We arrived two hours late at 10 pm in Tashkent .From the train station we took a cab to a hotel, which was in the guidebook. However, the hotel could not accommodate us, because it had no license for foreigners. This was the start of an odyssey through Tashkent. Hotels were full, had no license for foreigners or were simply too expensive. By 1 am I was in my hotel room.
The next morning my alarm clock rang at 7:30. I had to get my Chinese visa. I asked the receptionist to mark the location of the hotel on my map and took a taxi to the Chinese embassy. At the embassy, I was largely ignored for two hours. Then they gave me a six-page, English form. Five minutes before the end of business hours I could drop off my form, passport and a few dollars. In the afternoon I picked up my visa. During the waiting time at the embassy, I chatted with a nice young Uzbek girl. Kamola offered to show me a bit of Tashkent on the following evening.
In the afternoon I tried to return back to my hotel. Unfortunately, this was somewhat complicated, because the lady at the reception marked the wrong spot on my map. After 45 minutes of walking around, I decided that before I spend a long time in an errant taxi through the city, google maps could be more useful. My hotel was a twenty minute walk from the Internet cafe.
The next day I visited the huge Chorsu bazaar and the Uzbek History Museum. The museum is very well until the beginning of communism, then it portraits the Uzbeks as resistance fighters against communist oppression. In the most recent part of the museum there is a glorification of the achievements of the President.
In the evening I met with Kamola. She showed me a few places in Tashkent. My personal favorite is the subway station Kosmonatvlar. This place was dedicated to the Soviet cosmonauts. It is decorated in blue toners and reminiscent of a 60’s science fiction film. On the walls portraits of cosmonauts (including Yuri Gargarin) are painted. Unfortunately, photography in the subway is prohibited.
With the Chinese visa in my passport, I could move further in the direction of the Kyrgyz border. But before I did that I said goodbye to Remi and Francois, who would fly to India in the next few days.
The next morning my alarm clock rang at 7:30. I had to get my Chinese visa. I asked the receptionist to mark the location of the hotel on my map and took a taxi to the Chinese embassy. At the embassy, I was largely ignored for two hours. Then they gave me a six-page, English form. Five minutes before the end of business hours I could drop off my form, passport and a few dollars. In the afternoon I picked up my visa. During the waiting time at the embassy, I chatted with a nice young Uzbek girl. Kamola offered to show me a bit of Tashkent on the following evening.
In the afternoon I tried to return back to my hotel. Unfortunately, this was somewhat complicated, because the lady at the reception marked the wrong spot on my map. After 45 minutes of walking around, I decided that before I spend a long time in an errant taxi through the city, google maps could be more useful. My hotel was a twenty minute walk from the Internet cafe.
The next day I visited the huge Chorsu bazaar and the Uzbek History Museum. The museum is very well until the beginning of communism, then it portraits the Uzbeks as resistance fighters against communist oppression. In the most recent part of the museum there is a glorification of the achievements of the President.
In the evening I met with Kamola. She showed me a few places in Tashkent. My personal favorite is the subway station Kosmonatvlar. This place was dedicated to the Soviet cosmonauts. It is decorated in blue toners and reminiscent of a 60’s science fiction film. On the walls portraits of cosmonauts (including Yuri Gargarin) are painted. Unfortunately, photography in the subway is prohibited.
With the Chinese visa in my passport, I could move further in the direction of the Kyrgyz border. But before I did that I said goodbye to Remi and Francois, who would fly to India in the next few days.
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