobby where our group rallied. Having gone on an organized
holiday trip we knew there would be other people with us. Half a dozen? A
dozen? Our group numbered twenty-seven.
Our rep
explained that he was standing in until the proper rep arrived, and took us to
what was billed as a traditional Uzbek house for a traditional Uzbek dinner.
Salad, soup, fruit… there was loads of it.
And then we got
on the coach and set off to have a look round a mosque. And a mausoleum. And
the busiest food market you ever did see. Apparently the coach couldn’t wait at
the market so we took a tube train to go find it. The Uzbek tube train was
frankly amazing if for no other reason than that it wasn’t that different to
the one in London. I really wasn’t expecting that. It was a shame that the tube
train took us to where the coach was parked at the Uzbekistan Museum of Dull
Bits of Broken Pots, but there it is.
Having pretended
to be enthralled by the broken pots we went back to the hotel. This evening we
had been left to fend for ourselves for dinner, so we sat on the hotel’s
verandah and had pizza and chips which we washed down with a litre of the local
beer and a gin and tonic.
Whilst we’d
scoffed the cleaners had been at our room. “er indoors TM” wasn’t
impressed. She’d not wanted anyone to clean the room as they would see it was
in a “pig state sty” (to coin a phrase).
I took
a few photos today. After yesterday’s late finish I’m feeling all in.