Silk Road & The Stans Eclipse Blog

Sep 16 - The World Changed, and We Were Unaware

2008-09-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

For 42 days (July 24 - Sep 3), our only contact with world news, other than the few days where we had access to CNN, BBC, or EuroNews, was by watching Chinese, Russian, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz TV. Since we don't understand a whole lot of Chinese, Russian, Uzbek, or Kyrgyz, (and since those channels don't cover a whole lot of world news), it is now time to note what happened while we were out of touch.

Oil: On July 11, 2008, the price of oil hit $147 USD per barrel. By July 24, it had dropped slightly, to apx $128 USD per barrel. Today it is $91 USD per barrel. In July gas at the pump was right around $4 per gallon when we left, and $3.55 per gallon when we got back, although it has now temporarily spiked in Georgia as Gulf refineries closed because of Hurricanee Ike.(Prices of gas where we traveled were consistently in the $.90 to $1 per liter range, which corresponds to $3.50 - 3.80 per gallon, although they are likely to be falling there.)

The dollar, euro, pound, and Chinese yuan: on July 25, the Chinese yuan was at 6.8213 to the dollar (1 yuan = $.1466). It is now 6.86824 (1 yuan = $.1456). Pretty stable. But on July 25, $1 = .6371 Euro ($1.5696 = 1 Euro), and today it is $1 = .7043 Euro ($1.4198 = 1 Euro). The British pound was $1.9893 = 1 pound. Today it is $1.7803 = 1 pound. The Uzbek sum and the Kyrgyz som have weakened very slightly against the US dollar.

In July, the following were still independent entities, unencumbered by sale, bankruptcy, receivership, or conservatorship: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, IndyMac, Merrill Lynch, and AIG.

How can so much change in 7 weeks or so? We had very little knowledge of it, and were seemingly unaffected by any of it.

This region of the world will certainly be affected by the price of oil/diesel fuel. But the things that really affect it are the price of rice (currently over $1 per pound in the markets), the price of flour (bread and noodles), and the price of locally produced meat, vegetables and fruit, and the price of imported goods, like refrigerators, computers, automobiles, trucks. Will the strengthening of the dollar and the slow collapse of the US and world financial institutions affect the price of these things in Uzbekistan? The stability of the nations of Central Asia may depend on the answer to that and similar questions.

Sep 6 - Stay tuned: there's more to come!

2008-09-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

We will publish more posts about our trip and upload our photos to the blogs. So keep on checking in and sharing your comments.

The Trip Home

2008-09-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

We got to the Almaty Airport a little before 10 pm, and were dropped off at the departure level of the terminal. Instead of walking right in, we crossed the bridge to the parking deck, took the stairs down, and started across the parking lot to enter the terminal at the arrival (ground) level.
Right adjacent to the terminal stood a hotel. We decided to walk over there, just for the hell of it.

The hotel had......rooms. We were shown two kinds: (1) 2-bed spacious (plain but quite suitable) en suite (toilet and shower) rooms for 18000 tenge ($150); and (2) 2-bed smaller rooms with a sink, with the toilets (but no showers) a walk down the hall for 7500 ($62.50). We decided that a good, unhasseled nights' sleep would be prudent, so we put room choice 2 on the credit card (our only credit card purchase for the entire trip). A bed to call our own. So much for sleeping at the airport.

We got up the next morning, had a leisurely breakfast with two hearty bowls of what the menu called call kasha, but what is closer to a buttered cream of rice soup. It was delicious, and Carol ate about 1 1/2 of the bowls. Mike got a blintz, which turned out to be a crepe with butter. An order of tea brought a cup of water and a tea bag.

At 10 am we took a leisurely 3-minute walk the terminal. No fuss, no rush. Finally, at 11 am, having found nothing at the airport on which to spend our last $9 in tenge, we exchanged it back to USD and checked the bags.

Our flight, sold to us by Expedia, was as follows:
Air Astana KC901, leaving Almaty at 12:30 pm Kazakh Time (+6), and arriving Heathrow Terminal 2 at 3:15 pm England Time (+1).
American AA091, leaving Heathrow Terminal 3 at 4:45 pm England Time (+1), and arriving Chicago O'Hare at 7:20 pm CDT (-5).
A by-now cancelled United UA1414, leaving O'Hare at 8:55 pm CDT (-5) and arriving Atlanta at 11:45 pm EDT (-4).

We knew we could not check the bags through to Atlanta because the third flight did not exist, but we knew we had to check the bags as far as O'Hare.

BIG PROBLEM. Our connection time at Heathrow was only 90 minutes. This one hour and 30 minute period is apparently so tight by current standards that the computer could not allow Air Astana to check the bags through to Chicago O'Hare, nor could an appropriate luggage handling tag be printed. After 45 minutes, the Air Astana reps just handwrote ORD AA91 on the luggage tags, and we were off.

We were seated next to the Engineering Manager of Air Astana Airlines. This gentleman, a Brit who was beginning a two week vacation at home, is in charge of safety and maintenance for Air Astana's 30 or so airplanes. We talked about a lot of things, including who regulates Air Astana (the British, the Europeans, the Arubans (where the planes are in fact registered), and the Kazakhs). The first three, along with our gentleman, who has over 30 years of experience in the airline business) make sure that this is a well-run airline.

An example: Air Astana has a number of 50 passenger planes for its service to the smaller cities of Kazakhstan. They use Fokker 50 seaters. This gentleman's informed opinion was that the Antonov AN-24, on which we had ridden from Osh to Bishkek, is one of the most dangerous airplanes in service in the world. It is underpowered and without a substantial margin of error in case of engine problems or overloading. (Maybe that's why the pilot revved up the engine so much before we took off at Osh.)

The Almaty-London flight was uneventful, but we neared Heathrow about 30 minutes late. We ended up in a holding pattern and landed at 4:15 pm, with just 30 minutes to spare. With the permission of the flight attendant, Carol and Mike unceremoneously ran to the front of the plane before it even finished taxiing to the runway, and were the first ones off.

It is a long way from Heathrow 2 to Heathrow 3, including a shuttle bus ride. It took us 20 minutes to get there. We got on the American Airlines plane 10 minutes before its scheduled departure, pretty sure that our bags had not made it.

On the American flight, also uneventful, Carol found 3 adjoining seats, and slept. Mike watched a couple of movies and some TV shows. Finally we landed on time, and found no luggage belonging to us in the carrousel. We formally entered into the United States, then went to the United Airlines counter. There we were assigned seats on the 6:45 am flight to Atlanta the next morning, a free hotel near the airport, and $30 in dinner and breakfast vouchers.

We were 11 hours jetlagged (10 if we pretended we were in Atlanta) and pretty much out of it. We used the dinner vouchers for 2 bowls of soup, and a Caesar salad, with real lettuce. (We had barely seen lettuce on the whole trip, and probably would not have eaten it anyway, out of safety concerns.)

We could barely sleep (even after trying to listen to Joe Lieberman at the RNC), because it was mid-morning Kazakh time when we went to bed, and mid-afternoon KzT when we got up. Doing the best we could, we presented ourselves at the O'Hare check-in. We received the Homeland Security special search because Mike presented as his ID the expired Georgia license he had kept in his wallet for ID during the trip, and because we had no luggage! We used our breakfast vouchers at [welcome home!] McDonalds (wise move, since only drinks were served to peon class on the flight).

At Hartsfield Atlanta, we filed our missing baggage claim. Under existing rules, United, the last airline in the chain, is responsible for finding our luggage, even though they had nothing to do with losing it. Oh well.

We took MARTA, the Atlanta subway train, to our car, which our kids left for us at the appointed parking lot, picked up the mail, did some grocery shopping, read 6 weeks of accumulated e-mails, and went to bed at 8 pm. For our first meal at home, we enjoyed a large salad of fresh tomatoes, cucumber, onion, olives, and lemon juice and olive oil. (We had not eaten anything with lemon juice and olive oil on the whole trip, to the best of our knowledge.)

By the end of the day, still no word about the luggage. As a damn-fool move, we had packed the defunct camera, with all 850 photos, in the backpacks, along with both of the disks we had copied in Bukhara. Carol feared that we might never see any of it again. Mike was coming to feel the same way.

Update: On Sep 4, at 10 am, we learned that the bags had been found and that there was a substantial probability that they were on American Airlines flight 47 to O'Hare. On Sep 5, both bags were delivered to our house while we were at work.

Sep 1 - Bishkek KG to Almaty KZ

2008-09-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

We were packed and at breakfast before 8 am. No others we up to join us for a breakfast of yogurt, tea, crepes, sour cream, and apple preserves. Even though Bishkek gets its name from "pishpek" (the churn used for making the mare's milk drinky, "kumys"), we would not have a chance to sample this delicacy.

Radison Guesthouse was the cleanest place we had stayed in, with a flowering central courtyard and a quiet location in a most interesting part of Bishkek. Our choice of regional TV channels was also a plus. This morning, on what may have been a pre-Ramadan special, there were some interesting Muslim music videos. One portayed a teenage boy singing about doing good deeds and keeping the faith every day - really catchy. With not too many changes, it could have been shown at any Vacation Bible School or yeshiva.

After breakfast we walked over to the central area of town, and changed $8 US to get just enough spending money to get us out of Kyrgyzstan. We did a little shopping, and checked the internet. No message yet from Hotel Kazzhol.

When we returned to Radison Guesthouse the British couple was preparing to leave. They had more than enough baggage to fill a taxi to the bus terminal by themselves. We had already plotted a simple one-bus journey to the station. So we said our farewells, giving them the last piece of Mike's coffee gum (which he had purchased in China).

It was 10 am, and time for us to hoist the backpacks and walk three blocks to where we could catch the 113 or 114 bus on the street named Jibek Jolu (Silk Road in Kyrgyz, related to Ipak Yoli in Uzbek). Once again, we passed the blue-steepled Russian Orthodox Church. When we arrived at the station, we had the routine down pat. We were mobbed by the shared taxi drivers going to every destination, including Almaty. We walked past them into the station itself. There, waiting, was a commodious bus to Almaty, nearly full, and ready to leave. The next bus, which would leave in 15-20 minutes, was right behind. This second bus had a nice choice of seats, and only cost 300 sum apiece. Since we had budgeted 350 sum apiece, this was pleasant news. Carol picked out the two best remaining seats; we even had time to visit the facilities and buy cold water for the journey.

At 10:55 am, the bus filled, and we were off.

About 30 minutes in, we arrived at the Kazakhstan border, to cross over. Everyone was told to get off and take their baggage. First we had to exit Uzbekistan, filling out our customs declaration (with special attention to how much money you were leaving with), then get the Uzbek departure stamp. At that point you are out of Uzbekistan. You walk several hundred meters through "no-man's land." You now get in line to get the Kazakhstan stamp in your passport. That being accomplished, you are now in Kazakhstan. This is the process that had taken 4 hours on August 14 and 1 hour on August 27.

As the bus unloaded, our driver said something to me in Russian including the word "buistra," which Mike understood to mean fast or quickly. Anyway, Carol had to find a restroom. It turned out there was a 5 minute line (with a for-you-special fee of 5 (!) som (KG) or 20 tenge (KZ) for the dirty stand-on-the-bricks-over-the hole facilities). So it looked like weren't going to be the first through the line, at the very least. Still, we hustled, and things moved fairly quickly. Pretty soon, maybe 10 minutes later, we were through the Uzbek lines, past the no-man's land, and into Kazakhstan. Mike was encouraged when he noticed that there was someone else from the bus between Carol and himself, so at least Carol wouldn't be last.

We were soon both back on the bus. Although we the most "foreign" people on the bus, we weren't the last to return. Not even close to last. Eventually, nearly everyone was on, but two.

While we were waiting, a local woman came into the bus, selling some piroshki. We had 70 som left, and 4 sold for 60. Surprisingly, they turned out to be sweet, filled with a fruit (apple and pear??) mixture. Not bad for an impromptu snack. Since Almaty (Alma-Ata) means "father of apples," it was a nice intro to the country.

Even after our snack was devoured, still there were two open seats on the bus. The driver and the whole bus was really getting angry now. Finally, the two showed up. Goodness knows what they had been doing. But this episode suggested Froman's Fifth Rule of Travel, which is: Never be the last one back, EVER. There is an associated rule, which is never be the last one on the bus (or the train, or the ferry, etc.). This is clearly not always true, because if it is the last bus of the night, or the last ferry of the day, you want to be on it, last or not. But the last one permitted on the vehicle usually gets stuck with the worst seat, and sometimes gets to stand the whole trip, or to have to sit with luggage on his lap, or other substantial inconveniences.

We were on our way to Almaty, with 240 km of Kazakhstan to go. Steppes to the left, hills and eventually mountains (some snow-capped) to the right. After an hour or so, we stopped for a ten minute break. We both needed a restroom, so Carol took the 10 som we had left and went first. She came back with only 2 som! Imagine, 8 som for use of the facilities. Mike then took the remaining 2 som and dropped it in the box. The guy said something like "%$&% Hey!" Mike got the 2 som back but didn't get to use the WC.

A little about prices in Kazakhstan. Of the 5 core Central Asian 'Stans (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan), Kazakhstan "stans out" financially. Uzbekistan has a little bit of oil, but Kazakhstan has a whole lot of oil. One result of this is that Kazakhstan has a bunch of really wealthy people. However, it also has a growing middle class, much larger than in any of the other Stans. It also has higher prices. Much higher prices, as we were to discover later today.

25 cents to use the bathroom is quite high for this part of the world, but there you have it. We were now in Kazakhstan. There was also a cafeteria at this reststop. While we weren't going to eat there, a quick look at the menu revealed that most of the plates were at least 400 tenge ($3.33) and some were as much as 700 tenge ($5.83). These were much higher prices than any we had seen at any time on this trip.

The countryside gradually gave way to small communities, some with house with dacha-style roofs. Then came rows of apartment houses. By three pm, we were in Almaty, Kazakhstan (our plane left from Almaty at 12:30 pm the next day). The bus left us in the Sayran bus station, about 5 km west of downtown. We had decided to continue on to the Kazzhol Hotel, where we had tried to register online. A few quick queries later, we were told to take the 94 bus. Bus fares were 50 tenge (42 cents) - quite reasonable. A 94 bus came by, so we got on. Cross street markers were hard to find, so we eventually got the whole front of the bus ready to advise us when our cross street arrived.

After several kilometers past commercial and residential areas, we got off. Three blocks to the north, and a dogleg to the east, and there we were at the hotel. We walked in. We asked for a room with two beds, toilet and shower, which we believed to be the standard room listed in LP for 10900 tenge ($90). The woman at the desk said they had room. Mike tendered the credit card. The woman swiped it, and handed the slip to Mike to sign. 17000 tenge!!! ($142) Sticker shock in the extreme. We insisted on looking at the 10900 tenge standard room. It was a dinky little space with one narrow too-soft single bed. We then looked at the 17000 tenge room. It was what we had come to know as a standard room (using the Chinese terminology), but the beds were also soft, the room was small, and not well furnished. This room was inferior to the $40 room we had had in Tashkent, or the $40 guesthouse room in Samarkand.

What to do? Next door stood a similar hotel. Their 2 bed room was only 16000 tenge, but it was sold out, and the best they had was the 28000 tenge deluxe suite. ($230+). This was now getting surreal. Carol looked again at the Lonely Planet guidebook. A block and a half away was the ecotourist information office. Perhaps they could hook us up with a homestay.

So we got the visa charge for 17000 cancelled, and walked over to the eco office. Locked tight! This was really getting to be a bummer. The dorm accomodations listed in LP were on the south side of the city, and we were now too pooped to venture into another wild goose chase. We cogitated and finally decided we were just going to sleep at the airport. Like Victor Navorski in the film "The Terminal," which we had viewed in our guesthouse room not 48 hours previously, we were on our own.

We cashed another $30 or so, so that we now had over 6500 tenge. This would serve for a nice meal, a good breakfast, 3 hours on the internet (300 - 350 tenge an hour, not the 50 cents an hour we had been used to paying) and a 2000 tenge taxi ride to the airport. This was starting to feel like we were in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, not Bishkek, Osh, or Tashkent.

By this time, we were hungry, very thirsty, and there was nothing to be done but get some quick eats for our backpack-burdened selves. The guidebook suggested going to the (fortunately nearby) Yubilleyny Food Market.

At Yubilleyny, we purchased two composed salads, 3 stuffed grape leaves, a 1.5 liter bottle of water, and a 1 liter carton of tomato juice, all for about $8. Outside we found a stall selling tortilla-wrapped doner kebabs with pickles, cucumber, carrot shreds, french fries. ketchup and mayo - talk about fusion cuisine. We ordered two, at 300 tenge apiece (higher than what we were expecting). Oh, so good. We were revived.

It was now close to 6 pm. We walked three or so blocks back to an internet cafe we had seen, and spent three hours there. The price was 300 tenge an hour ($2.50), not the 50 cent or so equivalent we had been paying. We spent about a half hour researching the art of sleeping in airports (e.g., sleep on the arrival side, not the departure side), and making a list of all of the planes that were going to be leaving from the airport and when. The Almaty airport turns out to be a busy 24-hour airport, with flights leaving and arriving every several hours all through the night. We figured we could at least stay there, even though we had doubts about being able to actually sleep there. The rest of the time was spent getting our blog up to date.

A little after 9 pm, we started looking for a taxi to the airport. None were coming along our way, but eventually we noticed one parked on the street. We went up to the driver, agreed on a 2000 tenge fare ($16.67 for 10 km), and we were off. We got to the airport a little before 10 pm. Our adventure of coming home had started.

