We left Karakalpakstan on the road from Nukus to Khiva, entering into the non-autonomous regions of Uzbekistan. The road paralleled the Amu Darya river, surrounded by agriculture on both sides and desert beyond the river basin. The river once led to the Aral Sea, but has since been redirected for irrigation and the sea no longer exists. Here, we saw why. There was rice growing everywhere. Anybody who’s seen a rice paddy knows that it doesn’t grow in regular fields, it grows in shallow lakes. Flooding fields into shallow lakes in a desert requires quite a lot of water.
These irrigated fields also contributed to the humidity in the area, making the unbearably hot 107 F days even more difficult. We adopted a new cycling technique, riding only around sunrise and just after sunset when the ambient temperature dipped below 90 F. This was much better for cycling, but not for our health. Four to five hours of sleep at night is simply not enough when exposing your body to such conditions. From about 10 am until 7 pm, we’d stop at cafes and rest on their tapchanas, the Central Asian low tables and floor mats that are set up perfectly for having a nap after a meal. Unfortunately the heat and flies prevented any possible naps here, so we slowly became more and more grumpy. This was not helped by the masses of cars who would roll down their window, aggressively demand to know where we’re from, and then speed off in a cloud of dust and toxic fumes.
Khiva was a relief – other foreigners, wifi, and (drumroll…) air conditioning! We stayed in a popular hostel for the first night for $11 per person, well over our normal price range but the Uzbek government has a ridiculous law that all foreigners must stay in an officially registered hotel within 3 days of entering a new region in order to receive a registration slip which is necessary to exit the country. The second night we found a nicer and cheaper hotel, and the third night was our most interesting accommodation, sleeping on top of the ancient city wall. At this point, we decided that the registration slips we had already would surely be enough for the border control (it was), and camped and couchsurfed for the next 2 weeks until the border.
Khiva is a beautiful and interesting city which was taken over by many empires throughout history and has a small old city with incredibly intricate tile work and very impressive stone architecture. Although there were only a few dozen tourists, the streets were lined with souvenir sellers who were much less aggressive than I would have expected. We explored the hidden corners and ancient history for a couple days, and one evening asked some police men how to get on top of the city wall. They told us that the normal (paid) entrance is closed at night, but there’s a back route that locals use. It turned out to be a perfect place to camp, so we spread our sleeping pads on top of the wall for the final night before cycling onwads to Urgench and jumping on a train through the desert to Bukhara.
The train ride was disappointing, with no babushkas selling hot meals as in Karakalpakstan, and instead was super hot and the guys sitting next to us wreaked of B.O. and vodka.
Bukhara is another ancient city similar to Khiva but a bit bigger and grander. Here we couchsurfed with Jamik, an awesome dude who runs a chess club in an old caravansarai filled with small art galleries, a music studio for blind musicians, a bike shop, and a room for couchsurfers. As it was too hot to do anything during the day, we hung out with the artists all day and wandered the city in the evenings.
In Samarkand, we couchsurfed with Dima, who was the best host I could have imagined in this city. He gave us the keys to his summer house on the outskirts of town, complete with a small pool! The temperature dipped down to only 100 F (38 C) for a few days, so we were able to somewhat more comfortably explore the city in the daylight. Samarkand is even bigger and grander than Bukhara, but this comes with a feeling of fakeness that everything is catered to tourists. The 100 foot high tile arches on the entryways to the ancient buildings were mighty impressive, though. Dreadlocks are apparently unknown there, so I was asked for a lot of photos with random people.
Another day was spent with Dima in the mountains near the city, relaxing in the shade by a small river and contemplating the origins of life, society, and nations. After a month of having people constantly roll down their car windows, yell across the street, or stop us as we’re running to the toilet just to demand we tell them our nationalities, an actual intelligent conversation was a very nice change.
I made a photo album of selfies with people who asked where we’re from. You can see it here.
An intense bout of diarrhea and puking prevented us from leaving when we had planned (Central Asian food has rotten sheep lard in everything and it’s a really good way to get food poisoning). When we did finally hit the road to Tajikistan, we were greeted with the enticing sight of a beautiful asphalt road heading into the mountains.
Uzbekistan was, overall, a worthwhile travel experience, but I don’t feel motivated to go back again, at least not on a bicycle. The climate is extreme, the roads are falling apart, the drivers are reckless and rude, and the landscapes are generally uninteresting. Though we did meet some amazing people, we often felt unwelcome and uncomfortable throughout the trip, which may well be a remaining trace of the former president [dictator] Karimov’s strict anti-tourist policies. Under the former political regime, visas were difficult to obtain, foreigners were restricted to tourist hotels, and interaction with locals was very much constrained. This is slowly changing under the new president, and the country is opening up to tourism, but it will take some time. For now, I think Uzbekistan is a much better place to hitchhike than to ride a bike.
[donate payment=paypal type=default-credits]
To support further travel writing, your donations are appreciated!
