The young man at reception in Taskent did not appreciate me arriving from Bukhara and checking in early, I found him to be almost nasty. After the friendliness of the other lads previously I was more than a little taken aback by his behavior, I had not seen him before. Perhaps he just did not like European ladies. He asked for payment for breakfast despite the fact that breakfast comes with the room, but because it was an early check…
From alongside the train tracks, it was into the buildings that were used by the police and soldiers. In here, despite the language difficulties they tried to find out why the visa had expired. The men were a friendly bunch, some watching an english soccer game, while another stood guard at the door with a large rifle. For me it was just waiting and trying to answer questions as well as possible. In the end they gave up and I…
After enjoying the late checkout, I headed down to the Tashkent station with plenty of time in hand. The usual formalities of showing tickets to get into station and going through the scanners. Then having the passport checked again and ticket stamped there is a lot of red tape in these countries, sadly the result of a Russian past. The station area was a mad house, with so many people, bags and cases everywhere only the Chinese stations could get…
Usual early wakeup, it is so exciting wondering what these days in Tashkent will bring. A very nice breakfast in the dining room made a good start to the day. After breakfast, I asked the staff about getting some cash from an ATM, but no one seemed to know a great deal about them. Therefore, I asked about changing some US dollars that I carry “just in case”. I had it explained that there was two systems in the country,…