Aug 31 - Bishkek

2008-09-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

We were in no rush this morning, so we spent some time watching a 2004 movie "The Terminal." This movie, starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, involves a man who becomes stateless and trapped in a New York airport. Since it was dubbed into Russian, we missed the entire subplot of Tom Hanks speaking with a foreign accent. www.imdb.com/title/tt0362227/synopsis.
Teaser: this will all become very personal for us later.

At 8 am, there were two other couples already at breakfast in the patio. The Tom Hanks movie ended at 8:10 am, and we soon joined them. One couple was from Vienna. They had just finished leading a trekking group through Kyrgyzstan, and were flying out that afternoon. They had previously led trips in the Himalayas and elsewhere. They had been on vacation for approximately 6 weeks.

The second couple, our age, had just finished a 4 day trip by train from London to Bishkek. They had spent a few days in Bishkek, recovering from traveler's tummy, and were getting ready to start horse-trekking from Kochkor. Their plans were to make it across the Irkeshtam Pass by the end of September, and to go from Kashgar, across the Khunjerab Pass into Pakistan, and thence from Lahore into India. When we asked them when they were returning to England, they replied "June, because our daughter is getting married in July." 10 months on the road!

Our plan this morning was to go to Ala-Archa Park. Bishkek is one of the few cities in the world, and may be the only capital, which adjoin mountains taller than 14,000 feet. In this case, Bishkek is at 800 meters (2600 feet) and the tallest peak in the Ala-Archa Range is close to 5000 meters (16,500 feet).

To get to Ala-Archa Park, you go south from Bishkek. About 20 km out is the small town of Kashka Suu, which is reachable by public transit. 7 km farther is the gate to the park, where you pay admission. 12 km further in is the end of the public road. You are now at 2180 meters elevation (apx 7000 feet).

We took a bus over to Osh Bazaar, from where the bus to Kashka Suu was supposed to leave. As usual Osh Bazaar was a total madhouse, but Carol had a wonderful epiphany. Here, at last, for the first time since the beginning of the trip, we had regained the blessed state of anonymity. We looked like many of the other people, and we dressed like many of the other people, and we were engaged in the same activities. No little kid said "Hello."

After 15 minutes or so, we spotted a bus to Kashka Suu (265) and got on. The fare was 21 som, and when the bus finally filled, we went south through the suburban southern towns. It was after noon when we got to the end of the line, 7 km from the gate, and 19 km from the starting point of any hikes, called the "alplager."

There were three of us at the end of the line. A couple of private cars stopped, but wanted an exhorbitant amount to get us to the alplager. Finally, a taxi stopped, and the third, a local woman, explained to us that the taxi would take us to the alplager for 150 sum apiece (300), plus 80 sum apiece for admission (160). We all hopped on, and she got off before the gate, having gotten a free ride for her role in arranging this deal.

We got to the gate, and the driver motioned to Mike to pay the admission. For the car and three people, it came to 200 sum (not 160). On we went to the top of the road, where the driver left us off and we paid the 300. The total was 500 sum, or about $14.

It was now noon. The weather was in the 60s, with a nice wind. The sky was clear, and we had views of snow capped mountains. We were back in the Alps, and loving every minute of the first breath of autumn in Ala-Archa, part of the Tian Shan mountains we had first met in Hami and Yiwu, a month ago.

We had our pick of several hikes, and chose to go to some waterfalls, a 3.75 km hike. This trail climbs relatively steeply, perhaps ascending 1000-1500 feet in that distance.

The hike was lovely, rising above a spruce forest and two roaring streams, but rocky. We were wearing sneakers and had no hiking poles (there is only so much that one can carry n a six week trip). About 30 minutes in, Mike decided that the elevation and steepness were too much, and sat down. Carol went on; her experience leading hikes finally reluctantly convinced her that continuing without proper gear was folly, and she too turned back. We got down to the alplager at 1:45 pm, having enjoyed another glimpse of the natural beauty of Kyrgystan, an ecotourist's paradise.

We anticipated great difficulty getting down the first 19 km from the alplager, but less than 5 minutes after we started hitching, we were picked up by 3 Russian tourists from near Ekaterinburg, who were on their holiday. They took us to the bus stop and would have gladly taken us into Bishkek. They spoke no English, but we communicated through hand signals: thumbs up for Obama, and thumbs down for Bush.

The 265 bus took us back to the Osh Bazaar, where we had seen a number of eateries. We picked out one, filled mostly with men, but with a few families sitting on the right side. We sat down and ordered plov, pelmeny, nan, and a skewer of shashlik, accompanied by two half liter mugs of beer. The whole bill came to 204 sum ($6 US).

Our appetities were satiated, and Carol was a bit buzzed. As we headed back to the city center, Carol was WWI (walking while intoxicated).

It was time to change a little money, to hit the internet, and to discover if there were any festivities related to Independence Day. While at the internet, we attempted to reserve a room at the Kazzhol Hotel in Almaty for the next night. We swallowed hard when we learned that a standard room at that hotel, recommended by Lonely Planet as a good midprice choice, was 10900 tenge. A tenge is now trading at 119.8 to the USD, so this would be $90 USD. We filled out the internet form, submitted it online, and got a message that the reply would arrive in 48 hours.

While we were at the internet, we watched an Israeli couple (the first of our trip) upload the contents of their camera. These included some spectacular nature pictures and human interest studies of their time in Kyrgyzstan.

Afterwards, we wandered into Beta store again, got a 1.5 liter bottle of tomato juice and a large water, and walked to the fountain in front of the Philharmonia Building, where we saw a large crowd appreciating the fountain and the amateur violinist serenading them with Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag.

It was 9 pm, and time to drink the tomato juice and watch a folkloring song contest, being broadcast on Kyrgyz television. Happy Independence Day, Kyrgyzstan! (17 years)

The song duel (aitys) would have made more sense to us if we had been able to understand the lyrics, but basically it was as follows: Contestant one plays the qobyz (a two stringed primitive fiddle) or dombra (a two stringed lute) and recites some complicated poetry. Contestant two listens, and when it is his turn, he replies with more poetry, in the same style. And so it goes back and forth. Occasionally, the audience responds with laughter or applause for some particularly witty bon mot by the akyn (bard). There were judges to declare the winner.

Aug 30 - Kochkor to Bishkek

2008-08-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

We awoke at 6:30, but we knew that there was plenty of time before breakfast. Last night, Kuku had informed us that breakfast would be served at 8, as in 8:00 am KgTime exactly. With no shower to take, and no TV to watch, we pulled out the large package of handwipes that Amy had bequeathed us at the end of the eclipse tour. A dozen or more wipes later, we were reasonably non-repellent. We admired the pear tree full of fruit outside our window.

We packed our bags to prepare to go. Carol stepped out of the room at 7:55, but Mike made the mistake of still being inside at 8:02 and Kuku came to fetch him.

Breakfast was served outside, in a yurt erected in the courtyard. A group of 4 Singapore residents in their 20s had also spent the night. With their perfect English and lively conversation, they made excellent breakfast companions. They took photos of everybody and everything at breakfast, so that we know that we are not alone in wanting documentation of our meals. Kuku presided over the table, adding her few words of Russian, and pouring tea whenever a cup sat empty. Here, and at Song Kul, the tea is made in two pots. One consists of highly concentrated steeping tea, with an ingenious external strainer, attached to the end of the spout. The larger vessel contained hot water. 1 part tea to 3 parts hot water, for a perfect cup.

The breakfast was simple. Nan bread, fried eggs (the deep orange yellow of the yolks was proof that these were free range organic eggs produced on this street), and an array of chunky fruit preserves and honey. We contributed our remaining bread from our yurt lunch, which was sampled and appreciated by all.

At 9:15, we had our backpacks on and were walking to the center of town, where the buses and taxis assemble to go to Bishkek. Because of the difficulty of sharing Kuku's outhouse with the additional guests, by the time we got the center of town, we both desperately needed a bathroom. We were immediately surrounded by drivers who needed and wanted our business. Mike said in his best Russian: Toilet, afterwards Bishkek.

By the time Mike reemerged, a local Kyrgyz woman had spoken to Carol in French saying that the two of us would complete an already assembled taxi headed to Bishkek, and that the price was 500 sum, directly to our destination, for the two of us. We struck and loaded our belongings in the trunk. It was 10 am.

We had made a fortuitous choice. The vehicle was spacious (Volkswagon Passat GL, a common car in Kyrgyzstan) and the company was excellent. Carol could communicate in French with the Kyrgyz woman and the Belgian man, who was the fourth passenger. He turned out to be an employee of Ernst Young, who had traveled extensively around the world. He had just completed a two week horse trek in the mountains with a French group.

As we were leaving town, the driver pulled up to the gas station, and purchased 325 sum worth of benzin (diesel). Since he had been paid 1000 sum for the trip, we now have Froman's Fourth Rule of Travel. If the driver, on setting out, takes one third of the money he has been paid, and buys petrol, you have paid a fair price for the trip. In this case, one-third for the gas, one-third for the car, and one-third for the driver. Thus the driver would earn approximately $9 for this 3 hour trip. This is likely the only trip he would make that day, although if lucky he could assemble a return carload.

A little further outside town there were rows and rows of cemeteries along the roadside. Since they did not seem at all ancient, it is possible that mountain people from miles and miles around are buried in the valley. In this part of Kyrgyzstan, hammered sheet metal is used for the domes of mosques and the crescent toppings atop grave memorials, so everything glistened in the sunshine.

There was much interesting conversation during this taxi drive. The Kyrgyz conversation and the driver had a lively conversation about Kyrgyz politics and religion, some of which was translated into French. It seems that the driver had accepted the strictures of Ramadan (which was to begin Sep 1) four days early and planned to continue the fast for two weeks after the traditional ending. We discussed European politics with the Belgian passenger, who was amazed that we had any knowledge of the topic: he repeatedly exclaimed "You're not like other Americans." When we got to the question of how long Belgium would remain a single country, he got defensive and the conversation turned elsewhere.

At 1 pm we were only 30-40 km from Bishkek. In the middle of a busy area, our driver pulled off the road and stopped, because of a concern with his car. It was never quite clear what was wrong, although we suspect the car had overheated. (Old cars driven hard like his sometimes do that.) Anyway, after about a half hour, his concerns evaporated and we drove into town. As the driver had promised, we were dropped at our destination, Radison Guesthouse, a little after 1:30 pm. We had agreed on $50 a night. However, the room was small, and most of the other rooms were being rented for $35 (it appeared from a sneak peek at the rental sheet). So after some haggling, and being presented with a crisp clean $50 bill and two crisp clean $20 bills, the proprietor agreed to $40 for the second night. As they say, Money Talks, and B.... Walks.

In Bishkek we settled in, took the shower we had lacked for 2 days, and called Derek, our friend whom we had met in Bukhara. He agreed to meet us at 3 at the guesthouse. We discovered that our television clicker could go up to 100 channels, so we explored the possibilities, both Russian and Kyrgyz. Full disclosure: 100 channels, most of which are blue screens, and many of which are duplicates, amounts to about 5 - 7 channels. But still it was fun to exercise our long disused clicker fingers.

We left together, and walked around town. We went to a restaurant with a reputation for good central asian food. We looked for a topchan table, then just a table outside, and finally settled for seats inside, where we ordered a meal. Derek did the translating, pointing out a first page with all the additional charges - for bringing outside drinks, for bringing outside fruits, for smoking, and for occupying a topchan for more than one hour. However, service was so slow that it was hard to imagine anyone completing a meal and getting their bill in less than one hour.

After the meal, we sampled the outdoor fare. This time of year, vendors are selling summer grain and dairy drinks. For 6 sum (17 cents) we bought a small cup of shoro, a fermented millet beverage that tasted somewhat like, but not exactly like, pickle juice. Mike took a small sip, Carol took a smaller sip, and Derek finished it off. It has become his favorite hot weather beverage. They also had tan, a sharp yogurt drink which Carol found appealing. Alas, we missed out on kumus, the mare's milk drink that is a specialty of the Kyrgyz highlands.

Derek showed us all of the big name sights in Bishkek. It was now after 5 pm, and time for the State Historical Museum, which closes at 6. The ticket booth was already deserted and we walked right in. There are three floors of adoration for Mother Russia, especially Lenin's Communist Soviet Union. Statues of Lenin abound, with Lenin leading the proletariat on to a new dawn, etc. In every other country of the former Soviet Union (we believe) these statues have been torn down, but not here. On the top floor is the famous mural of Reagan riding a missile of death, (a la Dr. Strangelove), accompanied by the enemies of the state - the Church, the Russian royal family, "biznitzmen" old and new. A series of historical vignettes tracing Kyrgyzstan from pre-hominid times strongly suggests that religion is a folly remaining from ancient days. Hey, and there were also some nice felt rugs.

Such a museum exists nowhere else in the former Soviet Union, except maybe Byelorussia and Moldova (which we haven't visited). Derek explained that it costs money to take down and replace the symbols of the former U. S. S. R. Kazakhstan has plenty of oil, and plenty of money, and has done so. Uzbekistan has a little oil, a little money, and has devoted much of it to the new Uzbek mythos - introducing Uzbek as a replacement for Russian, and introducing Amir Timur as the great historical hero, etc. Lenin is basically gone from Uzbekistan.

On the other hand, Kyrgyzstan is poor, the West Virginia of the CIS. The city of Bishkek is green, filled with parks and young people. But the bus system of Bishkek is deteriorating. Whatever sewer system and garbage pickup formerly existed is deteriorating. Bishkek is, by reputation, dangerous at night. Nearly every window on the first two stories of apartment buildings has burglar bars.

Throughout the country, there are hardly any roads in top notch condition, and some, like Jalalabad to Naryn, or Osh to the Irkeshtam Pass, barely driveable. There is no money to de-Russify the country, and it remains the most Russian of all the former Soviet states. A couple of towering monuments to Soviet-Kyrgyz friendship dominating the downtown is the least of their problems.

We went into the Beta store, a downtown mainstay, where we found lots of Western exotic foods, like olive oil and peanut butter ($8 per pound). This is the premier ex-pat meeting place in town, and we hooked up with a university student from North Carolina, in Bishkek to study the role of government and religion in Kyrgyz society. We bought and tried some caviar flavored and shashlik flavored potato chips (nobygdil).

Derek left us at the internet about 7 pm. About 8:30 we went back to the hotel, watched some TV and went to bed.

Aug 29 - Song Kul to Kochkor (Rev)

2008-08-31T04:48:00.000-07:00

Possibly the night before, possibly overnight in the cold, our camera died. It now takes exactly one picture, which appears to be a blue carpet of pixels. So no pictures of Song Kul, Bishkek, or Kazakhstan.

A yurt is a conical structure with a slightly domed roof, with a wooden (usually willow) frame and a felt cover. The roof is made of poles, cut to a point, bent on one side, with a center hole (tunduk) set in the middle. The national flag of Kyrgyzstan is decorated with a tunduk. One could look up at the complicated lattice work and perceive light through the variations of thickness of the felt. Buckminster Fuller was not all that original with his geodesic dome.

We awoke in daylight around 7 am to bleats, baas, barks, brays, and bird sounds. The sky had cleared. Our hosts' 70 year old father was standing by the lake with his binoculars, looking at the horses and wild fowl. The temperature was somewhere in the 5 - 10 C degree range.

Breakfast included hot bowls of cream of wheat (?), yogurt, nan bread, kaymak, saru mai (a granular butter), and varini (sour cherries in syrup) , along with tea. Thus fortified, we went outside where our extended host family and other locals had gathered. Grandfather led all in a brief prayer. Then on to the main event.

A large black sheep lay on its side, legs securely bound. One man slipped his hand into the sheep's mouth, steadying its head. The other, with a quick stroke of the knife, severed the sheep's esophagus and main arteries. With the head half removed, a large vessel was placed under the neck to gather the cascading blood. Eyes open, the sheep lay still. Two or three minutes later, the sheep was dead and still.

It was time to get to work. The ropes were untied, and a long shallow slit was made down either leg to the midline. With two people (one of them Carol) holding the legs wide, and two working from the midline with knives, the sheep was quickly skinned. (Mike watched almost none of this or the following.) The resident dogs, eyeing the blood pan, had to be shooed away repeatedly.

The two young (3-5 year old) children of our hosts, who had been watching quietly now brought over some plastic tubs. The sheep lying clean upon the skin was cut open. Various internal organs were harvested, some for food, some for the dogs. One man carried away the immense stomach, everted it, and washed out the silage. The women took the intestines and began cleaning out the chitterlings while a toddler stood solemnly at their sides.

The butchering took place amazingly swiftly, with joking and conversation. In less than an hour, it was complete, and meat was hanging in the cookhouse.

It was now 11 am. Carol and Mike took a one and a half hour walk down the lake shore. CBT has constructed several yurt camps for different travel groups (trekkers, horseriders, tourists, etc.) mixed in with the resident shepherd population. We had a conversation with a couple from Stuttgart who were tent campers, and who had walked 2 and a half days into Song Kul from the north over the passes. They had been solo trekking and camping for the better part of two weeks.

Back to the yurt at 1 pm, our lunch was ready. It was spectacular. We were served kattama, a flaky bread. Then we were each served a large bowl of kurdaq, a potato and mutton dish that contained liver, heart, lung, rib tips and mutton that probably came from our morning anatomy lesson. There was so much food that we got plastic baggies to hold the leftovers for our dinner meal.

At 2 pm, we were ready to drive back to Kochkor. Grandpa and one of the grandchildren came along. The trip over the pass and down to the valley took about 3 hours, with one break to cool off the car.

We were back in Kochkor, ready to go to our homestay for the night. The house we were taken to, the home of irrepressible Kuku and her taciturn husband Adamkalyi, is on the edge of town. Turkeys and calves roam the street, with a far view of snow capped mountains to the north. The house has at least three guest rooms, with pleasant beds. However, it has no running water, an outhouse on the far side of a large vegetable garden, and absolutely no way to shower.

Although we travel with backpacks, we are not true backpackers - those folks who go for a week or more without a change of clothes or a wash. We LIKE our en suite facilities, thank you very much. The idea of getting up in the middle of the night, getting dressed, and walking across the property to get to an outhouse was rather repelling.

After we got settled, it was close to 6 pm. We walked back to town. The CBT office was still open, so Aidai made a phone call for us reserving a hotel in Bishkek for the next night. We continued across town to get in some internet time. As we walked into the internet facility, it started to rain, the first rain we had seen on our trip since at least August 1, and perhaps before.

On the way back, we spotted a small discarded plastic tub. It is very to spot discarded objects in Kochkor since there appears to be no sewage facilities, or trash collection whatsoever. There is running water in spigots, so we washed our providential find, and smuggled it into our room. Voila, instant en suite.

Mike finished off the leftover kurdaq, and we went to bed, around 8:30 pm.

The tub was used several times during the night, and Mike disposed of the evidence and contents at 5:30 the next morning.

Aug 28 - Osh to Song Kul

2008-08-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

In order to get to the airport by 7 am, we determined to wake up at 5 am. Without an alarm clock we woke several times to check the watch. At the first check, we realized that the lights would not come on because the hotel turns off the electricity from midnight to 8 am. So Carol found her flashlight, we determined that it was 1 in the morning, and Mike did some stargazing from the hotel window. (Because Osh, like most cities in this region, has very few street lights, and no sodium lights, the stargazing, even in the middle of the city, is quite good.)

At 4 and again at 5 the stargazing was great. At 5 we saw the last bats and heard the morning call to prayer. By 5:45 am, there was finally just barely enough light to collect the wash from the lines. So out Mike went.

Showering and packing by dawn light is not easy. However, by 6:55 we were on the street to get the taxi, and by 7:10 am we were at the airport.

The Osh Airport may be the smallest international airport from which we have ever flown. As we were waiting for our flight, we saw a crowd gathered around a truck with a large metal cage. On the bed of the truck were two men handing down luggage which had probably come in on an earlier flight. Who needs a baggage carousel?

We checked our baggage (limit 15 kg), and found out that our packs were 13.5 kg each (apx 30 lbs) so we were OK. We finally learned from the check-in receipt that our airline was AVIA Traffic Company.

As we waited for the flight, we pondered whether it was safer to fly on this flight, or ride12-15 hours on the road. The statistics are not good either way. On Aug 24 or 25, there was a flight from Bishkek to Iran that crashed 2 km from the Bishkek Airport, killing 60 of the 90 passengers on board (in all fairness, this was the first crash of the Kyrgyz national airlines, not our carrier). On the other hand, a bus recently crashed into another car near Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, killing 10 people. Nothing is safe about traveling in this part of the world, what with drivers going 160 kmh, and driving on the wrong side of the road, if the wrong side of the road is somewhat smoother.

Our airplane was a 50 seater, an AN-24. As we loaded, the stewardess walked the aisle with a cheap roll of baggies, tearing off one for each passenger if requested. After checking the contents of the seat-back pockets, Mike figured this was their version of the barf bag, and so he requested one for his friend who collects barf bags from all sorts of airlines. Of course, it had no logo, but it is the thought that counts.

The flight took off uneventfully at 8:15 am and landed uneventfully at the Bishkek Manas Airport. We waited at the door for the luggage 45 minutes. Apparently they couldn't unlock the baggage claim door, so finally they showed us where they had piled the baggage, and we claimed ours. It was now 10 am.

We ignored the taxi drivers who wanted $15-20 US (500-600 sum) to take us to town. We finally found the 380 bus, which, for 30 sum apiece, took us into town to the Osh Bazaar.

We didn't go into the bazaar. We were dropped at the side of the road in one of the most chaotic traffic situations we had seen on this trip. We were only about 2 km from the West (Long Distance) Bus Station, from which the shared taxis and buses depart. Finally, we caught a taxi (100 sum) with the assistance of an English speaking local, who told the driver our wishes.

First, the driver had to get out of this traffic jam. This took great driving skill and maneuvering, but was finally done. By this time, the taxi driver was caught up in our cause. When we reached the long distance bus station, he plunged between the aisles in search of a bus to Kochkor, the jumping off spot for outdoor adventure trips.

A bus going through Kochkor was just leaving. There was barely room for two people and their bags. As the unlucky final passengers, we took our places in the rear of the bus, with our backpacks inside against our knees. The fare was 300 sum apiece, at the high end of the guidebook's suggested price, but the bus was leaving immediately.

There is beautiful scenery between Bishkek and Kochkor, as the road climbs a river valley, and crosses a small mountain pass. We had no way to see out of any window, and no ventilation. We could sense that we were the odd people out in this bus, and there was no move to communicate with us or befriend us.

The bus stopped twice, first to take on a number of watermelons and two boxes of tomatoes. We had no idea where this extra baggage was going to fit, but somehow it did. We eventually realized that the bus was going past Kochkor to the mountain town of Chayek, where this fresh lowland produce would be a real treat.

The second stop was at a roadside service center, with a store and a saray which functioned as a restaurant. 30 minutes, and a fast meal later, the driver was ready to go. During our stop, Carol saw a woman approaching wearing a tee-shirt that said: "Hooray!! You Suck." She wonders to this day what the appropriate response to that message should be.

At 3 pm or so, we were left off at the Kochkor Bazaar, a small street market in a small town. Getting our bearings, we walked a block or so to the CBT office. (CBT = Community Based Tourism, the original ecotourism entity in Kyrgyzstan). Here we met Aidai Osmonalieva, the coordinator for the Kochkor district, and a model for everything that a coordinator should be. In a little less than an hour, we arranged a yurt stay in Song Kul (lake) for that evening, transportation there and back, and a guesthouse stay with a family in Kochkor the next evening, and all necessary meals for both sites.

For the record, the costs are as follows: B& B in Song Kul (300 x 2), Dinner in Song Kul (100 x 2), Lunch in Song Kul (120 x 2), Transport (200 km x 10sum/km = 2000), Driver's Time (200), and Driver's Food (145). (Our driver goes up with us, stays in another yurt, and drives us back the next day.) Total 3385 sum, or approximately $100 US.

At 4 pm we were off. Our driver, Seitek, is a history major in a university in Bishkek. Home for the summer, he makes some money driving for CBT. It was a pleasure to have a cautious driver, for once. As we started, he took 650 sum of the money and bought gas for the trip. (Gas in Kyrgyzstan is roughly 95 cents per liter, or about $3.70 US per gallon).

Our minimal Russian and Seitek's somewhat better English made conversation difficult, but we talked somewhat of the politics of the region's countries. At some point, Mike asked if people drank the water of the fast river we were following. Somewhat offended, Seitek replied that we must understand that local people lived in houses like our own, and were not subsistence dwellers. Mike had merely wanted to know how silty the water was, when he asked the question.

The first 50 km is on the main road south to Naryn and the Torugart Pass. The road is filled with dust covered Chinese trucks, going to and fro with their immense loads of cargo. After this, we turn off onto a reasonably flat, washboarded and rutted road. 25 km or so later, we crossed a river. At this point, our driver stopped to pour water on the car's radiator, and let it cool off. We enjoyed the opportunity to get out in green countryside, as four shepherds on horseback with their flocks of sheep came over. Mike shared half of the melon we had bought in Kochkor with the shepherds and Seitek. Wispy clouds became heavier and more frequent, the further we drove.

At this point, the road starts to climb at a 12 percent grade, eventually crossing a pass at 3300 meters (Kochkor is at 1800 meters). On the way up and then down to the lake, we saw a large number of yaks (topoz in kyrgyz). These big shaggy beasts with their curved horns are quite a sight.

As the road comes slowly down from the pass, you see the lake in the distance. After a while, the driver left what we had regarded as a road, and turned off onto a track. We followed the track, fording a stream, and after perhaps 10 km, came to our set of yurts.

It was after 7 pm, the sun was setting, the wind was picking up, and it was cold. We put on our sweaters, jackets, hats, and gloves, and set up in the yurt. Finally, about 8:15 pm, dinner was served by our hosts Rosa and Ishen. We had hot mutton shorba, mixed vegetable salad, bread, tea, and a cup each of variniki (sour cherries in heavy syrup).

So to bed at 9 pm on our pile of cloth mats, wrapped in layers of duvets, still fully dressed. The outhouse was 20 meters or so away, a cold and windy walk. Carol slept through the entire night, hat on her head. Mike got up once at 4 am to some of the best stargazing he has ever seen (even though the sky was one-third clouded over).

So in the time that a bus ride from Osh to Bishkek would have taken, we were established in our alpine lakeside home, at 3000 meters, by a beautiful lake.

This day was brought to you by the letter Y for yak and yurt.

Aug 27 - Andijon UZ to Osh KG

2008-08-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

Carol woke up with daylight, showered quietly, and waited for Mike to wake up so she could wish him a happy 36th anniversary. The problem is the anniversary was yesterday. After what we went through while traveling, we can probably put up with anything in the future.

Routine breakfast in the Hotel Elita. Walked across the street to the Yangi (New) Bazaar. There we found a great assortment of fresh foods, and took some nice pictures of vendors. The women at the dairy stalls even posed for us, making finger horns behind each others' heads. Bought two splendid peaches, but passed on the pomegranites, which were too first-season to be really ripe. Also passed on some beautiful nectarines - you can only carry so much soft fruit. With great reluctance, we passed on the freshly made raspberry juice. It was too late in the trip to try a potentially risky beverage. But boy it looked good.

Checked out of the hotel. We were uncertain where to catch the bus to the border, and a kid at the hotel offered to walk us to the bus station. He actually walked us to the shared taxi stand, where one driver was sufficiently desperate to drive us the 40 or 50 km to the border for 1000 sum each, without waiting to get the other two passengers necessary to fill the cab. So for $1.50 we had luxury, a cab all our own. We left Andijon at 11 am Uz Time.

We got to the border, filled out the Uzbek forms in duplicate, got our stamps, walked through no man's land, used our last UZ squatter, got our Kyrgyz stamps, and were in Kyrgyzstan. Unlike on Aug 14, when the trip was a true nightmare, the whole process took only one hour. So at 1 pm KgTime (time zone change of one hour, remember), we hopped on a local bus to take us back to the Stary Gorod Hotel, where we had stayed before.

This time our old room was not available, so we splurged and stayed in the 1200 sum fancy suite. ($34 US) The proprietor was glad to see Mr. Santa Claus and wife again, and even offered to wash our clothes for free.

At about 2 pm, we walked around the corner, found a busy restaurant that sold only laghman and manti. We enjoyed a portion of each, with tea, bread, and two beers, and a glass of peach sharbat (juice). Total price 190 sum ($5.50). Mike changed the last 16600 of his UZ som for 400 KG som. (KG som are much closer to real money.)

We need to digress now. From Osh we wanted to get to Song Kul, a rural alpine lake in the center of the country. If you look at a map, the simplest way to get from Osh to Song Kul is (1) Osh to Jalalabad, (2) Jalalabad to Kazarman, (3) Kazarman to a road going north into Song Kul. This is totally unrealistic. Part 3 has to be replaced by Kazarman to Naryn, then Naryn to Song Kul. However, Osh to Jalalabad is on flat roads, has frequent service, and takes 2 hours. Jalalabad to Kazarman goes over a mountain pass, is barely worth being called a road; the Lonely Planet author noted that when he went over that road, his car died 27 times. The trip would take 4 - 5 hours, if you could fill a taxi. However, you might have to buy the whole taxi. The Kazarman to Naryn stretch is not quite so bad, but is still pretty dreadful. We scratched that option.

The alternative is to go from Osh to Bishkek, Bishkek to Kochkor, and Kochkor to Song Kul. The Osh to Bishkek taxis are easy to fill, and the road is not that super bad, but the trip takes 12 - 15 hours.

Sitting over lunch, we decided to fly from Osh to Bishkek.

We made it to the air ticketing office, which is one woman sitting at a 1970s airline reservation computer and handwriting tickets. She showed us a screen with 5 alternative flights from Osh to Bishkek, and masochists that we are, we picked the 8 am flight for the next morning. The cost is $75.50 USD per person, which we paid. After a few minutes, the woman wrote out our tickets, (and explained to us in Russian at least 5 times that we had to be at the airport at 7 am, and that we were limited to 15 kg each), and we were in possession of our tickets.

We were near the bazaar, so we spent two hours shopping for souvenirs, seeking out more outrageous shirts (such as Miokfy Mouse), and looking for some local clothing for Carol (no success). Either the dress and pants combination was too long, there were strange sewn-in rubber shoulder pads, and/or the material was something never made for contact with human skin and totally unwashable. This makes the pictures we have of these women wearing these outfits all the more amazing.

It was getting on toward 7 pm, and time for an extended internet session. After 9:30, Carol went back to the hotel. She discovered that the wash was hanging on the line outside still wet; the proprietor assured her that all would be dry by the morning. On the way back to the hotel, in lieu of the dinner we skipped, Mike bought two sticks of kabob for 75 som, waiting for them to be cooked. By the time he had eaten them (10:20 pm), the hotel gates were locked shut, and he had to wait several minutes for the night watchman to come to the gate, and let him in.

To bed for a very early start, figuring in morning time to fetch the wash.

We were beginning to feel the battle fatigue of a long vacation. Too many hours spent in transit. Too many new toilets, dirty toilets, and where-the-hell-is-it toilets. Too much guessing whether the hot water was on the left or the right, or whether the proprietor had to turn on the gas to warm up the hot water. Too little fiber in our diets. Too many times when we couldn't make ourselves understood, or understand what was happening.

And waaaaaay too many little kids parroting "Hello Hello" as we walked down the street or alley, and too many people dropping everything they were doing to stare at us.

Aug 26 - Samarkand to Andijon

2008-08-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Our train from Samarkand was scheduled to leave at 11:05 am, and we were dressed and out for breakfast at 7.  We jokingly remarked that we had been greeted with "Konichiwa" during our travels. They laughingly replied that they had had the same experience, and that nobody (ie, us included) realized that they were Malaysian. Another delicious breakfast, this time with yogurt taking the place of french fries, and even two pieces of a Baklava-like cake.

Our hotel manager made a call to the Hotel Elita in Andijon and reserved us a room for 55000 sum.

There remained two landmarks we had failed to see in the previous two days.  First, Shah-i-Zindi.  This is a complex of mausolea built by Timur the Great and some of his successors for the various favorites of the ruler. It also may include the grave of Qusam ibn Abbas, a cousin of Muhammed who is said to have brought Islam to this area in the 7th century - the man who inspired Hazrat Hizr to build the mosque.

It cost 2800 sum apiece to get in. This site, reached by climbing steep steps, is stunningly beautiful. Shinily restored mausoleums lie down an avenue that put the Buenos Aires mausolea to shame. Some people say that the Karimov administration overly restored these tombs, but we disagree.

We left there at 9 am, for the 20 min walk to Registan. As we got near, we weighed the utility of rushing through the three complexes of the Registan and rushing to the train station. We figured that the Registan would still be there the next time we came back, and went to the hotel.

At 9:30 we walked out to the Registan bus stop, immediately caught a bus to the Train Station, and arrived about 10 am. Of course, if we had waited til 10 am, the bus would have been delayed. Murphy had a law about that.

We spent a few minutes walking into the nearby bazaar. Then to the train station, where we filled our bottles of water, and took the underground tunnel to our platform.

Waiting for the same train was the luggage for a (21 person?) Japanese tour group. The Japanese are the most sun-averse tourists we have seen on this trip. Huge hats with ear flaps, long jackets, mufflers, and scarves in the 40 degree heat. The luggage was piled next to a large pole, which cast a long shadow. So when the Japanese tourists started to show up, they arrayed themselves so as to stand in the shadow. There they were, 12 tourists in a long line, all standing in the shade.

The train came on time. We got our seats, and spent an uneventful 3 and a half hours riding to Tashkent, and drinking water. We arrived just before 3 pm.

In Tashkent, at the train station, we finally emptied the second of the two5 liter bottles into smaller bottles. This time we would be hydrated.

There are no buses from Tashkent to Andijon. Shared taxis leave from the Quylik Market, 5 or so kilometers away on the Fergana Road to the southeast.  We were able to find a direct bus from the train station to the market, and finally got there about 3:50 pm.   Added to the general confusion of a large market is the large staging area for busses on one corner, and across the busy street, the staging area for the shared taxis.

We approached saying "Andijon, Andijon." We were mobbed. Some wanted $100 USD (in your dreams). Eventually, one said 50000 sum for the two of us. Mike replied 40000 sum, and we settled on 45000 (less than $17 apiece for each of us for this 400+ km, 5 hr plus ride). We piled our luggage into this fellow's Nexia, and waited for the other two necessary riders to fill the car.

A little about Nexias. Daewoo has apparently cornered a good bit of the Uzbek market, with their locally produced cars. The Nexia is one of the upscale cars produced by Daewoo, and is seemingly the car of choice for the long distance shared taxi driver. Each of our three trips was in a Nexia. Truth to be told, it is a snug fit for 5 people, with luggage. However, it has enough power to go 100 mph, loaded.

Mike went off to get something to drink and an ice cream. Before he could even get the ice cream, he was being waved back. We were ready to go.

Apparently our driver had "sold" us to another car that already had two passengers, and was ready to go to Andijon. The passenger in the back seat, a local student in Andijon, had agreed to pay this driver 17000 sum. It seemed that the front seat passenger was a cohort of the driver.   We guess that this driver had paid our driver a small sum of money (say 5000 sum) to acquire his two passengers, and make the trip. Our former driver thus gets money for not driving to Andijon.

This is not unheard of in the United States. For years, there was a payment called a "yield spread premium," paid by mortgage lenders to mortgage brokers who had managed to find borrowers who were willing to make loans at 9%, when their credit would have justified a loan of 7%. This increased the value of the loan, and the mortgage lender was willing to pay the mortgage broker a sum of money, called a YSP, for the right to acquire that loan.

Back to the trip. We pulled out at 4:05 pm. About 35 minutes down the road, the driver inquired if anyone was hungry, and pulled into a roadside restaurant, where we waited an hour while he and his front-seat friend had a leisurely two-course meal.

Thus refreshed, our driver set out at 5:40 pm. By sunset, we were at the pass across the mountains separating the Tashkent Valley from the Fergana Valley. We had two other longish stops on this road, for unexplained reasons.

Anyway, it was now dark, and we still had 200 km to go. Our driver now ramped it up, and on one straight stretch of wide 2-lane or narrow 4-lane (it was hard to tell in the complete darkness), he hit 160 kmh (100 mph). Nexia drivers in this country seem to like to air out their cars.

About 9:30 pm, nearing Andijon, our driver stopped on the side of the road, where there were a guy and two women. He pulled out a pile of close to 500 1000 sum notes ($300-400??), and handed it to the guy, exchanged pleasantries, and drove on.

We arrived in Andijon at 9:40 pm, squashed, sweaty and exhausted. The driver pulled up to the Hotel Elita, where Carol went in to see if we had a room. Minutes passed. The other passenger went in and came out reporting that there was a room, so Mike paid the driver.  The honest driver counted 46 bills, and in the darkness gave one back to Mike.

We were now in the hotel, and they were trying to figure out which room they had for us.  At least one of the staff remembered the conversation from the morning reservation call.  Furthermore, the 55000 was apparently a good price, since most of the rooms were going for 45000. Anyway, at 10:15 pm, we had a room.  The beds were comfy, there was plenty of hot water, and the AC and TV worked.

Hotel Elita thus appears to solve the Lonely Planet problem of where to stay in Andijon. For years, Lonely Planet has recommended Hotel Andijon, and for years there have been reports that the Hotel Andijon was the worst hotel (1) of the reporter's trip, or (2) in the entire world.

To sleep.

Aug 25 - Samarkand

2008-08-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

Up for a 7:30 breakfast - the breakfast atTimur the Great B & B are fantastic - crepes, eggs, some raspberry jam, french fries (delicious but maybe superfluous), apples, pears, watermelon, bread, tea.

We decided to go to the Hoja Ismail about 20 km north of town. According to the guidebook, the bus leaves from Umar Bank. The guidebook map shows Umar Bank about 200 m "off the page". So we walked past the Registan to the road going north to the Umar Bank. The road runs through a nice residential/commercial neighborhood.  We passed another decommissioned mosque, stopped for a dill pickle, and were far from tourist Samarkand.  The walk was nice, but the 200 meters was more like 1.5 kilometers.

Anyway, Umar Bank turns out to be a busy intersection, as chaotic an intersection as we have seen in a while. On the road leading north from the intersection is a branch of Umar Bank. At 10:15 am the line to get in and do banking business was way out the door. We needed to change some money, but this was not the right time.

We soon figured out that the 411 minibuses to Chelek left from here, but there were no buses going the extra 4 km off the road to Hoja Ismail. A discussion ensued and the result was that we paid 1000 sum each(more than the usual fare, it appears) and the bus to Chelek would detour especially for us.

And so about 11 am we reached the mausoleum of Ismail al-Bukhari. This Muslim scholar lived from 810-887. He spent 25 years of his life collecting and codifying the sayings of Muhammed into the Sahih al-Bukhari, which for Sunni Muslims is the equivalent of the Mishnah. This book (1) became the second most holy book for Sunnis, and (2) made Bukhara the center of Islamic scholarship for many hundreds of years. Even though there hasn't been a lot of scholarship in Bukhara recently, for many good reasons Bukhara is a much more holy place than Jerusalem.

Apparently at some time Ismail al-Bukhari made the bad move of refusing to tutor the children of Bukhara's governor, and was forced into exile. This mausoleum and shrine (2800 sum apiece) is spectacular, made of yellow marble and inlaid with majolica. Maybe now Ismail al-Bukhari can rest in peace.

On the way back, an unmarked minibus offered us a ride back to Siob Bazaar for 1000 apiece. Pretty soon, he had three more women, and we were off. I don't think they paid what we paid, but no matter. Transport is pretty informal in this part of the world, and so the driver stopped and picked up people going in his general direction, and filled up.

By 12:30 or so we were back at the bazaar bus stop, which is near but not at the bazaar. We were heading for the Hazrat-Hizr Mosque, with its pink dome visible from the distance, and sitting way up on the hill.

But first we needed something to eat.   Under the road overpass was a ragtag collection of minibuses and big buses, all going to the nearby northeast towns. Behind the buses were tables and cooking stands. We were walking past a fellow scraping the small burnt spots off hundreds of freshly baked samsas. Samsas are baked in tandur ovens, where they are slapped against the wall of the hot oven, and peeled off with a paddle when ready. The samsa were being sold as fast as he could scrape them. In perhaps a half an hour, the woman who seemed to be the chief samsa cook sold perhaps 200 samsa. When we left, the gas fired tandur was being heated again, and potential customers asked when the next batch would be ready.

Carol wanted two and so as soon as we could get in line and sufficient clean plates were available, we had two hot samsa and a pot of tea (1000 sum). Mike was attracted to another gentleman who had a huge pot of lagman and bowls of freshly pulled noodles, so he got a large bowl of lagman (1500 sum). Carol then saw a different soup, called shorba, a clear broth with chickpeas, vegetables, and large chunks of tender lamb. She got a small bowl of this, which came complete with a dish of chopped herbs (1000 sum). By this time, even the plov seller could not tempt us.

The path led up some steps, along a road, and then right up a hill, near the Afrosiab ruins.  At  the top, we were all alone looking over the city, and walking along.  Only a donkey cart or two shared our space.  Eventually, we turned the corner and were at the Mosque.

Hazrat-Hizr was a folk prophet who was the impetus for the 8th century mosque at the Samarkand high spot.  Travelers on the silk road were lodged here.  The building lasted until destroyed by Genghis Khan in the 13th century.  Today's structure dates from 1854, and was only restored in the late 1990s.  For 3800 sum you get admission.  We negotiated a total of 4000 sum and got in.  Well worth it.  We even got a small tour in French, a cup of tea, and a chance to climb the minaret.  The domes are painted in a "see it from miles away" pink. In the back were a couple of bricks painted in different test shades of pink.

With bad judgment, we ignored the Shah-i-Zinda complex about 500 meters away. We walked back through the bazaar, and took a bus back toward the center of town. Soon, we recognized the neighborhood, and got off. We were back at Umar Bank intersection, and the line was shorter. So we went in to try to sell $100 for sum.

Eventually, we were in the right line, and had the attention of the manager of the bank. It turns out that we were the first people to try to exchange money that day, and they had to open a special window for us. We have a knack for being the only tourists in a situation (remember the Internet Cafe in Kashgar that closed down rather than selling us another hour).

While this was all taking place, Mike had a fascinating conversation with this manager. It turns out that most of the people there are depositors in their accounts.

This bank has introduced both debit cards and credit cards (Visa and MasterCard) and is trying to get the local Uzbeks to use them. They have a hard sell explaining why the depositor should open an account with a 3000 sum minimum ($2.25 US) in order to get a debit or credit card. Possibly this is a chicken-and-egg problem because almost no merchants will accept debit or credit cards.

He also complained that the bank was trying to install modern banking software, but that the international software companies (he mentioned Oracle) are way too expensive, so they had to write their own, and it was not necessarily hooked up into all of the modern international networks.

The word he used was "transition:" from communism to capitalism; from Russian to Uzbek; from cyrillic to latin alphabets; and from a cash economy to a credit economy, etc.

20-30 minutes later we had our 133200 sum, and our education.

It was now about 3:30 pm. The next bus went downtown. We got off, having passed several landmarks that we had seen the afternoon before, but we were on a different street, going in a different direction. It took us 10 minutes or so to reestablish our bearings, but there we were, at the store selling 5 liter bottles of water, and at the internet cafe.

So we spent 2 hours or so at the internet, bought a second 5 liter bottle of water for good measure, and water and all, took a bus back to the hotel.

It was now after 6 pm, and we still had not fully explored our neighborhood around the hotel. We had been told there was no synagogue in Samarkand, but surely there was an abandoned synagogue. So at 6:30, we headed out, down dusty alleys asking for the synagogue.

The instruction was always go down this road a long way, then turn left (or sometimes right) and then turn again. One informant told us that the synagogue was now a homom (bathhouse). We passed the Legend Family Guest Hotel where (wonder of wonders) we saw our French friends from the Kashgar-Osh bus trip again and exchanged e-mail addresses.

A little time later, as the sun was setting, we finally found the synagogue. The caretaker showed us around, speaking in Russian and Hebrew. He showed us the conjoined Bukharan synagogue, Bet Yosef, and the Ashkenazi synagogue, Mulla Iskiyah, both in a small compound at
Badalov 5/1
Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

None of the internet sources we had checked had this address. God knows what the addresses they have are, but it is a shame that two American tourists had to work so hard to find the functioning synagogues for an old community that still has 400 Jews. (The same is true for Bukhara. Lonely Planet shows two synagogues, but the internet has neither correct address, and but for the fact that our hotel was 30 meters away from one, we might have found neither.)

Back to the hotel in darkness. A brief stop to pick up a makeshift meal at the minimart. A half pound of halal salami, with enough for our trip the next day, and (yum yum) a liter bottle of tomato juice. (The tomato juice cost more than the salami.)

To bed at 9:30 or so.

Aug 24 - Samarkand

2008-08-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

At 6:45 am, we walked out of our hotel (where, incidentally, a plaque commemmorates that a Jewish family lived here from 1909-1999), past the synagogue (where morning services were in full swing), across Lyabi-Haus (nothing stirring but the ducks), and up to the spot for catching the mashruta and taxis.

We had not purchased any bottled water the night before, with the hope of picking some up at the train station before leaving.

No mashrutas were in sight, so we took a taxi the 9 or so km (5000 sum) to the airport. We got there at 7:10 am. The train on the tracks was the overnight train from Tashkent to Bukhara, discharging its passengers, not our train. There was no water to buy, so we sat down and waited.

That train pulled away, and about 7:50 am the Bukara-Tashkent pulled in. We had seats 33 and 34 in car 8, a first class car. For 14400 sum ($10.80 US) apiece we had a comfortable seat and space for our backpacks between the seats. The train left exactly on time (8:05 am). An Uzbek movie could be watched on our seat-front television. The car was relatively empty until we reached Navoi, about 9 am. Then nearly every seat filled.

No still (without gas, as they say) water on the train, but Carol was able to purchase a 1 liter bottle of soda water (with gas, as they say) in the dining car.

We arrived at 10:50 am in Samarkand, walked out, caught an immediate bus into town (200 sum apiece), and got off at the Registan (more about this famous place later). Our hotel was not far away, and after a few minutes hesitation, while we got our bearings, we were at the Timur the Great B & B.

For our quoted price of $40 per night, everything looked great. Nice room, air conditoner works, beds comfortable, shower and toilet look nice. The hostess of the hotel served us a pot of tea (Mike's first liquid of the day) and bowls of peanuts, candied peanuts, and soynuts.

We unpacked, and then set out to explore. We were at the south side of the Old Jewish Town, so we wandered. Each of the alley streets in Samarkand has a small spillway in the center of the street, so you can better guess if the alley will continue or lead to a dead end, by following the water.

After a while, we passed a house with Hebrew on it. We stopped to take a picture. The lady of the house invited us in. She was a non-Jewish Uzbek who had worked for 5 years outside Tel Aviv, but then had visa problems, and returned. We communicated in pidgin Hebrew, Russian, Uzbek, and English. We sat on a tapchan (tea-bed) and shared family photos. She served us a pot of tea, delicious watermelon, and introduced us to some daughters and grandchildren. Only in Uzbekistan.

After a nice 30-45 minute visit, we were up and away. The alleys in the neighborhood emptied out into an area 1+ km north of the Registan (also 1+ km north of our hotel) called the Bibi-Khanym. Here are a wonderful madrassa, mausoleum, and mosque. The mausoleum finished just shortly before Timur's death in approximately 1400. The original mosque, one of the largest in the Islamic world, collapsed in an earthquake in 1897 and was rebuilt.

Unlike Khiva, all sites in Samarkand have their own price tag, with tourist-special ticket prices. Our task was to decide what to enter and what to view from the outside.

Here we soaked in the majestic gateways, peeked into the mausoleum, and left with wallets still zipped.

Just north of here was a major roadway. Across on a hill stood a mosque with a cemetery cascading down to its left. There were large tombstones with pictures like in Bukhara. Could this be a Jewish cemetery? We crossed the road and looked briefly. The cemetery stones looked like a cross section of the whole Samarkand demographic was buried there.

We were actually pretty hungry and thirsty by that point. We had passed a huge bazaar, the Siob Bazaar. We went back and walked through. At the other side, we smelled smoke, and found the shashliks cooking. Each was priced clearly. We ordered 4 sticks, and went upstairs to inside the chaikhana. They arrived with a pot of tea and a loaf of the local bread (which is glazed with an eggwash, and has a firmer crumb). We ordered what must have been the world's freshest salad - tomatoes, cucumbers, and green pepper were all cut up while we watched. The meal cost 7200 sum ($5.40 US) and revived our spirits.

We walked back through the market and passed the sweets section. We saw what looked like an iced and decorated white cake, and discovered that it was all made of halvah. We bought some halvah chunks from the lady in charge, who really wanted to sell us one of the cakes. We couldn't determine if this was something special for Uzbek Independence Day on Sep 1, or for the beginning of Ramadan on Sep 1, or an everyday sweet.

By the way, all the TV stations and many of the billboards say: Bayramingiz Mubarak Bo'lsun. In Uzbek we think this means "Have a Happy Holiday (or else)."

As we left the market, we bought a 1 liter bottle of soda (with gas) for Carol, and a 1.25 liter bottle of sweetened flavored tea for Mike.

Then out to the Registan. The Registan is the most prominent place of Samarkand. When you see any picture of this part of the world, it is likely to be one or three of the buildings of the Registan, three majestic madrassas. The guidebook says the admission price is 3700 sum, but we were astonished by the 6500 sum price, and chose to think about entering. We soaked up the atmosphere, took some photos, and came to the realization that the entrance portal of the Sher Dor (Lion) Medrassa, has been copied verbatim on a structure in Bukhara. The famous feline is also on the 200 sum bill. So what is original, what has been restored, and what has been co-opted is all a matter of judgment. We were also not up for visiting yet another madrassa turned into art and souvenir shops.

Across the street, to purchase the local map of Samarkand at a small map stand. Map in hand, we tried to walk into another old neighborhood, but got turned around, and exited the neighborhood, after seeing two decommissioned mosques, and coming out roughly where we went in.

In Uzbekistan, there are large numbers of decommissioned mosques. Our guess is that Stalin and his cronies closed a lot of these down, and they are now just boarded up and fenced in, waiting for a new day.

We came out not too far from the Rukhobod Mausoleum (1380), probably the oldest surviving monument in Smarkand. Next the Rukhobod Mosque, next door. Down the street was the Guri Amir Mausoleum, known for its fluted azure dome. This was Timur's final resting place, along with his son, Ulugbek, the astronomer. We walked around it. The building is fascinating, because it is engrafted on a much older khanaka (used by the sufis). Finally, we came to the Ak-Saray Mausoleum, which was being closed up, but was kept open just for us, the last customers. Here we finally paid some admissions for a look at a beautiful building, and a chance to walk underneath to see the stone mausoleum itself.

All of the sites we just described are active places of worship.

It was now past 5:30 pm, and we still had purchased no water. It is our practice to buy a 5 liter bottle every day. In this hot dry climate, two people need 8 - 10 liters a day, and without the large bottle to fill up your small bottles, you will dehydrate quickly.

We found ourselves walking west into the non-tourist part of Samarkand. Here, broad boulevards are lined with allees of tall trees in the Franco-Russian manner. Walking along, we saw a wedding party in process - (these pre-Ramadan days may be a time of many weddings) - the dressed up bride and groom are videographed as they walk into the picture studio. We also saw our first real jogger of the entire trip.

More wandering. By now, the need to find a 5 liter bottle of water was acute. We were dehydrated and grumpy. We walked through an extended linear park with theaters and stadiums, but nothing commercial. Finally, near another kilometer along, we found (1) water, (2) a bazaar, and (3) an internet cafe.

Waiting at a bus stop, and drinking water (finally) we were hailed by the first local, who immediately associated Atlanta with the Olympics. It turns out that this gent is a raconteur and a collector of color post cards of cities and sites from around the world. So we askour faithful readers and their friends all over the world to go out and buy a postcard from your locality, and send it to:

Roma Azimov
53 Orzu Mahmudova St, Room 2
Samarkand, Uzbekistan 140129

Having promised to send the postcard, when we got back to Atlanta, and lugging the newly purchased bottle, we passed the Laghman Center. This restaurant promised to specialize in laghman, and recalling the wonderful plov we had at the Plov Center in Tashkent, we decided to give it a try.

So two bowls of really good, vegetable laden, and really fatty laghman soup (and of course isn't laghman supposed to be fatty, just like first-class Jewish chicken soup) were enjoyed al fresco while watching R-rated local music videos projected on the wall. As promised the price was 4600 plus 10%.

It was now well past 8 pm, the sun had set, and the downtown streets were really dark. There might be mashrutas coming along, but they couldn't see us and we couldn't see where they were going. Thus when an English speaking guy in a car offered us a ride to our hotel, we accepted. Treating it like an informal taxi, we offered him a 1000 sum bill, and were back to the hotel. We had a small English tour to boot.

In fact, walking around Samarkand after dark without a flashlight is a dangerous enterprise. All of the midstreet and curbside drainage is very unpleasant to step into, unawares, and the street lighting is pretty spotty.

Back at the hotel, with no TV in our room, we were asleep well before 9 pm.

Aug 23 - Bukhara

2008-08-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

Shabbat services began at 7 am, this time in the indoor sanctuary, with a true balcony for women. But we were not in a hurry, having already logged in more time in a synagogue this week than we usually did back in Atlanta. So, we dipped into the synagogue for shacharit between 7:30 and 8:15 am. We had to return to the hotel for breakfast, to straighten out our bill, and to receive the necessary OVIR stamp. Our Kiwi ladies were eating breakfast, and we saw their jar of Marmite, the national breakfast treat of New Zealand that accompanies them on all trips. We were not tempted.

When we got back to the synagogue a little after 8:45 am, they were already into the Torah reading. Here, the torah scroll is held upright in a case and an extra gabbai is on hand to keep things balanced.

Mike was offered the haftorah reading, which he chanted in his best impromptu Bukharan trope. In the blessing, in the best Sephardic tradition, they ritually announce our monetary contribution to the synagogue for this honor. We were publicly trapped. But it was OK. After all, we are willing to part with some money to help ensure the survival of this most unique form of Judaism. However, Mike totally blew the subsequent blessing for spouse and offspring, not mentioning their names when offered the opportunity to do so.

Services ended before 10 am. No kiddush here, no invitation for lunch. It was time to get back to being tourists, and to visiting those historic spots that make Bukhara a magnet for visitors.

First, we turned the corner between the hotel and the synagogue, and finally encountered the Jewish community center that we had missed so far. Not much use on Shabbat, however.

We headed toward the internet cafe for a little posting. On the way, we decided to negotiate over an 1995 Uzbek cookbook in three languages, Uzbek, Russian, and fractured English. Final price was 14000 sum. ($10.50 US) Now we know how to make 15 different regional variations of plov, if we can ever figure out the English.

Our standard internet place had connection problems, so after 5 minutes we gave up and moved on.

Our track was toward the 1807 Chor Minor, (4 minarets in Tajik) which sits in a maze of alleys a half km east of tourist central. Walking there, we decided to stop in the samsa place we had walked by several times already. This was the real deal, serving fresh hot flaky pastries filled with onions and minced lamb. 2 large samsa accompanied by a tomato sauce and some vinegar, served with a pot of tea, came to 1200 sum. (90 cents) Clearly we were back in just-folks territory.

Another few meters down the road, we noticed a tour bus parked on the side of the road, and some tourists walking out of the neighborhood. Like ants leading to the sweet crumbs, their path led us to Char Minor, which we then easily found.

We climbed to the rooftop base of the minarets, and got a nice view of the neighborhood.

It was time to patronize a real functional everyday internet cafe, so we kept walking to the east to the next major commercial intersection, where after a few questions, a friendly Uzbek guy walked a long block out of his way to show us the internet cafe, where we spent several hours. Here the price is 500 sum per hour, rather than 1000 sum per hour in tourist central.

Upon reading our e-mail, we found out that the hotel we had chosen in Samarkand had no vacancies. With the help of another internet user, we were able to phone for another B&B reservation for Sunday and Monday nights.

It was now 3 pm, and time for lunch/afternoon snack. Across the street was a grill shop, which served only grilled chicken. We unwittingly ordered one whole chicken, not one portion of chicken. This was the first real chicken meal for us in more than a month (not counting the chicken in the Chinese stir fries), and it was mighty tasty. We were the highlight of the afternoon for the patrons when a leg came off the plastic chair on which Mike was sitting, and he tumbled to the floor.

At 4 pm we walked west on a different neighborhood road toward the mosques and madrassas we had not yet seen. On this road, we were overtaken by a Swiss guy who turned out to have lived for several years in Dunwoody, a suburb of Atlanta. We saw him again an hour later, and spent a good time trading travel stories. He had just completed a two week tour of Tajikstan, and was ecstatic about the alpine lakes, mountain passes, and rural homestays. The ecotourism group of Tajikistan (META) had arranged his trip, but had done it in many incompetent ways. Unlike Uzbekistan, he encountered almost no other tourists there. The trip was a success for him and his three friends.

In this part of town, you walk through the unrestored Ulugbek Madrassa (1417) and the partially restored Abdul Aziz Khan Madrassa (16th century), across the street from each other. In both you can see the subtle juxtaposition of tiles and painted wall, each with the same pattern. The story of when tiles were available, and from where must be very interesting. In Turkey, these types of tiles were imported from Delft, Holland. Perhaps the same was true here.

The Mir-i-Arab Madrassa is undergoing a complete refurbishment of tile work and decoration. It is gloriously colorful and maybe a bit too picture perfect.

Each of these buildings contains items for sale. It is an open question as to whether these historic spaces should be filled with museums, as in Khiva, or with commercial activity, as here, or left vacant. The last choice may be idealistic in this economically challenged part of the world. The goods of the silk road no longer can sustain a country, and Big Cotton was an ecological disaster. Oil resources are not evenly spread in this area, with Russia and Kazakhstan having most of them. Tourists are the cash crop here.

At the end of the day, we tried unsuccessfully to find the Maghoki-Attar Mosque, Central Asia's oldest mosque, at a site containing Zoroastrian and Buddhist ruins. It was at one time shared with the Jewish community to be used as a synagogue in the evening. Quite a story, but no luck.

Afternoon services were due to start at 5, but the two or three times we walked by the synagogue after 6, it was locked tight. And that is how we ended up finishing our time in Bukhara at the non-tourist internet cafe. It is now 10 pm, and we are, for the first time on our trip, caught up on posting!

Back to the hotel now, to pack up for an early Sunday train to Samarkand.

Aug 22 - Bukhara

2008-08-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Mike skipped services this morning, and slept in. Carol tried unsuccessfully to take a shower at 7:30 am and discovered that the hotel had no water pressure for our second floor - not a great discovery when you are covered in lather. (Mike waited until after breakfast when the pressure started to recover.)

We shared breakfast with two women from New Zealand who were traveling our route in reverse with a car and driver. They were sticking to a very full schedule, paying in USD for everything in China and Central Asia. It is nice that somebody else still uses US currency.

After breakfast, we went to the Internet Cafe for an hour of posting, and sat down next to Derek. When we all finished, we decided to travel together to see the B. Naqshband Mausoleum and the Emir's Summer Palace together. We left the cafe about 11:15 am.

Naqshband was a sufi mystic, highly revered in Uzbekistan, and Bukhara's unofficial patron saint. His mausoleum is a place of pilgrimage for many. We traveled 13 km east to the village where the mausoleum. We shared the mashruta with a local family who spoke in Russian but said they were of German ethnicity. Like many other local people, they asked our ages very early in the conversation.

Shortly before reaching the mausoleum, we passed a local band singing and playing lustily as they walked down the road. This was a wedding party, we were told. Carol would have jumped off the bus to join them, if possible.

We got off the bus a little after noon, and joined the Friday crowds. The first destination was the mausoleum itself. It is traditional to complete three counterclockwise walks around the fragrant garden leading up to the mausoleum. We watched worshippers drink from holy water drawn from a pond near the mausoleum. Derek remarked that his Tajik friends told him to keep well away from contact with any kind of holy water; people were filling up and carting away large bottles of the stuff.

As we walked on toward the mosque, our mashruta friends presented Carol with an amulet they had purchased.

Derek is very knowledgeable about the various sects of Islam and the interactions between sufism and other branches, since that is an important part of what he is currently studying. He helped us understand the fluid role of sufism in Uzbek society - a part of every Uzbek's understanding of Islam, but not necessary a defining or controlling element of that character. He also told us that the women we have seen in Kyrgyzstan who cover their faces completely with a loosely woven brown scarf are of Pakistani origin. They have migrated to Kyrgyz cities because Kyrgyzstan has relatively free economic investment rules; the immigrant Pakistanis, who have the money, help the Kyrgyz open new businesses.

Around 1:30 pm, it was time to go across the street for a little lunch of laghman, salad, and tea. We relaxed and talked about Derek's studies and his Polish heritage. His tip: try the Trader Joe's pilsner.

By 2:45 we were on our way. The 130 mashruta went almost the whole way to the Summer Palace, and the driver decided to take us the last 2 km. It was out of his way, but he must have been feeling in a good mood. It was another example of the kindnesses we were receiving from Uzbek people.

The Emir's Summer Palace is an over-the-top kitschy example of what too much money can build. Gilt, mirrors, majolica to the max. Nowadays most of the rooms are filled with merchandise, of course. But still a nice time in the country.

Two buses took us back to the Ark, a huge complex in Bukhara, almost as recognizable a part of Bukhara, as the Registan is of Samarkand. We took no pictures because Mike sprung for 4000 for the 14 postcard shots of Bukhara, which of course includes the Ark. From there we walked through tourist territory back to the hotel.

It was now past 5 pm. Derek had to get ready for his 7 pm train trip to Tashkent. So we parted ways at the hotel.

At 6:30 pm, there were Friday night services at the synagogue. After some relaxation and a little more clothes washing, we walked over and attended the services. The highlight of the service for us was the vases of fresh mint that you stroke and smell to evoke the pleasure of Shabbat. Does this remind you of any previously mentioned Islamic customs? It felt like a counterpoint to the spices of Havdalah. (This practice is not unique to Bukhara - we saw the presence of mint and other fragrant plants at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Friday night.)

The lowlight of this service was an amazingly offkey rendition of L'Cha Dodi by three teenage boys - and no, this not some exotic Bukharan melody. Carol thought that the combination of their singing, accompanied by some tempo-challenged members of the congregation rivaled anything that an Uzbek Charles Ives could write. We have our own off key loud singers in our own congregation in Atlanta - for this we had to travel 7000 miles?

Services ended about 7:45. Unlike Jerusalem, we were not invited to anybody's dinner.

We spent some time posting to the internet, then back to the hotel and to bed at 10:30 or so.

Aug 21 - Bukhara

2008-08-23T01:59:00.000-07:00

Mike bounded out of bed, without shower or change of clothes, for a 6 am Shacharit service. The service, complete with tea, lasted an incredible 1:40. The Bukharan ritual includes a long long introductory section of prayers (apx 40 minutes), and an expanded Tahanun, which includes a small Slichot service. From some points of view, the Bukharan ritual is pure Judaism, uncorrupted by the demands of the medieval popes, pogroms, and other influences. It is really quite interesting to see a prayer ritual so different from modern American prayer, but it could get really long really quickly. On the other hand, having a pot of tea in the morning and in the afternoon whenever one prays is something we could get used to very quickly.

Back to the hotel for a breakfast. Carol had attempted to shower, fighting a broken hot water faucet and low water pressure. So Mike opted for breakfast and then shower afterwards. At breakfast, who appeared but our Japanese taxi mate from the Kokand-Tashkent trip. He was about to visit Khiva and fly from Urgench to Tashkent to catch his trip ending flight from Tashkent the next day.

Our first goal was to visit the old Jewish Quarter, where we would find the other Synagogue, the Jewish Cemetery, and the Kukluk Bazaar, supposed to be held only on Thursdays. Once again, the old section of town presented walled off house fronts. It took imagination to think what lay within each broad metal or wood door. The maze of alleys did not always carry names, and there were numerous opportunities to be lost.

We chanced across a small Muslim ruin which contained turbes (another mausoleum). A mother and her small daughters prayed then drank from the fountain and refreshed themselves with the mint.

Pushing onward, we unexpectedly stumbled on the cemetery. This may be a very old cemetery, but the old gravestones have lost their detail, and the only ones really readable are the newer stones. There were striking basalt pillars at some graves with large lithographic pictures of the deceased on the stones. After a through viewing, we were pointed in the direction of the other synagogue, which is well hidden in the neighborhood.

Wandering, we came on a pre-school that was probably part of a Jewish program. One of the teachers walked us the final meters to the other synagogue. We got there and had a good look around, and learned that services were at 7 pm that night. The walls of the synagogue were decorated with bulletins from Bukharan synagogues in Queens, New York, as well as much Judaica. Once again, an open courtyard format, next to a closed main sanctuary.

Back to town center for lunch (discussed elsewhere). At some point while wandering, Mike opened the camera case pocket and discovered the missing SmartMedia card with the Chinese photos. We resolved to get everything copied onto DVD, as soon as feasible.

A little more wandering, a large dose of internet, and some down time before heading back to synagogue two.

At this hotel, our choice of channels included a sports network where everything Olympic and anything remotely Uzbek was featured. There were also two music video channels. Music videos here will feature a contemporary singer or instrumental group always backed by a folk dancer interpreting the music. Finally, there was a channel that ran short featurettes. This week they were serializing the movie, Gone With The Wind, dubbed into Uzbek. Whenever they could, they cut to the English when names were being pronounced, so the Uzbek Mammy would suddenly spout: "Miz Scarlett!" in that unmistakeable voice.

Off to the other synagogue a little after 6:30 pm, still not perfect in retracing our path. After the evening service, it was dark. We were afraid to go back on the alleys in total darkness, not from a personal safety issue, but because the streets were rough and rutted. So we headed out of the maze of small streets, hoping to follow two larger streets back to the hotel. That did not work, and we hailed a taxi. The driver seemed to take the longest possible route between points A and B, but we paid only 1000 sum, and he accepted it.

We were back at the central restaurant area, where we had the 12,000 sum two skewer and one beer meal, discussed elsewhere.

Back to the hotel, where they had fixed the hot water knob. Time for a large laundry Barf, hanging the clothes on a second story clothes line, hung over our central courtyard. The climate here is so dry that everything dried overnight, even though our heavy items were fairly wet when hung out.

That evening in the hotel, about 10 pm, we met Derek, an American exchange student, who was on vacation from his year studying political science in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. We hit it off immediately, and stayed up talking about all kinds of experiences. Derek had been visiting with one of his professors, who was a Bukharan native, and so he was clear on the differences between native pricing and tourist pricing, as we have discussed elsewhere. In fact, he and his professor had paid 1000 sum apiece at a teahouse, where tourists were routinely charged 5000.

We told him of our Hotan 4 am experience, arriving without a hotel. He agreed that what happened to us in China could only happen in China. He stated that in Bishkek it would work as follows: (1) the police would examine our documents, and find some defect requiring a bribe; (2) the police and the taxi driver would decide what our exhorbitant taxi ride would cost and how they would split it; and (3) when we were dropped off on the side of the road, a pack of drunks would descend on us, and it would be all over.

He had one more day in Bukhara and was intending to see two out of town sights, that also interested us.

To bed after 11 pm.

How the French and Italians spoiled Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand

2008-08-23T01:28:00.000-07:00

It was the lust for the products of the exotic Far East that gave rise to the Silk Road. The doges of Venice and the Frankish Kings desired the silk and spices of the East and were willing to pay well for these products. Things have not changed over the Millenia.

In Khiva, Bukhara, and (we are told) Samarkand, there now exist two kinds of pricing - one for the locals and one for the tourists. Indeed, in many shops, you can no longer follow the age old practice of bargaining. We can now add Froman's Third Law of Travel: Whenever the first quoted price is in euros instead of the local currency, the battle is already lost.

Why? We have seen that the busloads of French and Italians just pay whatever is demanded; consequently, many merchants no longer bargain. After all, why negotiate prices with the Brits and American backpackers who do not come in busloads, when the next busload of Frenchmen will just buy up everything at the quoted price?

Not all commercial transactions are equal. Of course, silk, carpets, art objects, or clothing, have intrinsic value. More disturbing is the lack of a level playing field for simple transactions. After all, what should be the price of a 60 cl bottle of beer or a 100 gram stick of grilled shashlik, or a bowl of Uzbek soup? Items that are immediately consumed should cost the same for all. In the non-tourist areas of Uzbekistan, for all purchasers, the beer sells for 700 sum or so, the shashlik is 700- 1000, and the soup might be as much as 1400, especially if it has a reasonable amount of meat.

Neither the tourist areas nor the non-tourist areas have menus of any kind, so you sit down to eat as a matter of faith. Hence it is a shock when two [large] skewers of shashlik and a 50 cl beer suddenly end up costing us 12,000 sum (4000 for each skewer, 3000 for the beer, and 10% service charge). It is even more of a shock when you suspect, as we learned from an American exchange student who was visiting a local, that the non-tourist price for that meal at that same restaurant at the same time is closer to 4000 sum.

We tried to get a handle on this. In tourist Bukhara at a chaikhana where Lonely Planet (publ. Aug 2007) said that mains ran 1200 sum, we sat down for lunch on Aug 21. We ordered two kinds of soup, a plate of plov, bread and tea. We asked the young waiter to tell us the cost for the meal would be. He was unable to do so. The manager came by, and told us 9900. We agreed, and subsequently decided to add a beet salad and a bowl of yogurt. The manager came by, and we swear said the price was now 12300. We said, OK.

The meal was delicious, and it was pleasant being surrounded by both locals and tourists enjoying a sparkling afternoon. We left the 12300 on the table and got up to leave. The manager came by and said: "No, it's 13200." We know our numbers.

For Carol the icing on the cake was being charged 200 sum to stand in line to use the bathroom in the restaurant where we had just paid 13200.

We have decided that the only way to deal with this unfair situation, other than just sucking up and paying, is to avoid obvious tourist restaurants and other shops, especially those patronized by the French and Italians. Alternatively, we may have to get our bill in writing and pay it on the spot, before eating. Does this make us Ugly Americans?

Note: Carol thinks Mike is obsessed with this money issue.

Aug 20 - Bukhara

2008-08-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

As we walked the 88 meters up a narrow alley past 4 or 5 other hotels and guest houses to the Nasriddin Navruz, our reserved hotel, we passed one of the two active Synagogues in Bukhara. The door was open, women were cooking, and there was a lot of activity. We asked the time of Mincha and were told 7 pm. It was 6 pm, so we checked in, completely unpacked our bags, and settled in.

In Khiva, as we were leaving, Mike noticed that the upper back pocket of his backpack was unzipped. He had remembered placing the SmartMedia card with the 360 or so China photos in that pocket. The SmartMedia card was not there now. As we took inventory of all the items in our bags, we found no SmartMedia card.

At 6:45 we walked the 40 meters to the synagogue. The synagogue opens into a large open-air courtyard with two rooms on either side. This evening it would be open courtyard where things were happening. There were tables and benches set up around a central davening stand. There were large plates of fruit on the tables, and pots of tea. Also on the tables were paddle-like fans for each participant. Mike took a seat at one of the central tables, and Carol placed herself off the side, as she was supposed to do.

It turns out that this was a very important day for the Buxori Community. It was Azkarata (same Hebrew root as Zachor or Yizkor), Memory Day or Memorial Day, where special prayers are said for all the departed. We know of no such day in our practice of Judaism in the month of Av in the middle of Summer. Anyway, 1 and a half hours, many pots of tea, and lots of grapes, figs, peaches, nuts, and hard candies later, we had finished praying.

Carol thinks that individuals sponsored sections of the service in honor of their specific departed. There were kaddishes and el male rahamims during which individual men spoke. Carol heard the words America and Dollar a number of times.

Next to the women's table, there was a table for men who were less able to participate in the service. One was clearly simple and came to the women's table for assistance. The others were somewhat talkative and had to be shushed several times. But of course, they were part of the community. In all, there were about 30 men and teens, but only 2 other women and a young girl. (Other women were obviously participating, in preparing this wonderful meal.)

The prayers finished, it was time to bring out plates of fried fish and large fried bread puffs, along with bottles of vodka, soft drinks, and sparkling water. That was only the appetizer. After that, we washed our hands, had some bread, and then had a plate of tender stewed lamb served over fried potatoes. Afterwards, there were platters of watermelon and a soft white honeydew-like melon.

It was 9:30 or so, and time to go to bed.

Aug 19 - 20 Khiva

2008-08-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

From the Urgench train station, we took a shared taxi to Khiva. The driver was very proud of his car. He was going upwards of 120 km per hour (over 75 mph) on 4 lane roads with people walking, people crossing the road, other slower cars. We arrived at the North Gate of Khiva just after 3 pm, and walked inside to find our hotel.

Khiva is a very old walled city. The Russians and the Uzbeks recognized that they had a city with a lot of old buildings in relatively good condition, and a wall in relatively good condition, and they cleared out a lot of the small houses and other buildings, renovated a lot of the other buildings, and created a museum city for the tourists. But like the old city of Jerusalem, it is also home to locals who have their own gardens, handicraft workshops, and a large bazaar.

The tourists come, and we came, because this is a unique city. It has mosques, medrassas, mausoleums, minarets, and buildings fit for emirs and khans, all in abundance. Beautifully carved wooden columns, each uniquely hewn, support high roofs, with wonderful decoration. There is elaborate tile work, both inside and out. Some of the structures are still revered shrines and places of pilgrimage.

There are also clumsy renovations, new fake buildings, poorly conceived museums in buildings that should be appreciated for themselves, and tourists tourists tourists. Where else in 40 C weather would there be a vendor trying to sell heavy Russian winter fur hats?

So the trick is to isolate what is great about Khiva from all that which is off putting.

We had reserved a room at the Meros Guest House. We really lucked out, because for $30 US we had an airy en suite room, with great views of the wall in one direction and the minarets in another. Suzanis (embroideries) and ceramics decorated the walls. After dark, we were able to climb on the roof, and do some stargazing in a beautifully clear dark sky, only subject to the rising nearly full moon.

Tourists are talked into getting a museum pass for 10000 sum, with photo privileges for another 5000 sum. So for 25000 sum ($19 US) we had all the museums we could eat. Many of the buildings were originally madrassas, which feature an inner courtyard ringed by small rooms, that once served as living spaces for the students. Thus a madrassa might have 10-20 rooms around a central courtyard, which may or may not be beautifully decorated. However, Khiva presents no plain madrassas. Nearly every one has a museum stuffed in it.

And what terrible museums they were. One museum had, for want of anything else to display, a glass case with a preserved two-headed baby. Another was a museum of Uzbek music, with pictures and bios of most of the great Uzbek artists of the past century, along with some of the lyrics they sang. Another sang the praises of the pre-Islamic faiths, such as Shamanism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism, with a plaque indicating that President I. Karimov approved. In fact, President I. Karimov approves of much of this town, because many of the museums have his sayings emblasoned on them.

So we made our first foray through the sights. About 6 pm, after all of the museums closed, and as we had been advised, we walked outside the wall. We were trying to find some internet (by now closed) and to find a cheaper priced meal. We sat down at a place where the guidebook said mains were 1000 sum apiece. We ordered one soup, one kabob place, one samsa, one been, and one bottle of water. One again, the price mysteriously ballooned to 12500 sum. Dinner finished, we walked through the walled city in the other direction, found the real town, got 5 liters of water for only 1200 sum (less than $1 US) and went back toward our hotel. We thought we had missed sundown, but we hurried.

So just before sundown our first day, we climbed the wall and watched the sunset through the small carved embedded window notches. Picture perfect.

The next morning we took another 2 - 3 hours or so, and tried to see everything we had missed the night before. We managed to see all four gates of the city. We followed the wall through residential areas. At the southeast corner there was a site where people dumped and burned their household refuse. There we saw some crested, striped birds busily pecking through the trash. Two women, when asked for the name of the birds, said: qaldirgax (sp??).

Some of the buildings have an additional entrance fee, above the general museum pass. Carol opted to visit the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum, a shrine whose interior is totally walled in elaborate tile designs. There were many reverent local visitors who kneeled inside and received blessings, while verses of Koran were chanted. There was a holy fountain and the worshippers lightly rubbed their hands through the garden of mint plants to fill their noses with the scent before departing.

[A few extra tidbits.

1. Khiva has a camel - Katie the photo-op camel. She is a single hump camel. She has her own garden, where she placidly chews on the leaves of proffered branches. The local visiting families go for the photos, not the foreign tourists.

2. In one of the two story madrassas, we climbed up the narrow stairs to get a good view of the stunning porticos. We motioned to a French tourist to follow. On her way up she banged her head and was bleeding profusely from her scalp. Suddenly, we two Americans and a Brit became an impromptu unit of doctors without borders. After 15 minutes, a happy ending, and off we all went.

3. Kids love to guess the identity of tourists. Following the usual demographics, "Bonjour" or "Hello" is most often shouted. We were quite amused to be greeted with "Konichiwa."]

By 11:30 am, we were ready to check out from the hotel. We checked out, walked to the North Gate, found a shared taxi to the Urgench bus station, and again found ourselves going at 120 kmh. Before we had left town, the driver was pulled over by the local police, for what reason we did not know. He grabbed the keys to the taxi in his right hand, along with 2 1000 sum notes, and went out to discuss the situation with the policeman. We do not know what was said, but shortly he was back in the taxi, with only the car keys in his right hand, and we were on our way.
Outside the bus station we pulled up at the waiting stand for shared taxis to Bukhara, around 12:10 pm. We negotiated the standard rate of 25000 sum per person, and waited for the taxi to fill with the other two necessary people to go.

We had time to grab a quick shashlik with tea, and then to visit the bathrooms, and get drinks to go. Carol regretted that there was no time to photograph the vintage Coke ads inside the restaurant.

By 12:45 we were on our way. The driver had a well built car, and was not afraid to push it. The road cuts east northeast to the town of Beruni, crossing the Amu Darya on a series of pontoon boats, loosely attached to make a sort of a bridge. From Beruni the road goes south and southeast to Bukhara. You can't go directly south from Urgench, because soon you would be in Turkmenistan, a no-no for visa and many other reasons.

Not long after we left Beruni, we also left the Amu Darya valley, and we were back in the Kyzylqum Desert. The road was occasionally well paved and smooth, but more often subject to washboard conditions, sand on the road, active construction, etc etc. Nevertheless our driver did his best to maintain 130 kmh, and he hit 155 kmh at one point.

Mike is 65 years old and has never traveled at over 150 kmh in a car. On these roads, we were lucky to be alive after this trip. We were following and then passing another car also doing the same speeds. It became sort of a game. Anyway, shortly after 6 pm we were in Bukhara, and, as negotiated, the driver let us off 88 meters from the hotel we had previously reserved through the SamBuh in Tashkent.

Aug 18-19 The Train to Urgench (Rev)

2008-08-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

We left the hotel on foot about 6:15 pm. It is a 10 min walk to the tram, when loaded down with packs. The tram was there, as we crossed the street, and we arrived at the train station at 6:45 for the 7:15 departure.

We were in car 5 of the train, in compartment 1. It had been a long exhausting day and Carol wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and go to sleep. This was first class, for which we had paid 38800 sum apiece (apx $29 US). The soft sleeping compartment contained two lower beds and two upper beds. There were already two Uzbek matrons on one half of the compartment, and stuff everywhere on our side also. We threw our backpacks on to the upper bed on our side, and sat down to figure out how this would all work out.

(Mike) Froman's Second Rule of Travel now comes into play. The First Rule is that if you are negotiating prices, you write down the price before you engage the service. (Oh, how many times we have violated that rule.) The Second Rule is that if both sides to a transaction must resolve the situation, it will be resolved, and you need only wait.

In this situation, there was so much stuff in the compartment, that no-one was going to sleep unless some of it were removed. Not us, not the Uzbeks. Every inch, save the lower bed on our side was stuffed. The pull out dining pad was full of their food, and the area underneath was full of their carry-ons, making it impossible to sit near the window.

It turned out that you lifted the bottom seat to reveal space into which both of our backpacks fit. Our compartment mates showed us how to take our packs and store them under the seat. The upper bed was now mostly vacant, but still harbored two large baggage rolls.

Within the first hour, the conductor reached into our compartment and pulled down first one and then a second large burlap sack. After the seals were broken, we saw that these contained the linen for the whole car, which he then removed, to hand out. We now had linen, and some breathing room.

The second older woman turned out to be a friend or relative, traveling in another compartment. Our two mates for the journey were the alpha Uzbek woman and her slim teenage daughter. Several compartments were filled with friends and relatives in this section of car 5. Lots of pre-school-age children in this family group completed the picture.

The Uzbek mother and daughter showed us how to take the baggage rolls, open them up as bed rolls, take the linen, put it on the rolls, take the pillows, which had been somewhere in the compartment, and put on the pillow covers. The daughter in fact made our beds for us. We even had clean towels.

Suddenly, there was more space in the compartment, and all could bed down. By 8:45 or so, our compartment was dark, although there was much noise elsewhere on the train.

In an act of bravery, Carol opted for the upper berth.

We left the Samarkand-Bukhara line at 4 am and turned north. The sun rose at 6 am across the Uzbek desert. The Uzbek word for sand is qum, and this region is called the Kyzylqum Desert. Without water, there is nothing but sand and occasional scrub. Seeing a cow or a truck from the train window becomes exciting.

The posted schedule inside our car gave times and names for the scheduled stops. At a nothing town called Uchquruq (3 wells) we spent approximately 20 minutes around 9:30 am. The train stopped a number of times in the desert, including a spot that seemed to be called Nobygdil.

We had 8 hours of this daytime delight before getting to Urgench. During this time, we tried to make peace with our berthmates, and achieved a sort of glaznost, sharing apricots and cashews. Our feeble attempts at Russian and Uzbek did not get very far.

By 1 pm or so, we were in the Amu Darya valley. Suddenly, everything became green and fertile. Now there were villages, houses, and fields. At a pause in an intermediate station for ten minutes or so, we watched two women producing one loaf of nan after another from their tandur, deftly pulling out the baked loaves with a gloved hand.

The Amu Darya (darya means river) comes down from the Afghan-Tajik border, through Uzbekistan, into Turkmenistan, and then becomes the border between the two countries for a while before running firmly through Uzbekistan, and (1) emptying into the Aral Sea, or (2) drying up before emptying into the Aral Sea. Because of the intensive use of the Amu Darya all along its length, especially for the growing of cotton, this part of the world has become one of the great environmental disasters. The Aral Sea borders are now 50 -100 miles smaller than they were 100 years ago, and this great body of non-salty water is slowly disappearing.

The train arrived in Urgench about 2:20 pm.

Aug 18 - Tashkent

2008-08-21T21:42:00.001-07:00

An extra day for us, since originally we had been intending to take the early train to Samarkand, and now we were taking the evening train to far-away Urgench.

In our previous travels there have been some cities we just couldn't "crack." In Thessaloniki, Greece, we spent the weekend in a town that empties of locals on non-workdays. In Canberry, Australia, there was simply no "there" there. That city is designed so that all commercial activity is hidden on side streets. Now we can add Tashkent to the list.

Perhaps it was an omen of our inabilility to truly understand Tashkent that we shared a tram with a well-dressed middle-class lady in her twenties who sported a shirt reading: "Shake, Rattle & Roll Your Mother Fuck." (Oh, the wonders of the English language as interpreted by non-English speakers.)

We tried to do two things: (1) see the Chorsu area, including the Old Town, the bazaar, and the site that contains the oldest Koran in the world; and (2) eat plov at the Central Asia Plov Center, getting there before noon.

We finally had realized that we were within walking distance of a Metro stop, it being only one LONG block past the Grand Mir. We got on the metro around 10:30 am, after undergoing a short stop by Uzbekistan's finest, who checked our passports and looked in our bags.

The Metro is all marble, chandoliers, and high ceilings. Part of it was designed as a nuclear shelter, and all of it was designed in the aftermath of the 1966 earthquake which had totally destroyed the city. It is still considered sensitive, and one does not dare take photos. The token is a plastic "zhyton," the fare is 300 sum, and we bought an extra token as a souvenir. These are probably the cheesiest tokens around.

Chorsu is 5 stops away. We got out, and took a quick look at the bazaar. It was time to get on to the Plov Center, hopefully by 11:30. We decided to take a bus across, rather than the Metro again. We were told to get the 91 bus. So we walked over to where the buses where, and caught the first 91 bus. We rode for less than 10 minutes to the end of the line. We got out, walked across the street to a beautiful mosque, looked in, took a few photos, and asked someone to show where we were, relative to the plov restaurant.

We were in fact well on the wrong side of town, having taken the 91 bus in the wrong direction. So we caught the next 91 bus, rode past Chorsu, past all of downtown that we had now seen so many times, and turned north. It was now 12:30 pm. We got our near our destination (we thought), and caught a taxi for the last 5 or so blocks to the restaurant. Better safe than sorry.

The Central Asia Plov Center turns out to be just another street-side restaurant with one specialty. We ordered 2 bowls of plov, a bread, and tea. This plov was expertly spiced and topped with a quail's egg and sliced hen's eggs, along with pieces of lamb. Delicious meal. It truly is some of the best plov anywhere.

The price of the bowl of plov was 2500. The bread appeared to be 500 and the tea was 200. Imagine our surprise when the total was 7600. The waitress brought us a "corrected" menu with new prices taped over the old. Well, the bread was really 600, the cover charge was 300 apiece, something else was 150 apiece, etc, etc, and on top of all was a 10% service charge. At least the bathroom was free. This was our first introduction to the World of For-You-Special Tourist Pricing, which is prevalent over much of Uzbekistan.

It was now close to 2 pm. We walked back the 5 or 6 blocks to the Metro and took it back to Chorsu. Our first endeavor was to walk through the bazaar, a larger multi-story version of Mirabod. There we ate two ripe, delicious pears, and drank much cold liquid (sparkling water and bottled lemon tea). While we were drinking, we noticed a box that held Halal chicken leg quarters. It had been processed and packaged in Pittsburg, TX, USA, by Pilgrim's Pride.

We left the bazaar, walking toward an older neighborhood. Private housing in this part of the world is all inwardly directed. Large metal doors face the street: inside is an open patio surrounded by the living areas. Walking through the old town is hot, dusty, and esthetically neutral. So we decided to get back to Chorsu and find the Khast Imom, the official religious center of Uzbekistan, containing the library with the Koran.

We got out of the older city in which we had been wandering, out to a main road, and walked back. As we got toward some Muslim buildings, we wandered in and around. Eventually, at 3:35 (the Koran library closed at 4), we arrived at a ziggurat shaped building, and were invited to climb to the top. So we walked in circles up to the top, and found . . . the top.

Across the street was a grand dome-topped building. We high-tailed it inside, only to discover Uzbekistan's newest shopping paradise, the Turkuaz Hypermarket. Here you find not Korans, but stores selling real western brand-name clothing, and a supermarket selling something that could almost pass for peanut butter. (The ability to purchase peanut butter outside the United States and Canada is our standard for detecting commercial incursion.) The Hypermarket is so modern, that . . . the only toilets inside are sitters, not squatters.

Anyway, it was cold inside from generous air-conditioning. The toilets were great. In the food area, Mike was called Santa Claus (again) by the sales clerks. We bought some water, and scored the rare 50 and 25 som notes, and a 100 som coin, in change.

We had not seen the Koran, from about 700 CE, but it was time to get back to the SamBuh Hotel, finish packing, and get to the train station.

Aug 17 - Tashkent

2008-08-21T03:44:00.000-07:00

It was Sunday morning, and there was one very important piece of business to take care of - buying train tickets for our travels in Uzbekistan. We had a tentative schedule, drawn up by Mike. Unfortunately, he had us leaving Urgench on Aug 25 on a 20 hour train ride to Tashkent and arriving that same day in Tashkent. Also worse, the train we were planning to take did not run from Urgench to Tashkent on that day.

We were going to be cute and walk to the tram on Mirabod - 2, the cut-through street we had discovered the day before. However, the tram had no stops on Mirabod, and we had to walk 3 or 4 extra blocks to the market to get on the tram.

The Mirabod Bazaar is a spiffed up and sanitized version of the fresh food bazaars we had previously visited. Under a "giant, octagonal flying saucer of a roof" (Lonely Planet), this acre plus open air market has well washed concrete floors, electronic scales, frequent hand washing stations, and very few flies and honey bees. Honey bees, however, are well represented at the honey stands. Here, each merchant sells bee pollen, comb honey and 6 - 10 varieties of honey from open pots. They offer tasting for the discerning buyers and attract eager customers.

Back to buying tickets. The Tashkent Train Station is an imposing building in the grand tradition. Mike presented his ticket request to the ticket seller, who spoke no English. Other than saying something in Russian to the general effect that the train did not run on 25 Aug, she was not about to tell these bothersome Americans when it did actually run. She pointed us outdoors to the "Kassa" 200 meters away, and moved on to the next customer.

It turns out the Kassa is not a travel agency, but a giant billboard showing departures and arrivals, by days of the week, for each train schedule. The train to Urgench left on Dush, Sesh, and Juma. The returning train left on Chor, Paysh, and Yaksh. Uzbek dictionary in hand, we figured on that we had to travel from Tashkent all the way to the furthest city, Urgench/Khiva, coming back by Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. This meant leaving Monday evening (Aug18) on a 19 hour train trip at 19:15. (Our original plan was to do take the big ride at the end, Mon, Aug 25.)

We had a concern that the train from Tashkent to Urgench would dip into Kazakhstan on its way to Samarkand, and we would have Visa Problems. Our concerns were unfounded.

So back to a different clerk, with explicit train numbers, days, and times - all first class. It took 5 minutes to print up all the tickets, costing 144,000 sum (total), and a machine to count all of the money. No Visa or American dollars accepted.

It was now noon or so, and time for the quick tram ride back to the hotel, for a brief internet interlude and some eats. We got on the 9 tram, which proceeded to turn in the wrong direction, taking us out into the suburbs. We got off finally, and sat waiting for the return trip. A policeman came by and walked several blocks with us, to make sure we rode the correct 9 tram.

We got to the bazaar, had 4 skewers of shashlik and a beer (3700 sum), (no time for internet). We were back at the hotel by 1:45 pm. Our friends were already parked at the door waiting for us.

We drove downtown to the Amir Timur Museum, with the father Marruh and eldest son Farruh, who pointed out important sights along the way. We parked the car near Mustaqillik Maydoni (Independence Square), a broad public area with government buildings built up after the earthquake of 1966. We walked to the Crying Mother Monument, a memorial to the 40000 Uzbek soldiers who died in World War II. We took photos of ourselves. Carol was photographed with two soldiers (here soldiers have their blood types embroidered on the front of their uniforms). Then through Navoi Park to the Amir Timur Museum, as Lonely Planet says: "a must for afficionados of kitsch and cult making."

Amir Timur, better known to y'all as Tamerlane, lived in the 14th century, and established a huge empire. He had lots of wives, lots of sons, and lots of intrigue. The museum has pictures of maybe a dozen of his more famous male offspring over the next 200 years, showing how each died some kind of violent death. It also has many quotes of I. Karimov, explaining why he approves of each of these messages.

Then on to the far south suburbs. On the way, Mike's Used Car Bazaar radar flashed on at the large Tashkent bazaar, and on the way back, we stopped for a few pictures.

We joined Mom and the younger brother at home in the Sputnik neighborhood at 4:30 pm for a wonderful afternoon meal, with a most welcoming Uzbek family. Older brother is learning English and hopes to study medicine in the United States, and be a doctor. Younger brother's goal is to become President of Uzbekistan. We laughingly suggested that he should marry Karimov's granddaughter, assuming he has one, to achieve this goal.

We dined on salads, fresh sour cherry juice (with fruit, pits, and all, prepared at home), cherry brandy, plov (with raisins), fresh melons, and tea. We told them about the American summer drink of sweet tea with plenty of ice, but agreed that hot tea really hit the spot. We gave them the chocolates. They gave us some folk art, cosmetics from the factory where Mom works, and an Uzbek hat for Mike.

We left at 6:30 pm or so, and arrived at the hotel at 7 pm or so.

2 hours of internet. Across from us at the Internet place was an ethnic Korean-American, who lived in Maine originally, but was now in Uzbekistan doing research on the displaced communities in Uzbekistan. There is a large Korean community in Tashkent in the part of town where we were staying. If you are in the know, you can find Korean restaurants serving dog stew. He reports that it sort of tastes like very good beef, but is usually prepared with a lot of spice. The Korean spoken by these folks is an unusual dialect now found only in North Korea. Near the synagogue was a Korean compound that may be a Dojo, temple, or center: we saw Korean restaurants and hotels.

Apparently this part of town was home to many of the ethnic minorities of Tashkent, including Jews and Koreans, and maybe also the Germans, Rumanians, and so on.

To bed, after buying our usual 5 liter bottle of water.

Aug 16 - Tashkent

2008-08-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

It was Saturday morning in Tashkent - the first town with Jews on our whole trip (other than Beijing with its expats). So at 9:30 am, we pulled out our internet list of synagogues in Tashkent. Both of the addresses of the synagogues turned out to be in our neighborhood. One (the Ashkenazi) was on 15 Sepyornaya Street. The other, the Chabad of Tashkent, was on 15 Second Kunaeva Street.

The instructions were to walk up to the main street, then several blocks to the large intersection with the Grand Mir Hotel on one corner. That cross street was Kunaeva Street, but no one at our hotel had heard of Second Kunaeva Street. So we walked to the corner, and turned left on Kunaeva, also known as Mirabod Street. After a while, we stopped at a little store, and asked. It turned out the street we were on was also Sepyornaya Street, and 15 no longer contained a building. We walked a little farther to the British Consulate, which also contained a German Cultural Association on the property.

A gentleman our age approached and asked if he could speak with us in German to give us instructions. It turns out that he is a German born in Khiva, a far corner in Uzbekistan. (He was part of a German community moved there in Stalin's time.) As best as we could understand, he told us that the street had three names (Sepyornaya, Kunaeva, and the current one, Mirabod). He told us to walk back 150 meters, turn right into the neighborhood, and the synagogue would be found shortly after we had seen a Romanian Bund.

So we walked back that distance, and found ourselves in the middle of a large apartment block, albeit one with a Jewish star graffiti on the wall. Back on the street, we flagged down a young man, who made several phone calls on our behalf. Finally, 10 minutes later, he drew us a very detailed map: (1) walk back past the Grand Mir and keep going on the other side of the intersection; (2) pass a cafe and a "Moiya" involving "maschina" (cars); (3) turn right and go about 100 meters.

It was now close to 11 am. We figured that we might possibly get to the synagogue in time to shake the hands of the departing worshippers.

The directions were perfect. A Moiya is a carwash. The road we turned on was "Mirabod - 2". Puzzle solved. When Kunaeva was renamed Mirabod, Kunaeva - 1 was renamed Mirabod - 1, Kunaeva - 2 was renamed Mirabod - 2, etc. Of course!

Exactly 100 meters on the Mirabod - 2 road was the Chabad synagogue complex, surrounded by a tall iron fence. Unlike in Europe or Argentina, we walked right in - no guards or police demanding passports. We were now approximately 500 meters from our hotel. We had walked a grand circle of several kilometers, in search of the elusive address.

It was past 11 am by this time. Carol was chased upstairs to the women's balcony. They were just getting ready to read the Torah. But first the Rabbi gave a sermon. As best as we understood, he was drawing a relationship between parts of the body and specific letters in the torah reading. 45 minutes later, they were truly ready to read the Torah.

After 1 pm the service was over. We are so glad we did not get there on time, whenever that was. They had a nice table set, with three delicious salads, wine, cola, soda. Carol got her own table on the far side of the room. (No mixing of sexes). The ten other male congregants (two of whom were Chabad Rabbis) were hungry, and everything quickly disappeared. Even the cholent meat dish that appeared later quickly was gone. After some singing, it was now 2:30 pm and time for the afternoon prayer (mincha). Carol and Mike had had enough and said their goodbyes.

This congregation consisted at least in part of Jews who were not together enough to have left the country. A few really understood the service and could read Hebrew and interact with the Rabbi during the question and answer portion of the sermon. However, one collected all the little undrunk cups of vodka and poured it into a small bottle he carried on his person. Another was so grateful for the meal that he took off his shirt and was in an undershirt. Chabad seems to be doing missionary work in Tashkent, rather than supporting an existing community.

We went back to the hotel and called the family we had met on the bus to Andijon. They were happy to meet us and we arranged for them to pick us up at the hotel the next day at 2 pm, show us the town, and feed us their family's special plov.

So after 3 pm we began our journey toward downtown to (1) get some maps of Tashkent; and (2) buy some chocolates for our upcoming visit.

The bus and tram system of Tashkent seems to be on a "need-to-know" basis - if you don't need to know how to get from place 1 to place 2, you are not entitled to know that information. So, not knowing where tram 9 went, we decided to take tram 9, the one that ran on the main street near our hotel. Surely it would go downtown.

It turned past a local bazaar, and kept on turning in the wrong direction. So after the second turn in the wrong direction, we got out. We were adjacent to a large Eastern Orthodox Church complex. We started walking the 5 or so blocks to the bookstore. The sky was blustery, and the wind was picking up. It almost looked like it was going to rain - but of course this is desert, and it never rains.

Finally, we got to the bookstore, passing our favorite local chain: "Sport & Jeans & Baby." Goodness knows what they actually sell.

The bookstore was staffed entirely by Russians, and contained nary a book in Uzbek, as nearly as we could tell in our cursory view of the store. The saleslady was hardly dressed at all, revealing a very ample bust, with not much in front preventing a good view. No Uzbek woman we saw would dress that way. Tashkent seems to be substantially divided between Russians and Uzbeks, with large portions of town for each ethnic group. Goodness knows how well they get along. Anyway, the store was doing no business while we were there, with 3 bored salespeople for 2 customers.

A 37 bus (see, by now they were willing to reveal their precious information) took us straight to TsUM, the big department store in town. Rather depressing by modern standards, with not a whole lot of merchandise on the floors. But on the basement floor, they had chocolates, and some cold drinks. So we bought the cold drinks (when you are really really thirsty and need just water, it is hard to drink enough plain water, so you start off with a liter of cold cola or soda, or a liter of some kind of cold tea drink, and only then can you drink your water).

We walked the 5 blocks or so to the metro station where several people had told us that we would find transit information. No luck. But there was a 57 bus to take us back to the hotel.

It was now 6 pm, and time for three hours of interest to try to catch up. Then to bed.

Aug 15 - Margilon, Kokand, and on to Tashkent

2008-08-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

We got up early, after sleeping in wonderful beds, had great showers, and came out from our guest bedroom for breakfast at 7 am.

Before us was a home cooked meal of melon, fried eggs, salami, bread and butter. This was the first butter we had seen on the trip. We also had a big pot of tea.

Our hosts were Professor Rachimzhan, and his wife (who stayed in the kitchen the whole time and did not emerge). They live in what could be called a suburban house. The professor was a Tajik, who spoke Russian, Uzbek, Tajik, and passible English. He teaches philosophy at a technical university in Fergana. We discussed the many languages and alphabets he has found necessary to teach with over the years, and the need for English proficiency in the modern academic world.

We called a taxi to take us to Margilon at 8 am, where we were attempting to visit the famous Silk Factory. The taxi ride was 5000 sum. After several attempts, our driver finally found the factory, and we asked him to wait with our baggage in his taxi, while we took the tour.

No silk road trip can be truly undertaken without a visit to the Margilon Silk Factory. Unlike the Hotan Silk Factory, which showed us a room of machines spinning silk, this tour was complete, from cocoons and the extraction of the silk, to the very end product. Consequently, it attracts every tour bus passing through, along with individual tourists like us. (The Italians pulled up just as we were leaving.)

The factory tour guides have been incredibly well trained and feel that it is important to give thorough explanations at every stop. We tagged on to the back of a tour with rambunctuous Spanish tourists who seemed to find a double entendre in every statement by the tour guide.

The Margilon Silk Factory tour starts off in a room with fresh cocoons. Some are boiled in preparation for being unraveled, others are saved to provide moths to continue the process.

In the next room, a fantastic spool eight meters around must turn 100 times to unravel each individual cocoon. The resulting rough silk thread is boiled again to bleach and soften. It is then ready to be mixed with natural dye solutions, such as onion skins (yellow), nutshells (brown), different herbs (blue and green). The colors are then set in a salt solution and the silk is dried in ovens.

The highlight was a visit to the hand loom room. The workers hands darted multiple spindles of color to form the design all the time pressing floor pedals to steady the warp and weft. The looms themselves were painted in old fashioned designs, augmented by the individual weavers' pinup photos of rock stars. Each weaver produced the pattern of her choice.

To be honest, the weaving room is more a show for the tourists than the way that commercial silk is produced. On the way to the gift shop, we glimpsed the real production facility, which looked exactly like the Hotan factory.

By this time, our taxi driver had been waiting over an hour. He asked for 13000 sum, which we gladly paid, and he dropped us off at the bus station in the center of Margilon.

It was now just after 10 am. If we could just get some water and some cash (sum), we could get into Tashkent at any time, because Said had reserved us a room there at the SamBuh Hotel.

Carol went out to buy 6 bottles of water, leaving Mike with the packs. Mike had a 200 sum coffee, which consisted of one small teaspoon of instant coffee, four small teaspoons of sugar, and some evaporated or condensed milk. Carol came back with the water, and had one of these coffees while Mike went out to change $200 US.

Down the road was a bank. Mike changed $200 US for 270,000 sum, but when he asked for the receipt (which might become necessary when we leave Uzbekistan customs), they redid the entire transaction, giving him only 266,000 sum, plus a receipt.

During her coffee break, Carol was approached by several market vendors who asked her questions about the TV series Dallas and the city of Seattle. Everyone oohed and ahhed over her family pictures. With money, caffeine, water, and a restroom, we were ready to go. We caught an 11 am bus to Kokand.

Kokand is a silk road town with a lot of history. It was an independent khanate until the tsar's troops overtook it in the late 19th century.

We rode the bus all the way to the end of the ride at the main bus station. The station adjoins a small bazaar. After walking through the bazaar, we ordered two plates of garough (chickpeas) and a pot of tea. Carol again showed the family pictures to all of the ladies nearby. A few meters away, we had a bowl of plov. Beans and rice, the perfect complete protein lunch.

Again we decided to hire a taxi driver to complete our touring. We went first to the Khan's Palace. With seven courtyards and 114 rooms, he there kept a harem with 43 concubines. The place is partially restored and partially unrestored. Some of the rooms contain a mishmash of exhibits, like the animals of the region, prehistoric relics, documentation of the silk road, and many photos of the many sons of the many concubines.

Next on to the Juma Mosque, which now serves as a historic site and museum. It has a bautiful portico supported by redwood columns from India, with the airy ceilings richly decorated in complex colorful patterns. There is a nifty exhibit of folk textiles and ceramics.

Finally on to the Narbutabey Medrassa. Built in 1799, it is a working mosque off limits to visitors, especially on Friday. We were given a tour of the back buildings, including a very large cemetery, filled with dead historic khans. In the medrassa area itself, we saw some of the kids in the process of learning. This impromptu tour guide asked us for 2000. The tour complete, and our taxi driver paid his 6000, we went back to the main bus station.

It was a little confusing, since nobody in the main bus station seemed to be going to Tashkent. Finally, for 3000, a taxi driver carried us to other side of town, where there were taxis waiting to fill to carry us to Tashkent.

One driver had two people in his car - a Russian/Uzbek, and a Japanese tourist who spoke very good English and Russian. They apparently had been waiting for 1 and a half hours to fill the car. We shoehorned into the backseat and were off a little after 3 pm.

Mike had negotiated a price in Russian, but had not written it down. The Korean told us that he was paying 12000, which is what the guidebook said the price should be, and what Mike thought he had negotiated, before we set off.

The road from Kokand to Tashkent climbs a mountain pass over the end of the Tien Shan range. The road has been substantially improved and shortened in the last several years with the addition of two bypass tunnels. At the top of the pass was a passport check which took several minutes.

On the other side, the driver stopped for a chance to sample the mountain spring water gushing out at the side of road.

As 6 pm passed and the road endlessly went on and on, we finally got into the outskirts of Tashkent. All four of us were going to spots on the south side of Tashkent, but the actual addresses for the Japanese passenger's hotel, and for our hotel were rather obscure.

The Japanese guy finally got off on the street where his hotel should have been and paid the driver. We were the last off, and we tendered 24000 to the driver. He said no, it was 40,000 and threw our money in the street. We placed it back on the front seat, and quickly walked into the hotel. (We met the Japanese fellow the next day, and determined that he had actually paid 18000, when asked to do so. So we probably owe this driver at least 12000, if we ever meet him again.)

At 7:15 pm or so we checked in, and unpacked our bags. We called Said to see if he wanted to join us for dinner. We arranged to meet him at the head of our side street, where the three of us took a taxi to a Czech restaurant, which he frequents, when in Tashkent.

Said is a 27 year old citizen of the world. He speaks English flawlessly, even though he has never been in the US or Britain. He understands American politics better than most Americans. He works in Dubai, but was seriously thinking of moving back to Uzbekistan.

We spent a truly fascinating several hours talking with each other about every topic imaginable. We walked the 1+ km back to his house and our hotel, continuing the conversation, and parted at nearly 11 pm.

Said had done us a great favor in finding the SamBuh Hotel. It is in an alleyway in a very diverse neighborhood. Best of all, we could finally watch CNN for the first time since July.

To bed.

A Fistful of Sum

2008-08-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

For some reason unknown to any but the powers that be, the largest bill in Uzbekistan is the 1000 sum bill, worth about 75 cents US. There are also 500 sum bills, 200 sum bills, and 100 sum bills. We have not yet seen any coins whatsoever. Rumor has it that a 5000 sum bill has been designed, but it has been several years, and it still has not appeared.

(We remember being in Turkey when the exchange rate was 425,000 lira to the dollar, but the government had printed 10,000,000 lira bills.)

Hence $100 US equals at least 140 bills, more if some 500s are included. On Aug 15, when Mike changed $200 US, the pack of bills he recieved was 1 3/4 inches, or apx 4.5 centimeters. This is way too much to fit in a pants pocket, both for weight and size. Mike carried the money in his pocket at first, and got comments from people about the money being too dangerously visible. Eventually Carol tried carrying the money in her concealed waist pack, but that too was way too bulky. We finally started carrying the huge wads of cash in a side pocket of our carry on bags, violating the cardinal rule of secreting all reserve money hidden well inside our clothes.

Just imagine how difficult it is to carry $1000 US, or as Said hinted, how difficult it was to carry all the money necessary for the wedding party. In this country, you don't have to be a gangster to be carrying around a suitcase of money, and you don't have to be a bank to own a money counting machine.

As Mae West said: "Is that a pickle in your pocket, or . . ."

Aug 14 - Welcome to Uzbekistan

2008-08-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

The morning started out right. We ate the last of our bazaar purchases, along with a quarter melon of a different kind that the maid had found in another room, and gave to us.

By 9:30 am KT, we had engaged a taxi to the border (10 km), at Dostyk. We got to the border at 9:45. We discovered that we had to fill out a Kyrgyz customs declaration to leave. A tourbus full of Italians, with a Russian guide and an English guide, was already there. By 10:10 or so, we had gotten our customs declarations stamped and stamped, and stamped again, gotten our exit stamp from Kyrgyzstan, and walked to short trip to Uzbekistan customs. Along the way, one woman said to Mike: "Welcome to Uzbekistan." And what a welcome it was.

There were a preliminary line and then the line for the stamp. Neither line seemed to be moving. Both Carol and Mike were wearing their packs, and waiting in line. As the line at the customs office cleared a few people, a few were let through the preliminary line, and everyone crushed forward. Eventually, Carol was in the middle of a huge crowd, among taller people, with no space to move or breathe. Mike was by now 4 or 5 people behind, and just getting into the crush. This was now perhaps 1 and a half hours later.

We now understand what Temple Grandin was elucidating in her ground-breaking studies of animal treatment at slaughter houses. You simply cannot funnel a mob of people through a long narrow gate, only two yards wide.

Eventually, the Italians, having slowly gotten through the Kyrgyz customs, came up on this scene. Carol was already through, the beneficiary of other people in line who took pity on her, and asked the guards to wave this small woman with the backpack through the cordon, on to the real customs. The guides begged for special treatment for the 19 Italians on their tour. They were shuttled through on the side. The Kyrgyz and Uzbek standing in the gate area helped Mike jump the fence, and pretend to be an Italian also.

At the customs area, we had to fill in roughly the same forms as on the Kyrgyz side, but now on an Uzbek form, in duplicate. We begged the Italians for some forms, got them, and finally, close to 1 pm Uzbek time, which is one hour earlier than Kyrgyz time, we had our precious Uzbek admittance stamps in our passport.

We watched the Italian bus pull away, while we walked through the shared taxi guys calling for our business. We eventually got to a bus waiting to go to Andijon, in Uzbekistan, maybe 50 km from customs. The fare was only 1500 som ($1.15 apiece), and the bus was ready to go.

We were way in the back. Next to us were two younger teenagers, whom we had helped through the Uzbek customs line. The older wanted to try out his English, and Carol wanted to try out her Uzbek, and showed the two and their mother, sitting adjacent, the family photos.

Eventually, we traded information, and they invited us to visit them in Tashkent for a home cooked dinner of plov and a car tour.

We got to Andijon at apx 1:30 pm UzT. There was a hopping bazaar near near the bus station, but no place to check our packs. Left luggage seems to be a non-existent service in this part of the world. We walked a half km to the train station, to discover that the next train west was at 5 am the next morning.

We walked back to the bus station, gave up on Andijon, and took a packed bus to Fergana, the regional center of the valley. Our guidebook says that Fergana is the valley's least ancient and least Uzbek city. Andijon is the most Uzbek, and perhaps we will spend more time there on the return trip from Tashkent to Osh on Aug 26.

The buses to Fergana are marked in Cyrillic as "Phi A R F O N A." It took a while to realize that the F is a gamma, with an extra stroke, which makes it the guttural "gh." Thus Margilon, the neighboring town, is "M A R F I L O N." Anyway, the tickets on this bus were only 1000 som apiece (75 cents). We still had had nothing to eat and drink but our water and some raisins, since breakfast in Osh, KG.

The 1:40 ride to Fergana got us there at maybe 3:30 pm UzT. At this point we planned to spend the night in Fergana, go to the Margilon Silk Factory in the morning, and proceed onward to Tashkent the next day.

The hotel nearest to the bus station was the Ziyarat, described by Lonely Planet as "By the standard of barely renovated Soviet hotels, this one ranks right up there with the best of them (ie once you get past the filthy, 1960s-era flooring and peeling wallpaper, it starts to run out of glaring flaws.)" Lonely Planet was being waaaaayyyyy too generous. The reception desk informed us that it might be able to rent us room 315 if we promised to leave by 8 am. We looked at room 315, and decided to find another hotel.

We took a taxi to Asia Guest House, a Turkish run resort-complex, the polar opposite of the Ziyarat. Rooms there were about $40 US, and it would have been completely satisfactory, if only it was not already completely booked.

At this point, Mike went out to a bank in search of Uzbek currency, leaving Carol and the bags in the air-conditioned reception area.

She watched the Russian light heavyweight contender lose on points to his Chinese rival. The Russian channel showing the Olympics was technically advanced, and the advertisements a Capitalist's paradise. A country club crowd filled the hotel, Western-dressed and Yuppified.

Mike walked down the street in search of the Pacha Bank. 5 blocks down he finally found the bank and it was closed. Across the street were a couple of people, so in fragmentary Russian, he asked where he could exchange dollars for sum. He had 2 100 dollar bills in his pocket. One of the men wrote on a piece of paper that 100 dollar = 140,000 sum. We went inside the store, and Mike produced the 100 dollar bill. The store owner started running his bill counting machine, and soon he had a stack of 140 1000 sum notes. Mike counted them on the counter, and we had a deal. A woman walked up, and Mike came to understand that she was inquiring if I had another 100 dollar bill in addition to that first one. Mike changed just one, in part because this transaction produced no kvantsia (official exchange receipt).

Back to the hotel. It was now after 5 pm. We decided that Fergana was not going to be the place we were staying, and that we should go back to the bus station and take a bus to Margilon, a sister city to Fergana, about 20 minutes away. The first taxi wanted 2000 som, so we got out, and took a 6 bus several blocks to the station. (300 som for the two of us.)

We were at the edge of exhaustion, and when we saw a fried fish vendor, we picked up two fried fish, and polished them off. Also, we picked up some of the sweet cold drinks that are available from street vendors.

Thus refreshed, we got on a bus for Margilon, arriving at about 6 pm, in the center of town. Someone pointed across the square in the direction of a promised hotel, and we started walking.

Several hundred meters later, we were in front of a promising building. Out came a well dressed young man, talking on his cell phone. This man, Said, explained that the building was a catering hall, that his younger brother was getting married there that evening. He motioned us inside to sit at one of the dinner tables, and explained that he would help us find a hotel. But first we should have some tea and enjoy the refreshments. His father came up and welcomed us as family guests.

Several pots of tea, some melon, sweets, and a bowl of soup later, Said took us to a car outside. He and the driver drove to a hotel in the industrial area between Margilon and Fergana. That hotel was also full, so several phone calls later, they dropped us off at a private home, where the owners had agreed to put us up in the spare bedroom, and feed us breakfast for $30 US.

So that was our first day in Uzbekistan. It was the worst of times, but turned out in the end to be the best of times. We met the Uzbekistan of bureaucracy and the Uzbekistan of spontaneous friendship.

And so to sleep at just after 9 pm UzT (10 pm KT).

Aug 13 - Ozgon

2008-08-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

We shared breakfast with Mircu and Iliana, who were headed off to Tashkent. We wanted to see more of the Fergana Valley in Kyrgyzstan, so we opted for another day in this country.

Kyrgyz morning news on television has a boxed sign language interpretation. There were snippets of Olympic news, and a mysterious public service announcement that seemed to link unplanned pregnancy, the dangers of smoking, and a devastating disease spread between animals and humans. Then again, our Russian is pretty bad.

After a slow start, we walked to the old bus station, and at 10 am were crammed onto a bus for Ozgon (50 som apiece - total $2.90) for a 55 km trip. We traveled through green farm land with fruit trees and cotton cultivation.

The bus ends up at a bazaar, with a nifty entrance between two tiled minaret-like arches. On the edge of the bazaar, we passed a man cooking skewers of shashlik made of seasoned ground meat instead of plain chunks. We had one for 15 som. It was served with marinated onions and was delicious.

On through town to the 12th century minaret and the 11th century mausoleum, in a park, with some architectural ruins. For 10 som apiece, you get to climb the dark minaret with steep steps and get the great view from the top. The minaret and the mausoleum had undergone some fairly sensitive reconstruction; both were beautiful.

A 10 year old kid, who carried the key to unlock the minaret, Ziyoidin, was trying out his English. He attached himself to us and provided a running commentary about everything, soccer, Trafalgar Square, limousines (which he thought that all Americans rode in). He was very impressed that our son, Ben, worked with Mickey Mouse at Disney.

As we left, Carol gave him a one dollar bill and her business card. He was thunderstruck to receive "My first dollar bill."

We just missed the 1:45 pm bus to Jalalabad, the next town out on the road. After waiting 40 minutes unsuccessfully for the next bus, we scratched Jalalabad, and, tired, thirsty, and hungry, we walked back through the bazaar to the original point. On the way, after several false starts, we found our shashlik vendor. We ordered 6 skewers, a bowl of stewed chickpeas (garogh) topped with marinated onions, and a large pot of green tea. We sat there for a long time, and finally, about 3:30 pm, we were ready to go.

Again we just missed the Osh bus, so we agreed with a private car driver to go to Osh for 50 apiece. We waited in his car, while he tried to line up the other two people he needed to make a trip. A policeman wandered by, checked our driver's licenses, and the driver went off to make everything right.

We hadn't paid anything yet, so we quietly disappeared back into the bazaar, and reappeared on the road several minutes later. A bus passing through had some room, so we were on our way (just before 4 pm) back to Osh, for the one hour ride.

On the way in, we noticed that the bus was passing the internet site and the park, so we got off early, discovered that for some reason, the internet was now closed. So we walked through the park, got into the bazaar, and did a little shopping.

Mike found the ak-kalpak section of the bazaar: a series of vendors selling the high white-felt hat of choice for Kyrgyz menfolk. He bought a black rimmed one, although old people like him are supposed to wear all white. The price yesterday, as all the market was closing, was 150 som. Today it was 120 som. Hey, just lost a lot of street cred, among the Kyrgyz.

A general comment about Kyrgyzstan. Even though we might have checked on the price in Kyrgyz, the answer invariably came in Russian. Kyrgyzstan is the most Russified of all the central asian republics, the slowest to convert.

Another general comment. We kept running into the 4 French we had traveled with on the Kashgar-Osh bus. One couple had gone native so successfully that Carol assumed the woman was Kyrgyz, and reintroduced herself. The other couple was much more tentative and had the classic tourist demeanor. A Japanese woman on the bus showed up at the minaret in Ozgon as we were leaving. We still felt a bond with all of our travel companions. Who knows when and where we will see each other again.

Back through the bazaar in a desparate search to find the Right - Link tee-shirt. The vendors were now packing up and the shirt would have to remain a fond memory.

It was past 8 pm, but we needed to get on the internet to, among other things, register with the US State Department, and inform that we were going to Uzbekistan the next day.

Internet completed, we looked for something to eat at one of the street cafes. A plate of goulash, accompanied by rice, mashed potatoes, french fries, salad, and (Carol's delight) some kasha was shared, along with a bottle of beer. Not very good food (165 som), but we ate it, and went to bed.

Aug 12 - Osh, Kyrgyzstan

2008-08-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

We are now in the Fergana Valley. For more than you ever wanted to know about the Fergana Valley, please see www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergana_Valley.

The silk road traveler would have left Xian, traveled the protected HeXi Corridor, gotten to Dunhuang, built his special donation cave to his favorite Buddhist deity, and headed out into the Taklamakan desert (remember that it means "You Don't Come Back"). Actually, you would skirt the desert to the north through Turpan, or to the south through Hotan. Both ways get to Kashgar. From there it is up and over the Pamirs, over some dry 4000 meter passes. We did it on our 24 hour bus ride. How many days must it have taken the camels?

Anyway, on the other side of the Pamirs is a fantastic fertile valley called Fergana (actually farghana, where the gh is a guttural French type r immediately following a rolled European r - the combination of the two r's drives European speakers crazy, and they never get it right).

The valley is now presently divided among three country - the eastern tip is in Kyrgyzstan, a little bit of the south is in Tajikistan, but most of it lies in Uzbekistan. So when we got to Osh, we were in the eastern tip of the Fergana Valley, and the fruits and vegetables were marvelous. Just imagine how wonderful this place was for the silk road traveler who finally got to his 400 km long oasis, before heading off into the deserts of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran.

Back to our trip. We first tried the Tash Mahal Hotel, a dismal Russian style place for 800 som ($23 USD) that we (Mike, Carol, Mirco, and Iliana) quickly rejected. Around the corner was the Stary Gorod, which offered a four person apartment suite, according to the guidebook. The apartment suite was fantastic, but only for two people, so we each took a standard room (en suite with two beds and use of the kitchen on the floor) for 1100 som ($31+ USD). We agreed to meet for dinner at 6:30 pm.

After a shower and some clothes washing, we were ready to go out. The hotel area is perhaps 500 m northwest of the center of town (old bus station) and quite near the main bazaar. Mike changed $200 USD for 6920 Kg som, and we were off. We were now in Kyrgyzstan, so why not try to make contact with the CBT (Community Based Tourism), the local eco-tourism organization. They have a great website and glowing comments abound in Lonely Planet for their homestays and other services. We tried to find their local representative in Osh at several locations without success. We sent an e-mail to them, which was returned as undeliverable. We cannot confirm that they are worth these accolades.

Trying to deal with CBT aside, the walk to the center of town was very interesting. Mike finally found some underarm deodorant, which he had been unable to locate in China. We also scored some Barf, everybody's favorite all-purpose laundry detergent. Lest you get the wrong impression, the box tells you in small print that Barf means Snow (in Persian), so this cleaner is Ivory Snow on steroids.

We finally walked through the old bus station around noon, and determined that it would be easy to get to Ozgen and other neighboring towns of interest the next day. Then up and down a couple of streets where we saw the most wonderful melons, tomatoes, fruits.

The predominant feature of Osh is Solomon's Throne, a hill that towers a couple of hundred meters over the town, and sits almost in the center of town. Since 1497 there has been a small mosque and a mausoleum on top, and for the muslims in this part of Central Asia, it is a place of pilgrimage, third only to Mecca and Medina.

But in between the market and Solomon's Throne, our eyes were caught by a small linear public park, just to the east of the Akbuura, a small river running through Osh. All sorts of carnival stuff - a couple of tame rides, including one designed to disorient your stomach. Also photographs, shooting games, guess your weight, hit the thing with the hammer and make the ball hit the bell, etc.

It took at least one half hour to walk through this interesting park, and finally, we found the entrance to the Throne. Entrance is 3 som apiece, but if you want to use the bathroom, it is an extra 2 som. Since Carol used the bathroom and Mike didn't, it was a huge 8 som (23 cents). Still we saw some people trying to climb the fence and avoid the admission price.

The walk up the steps is supposed to take 25 minutes. We did it in 20 minutes with many stops. The temperature was at least 35 C (95 F) in blazing sun, and maybe even hotter.

On the way up, people have tied strings of cloth to most of the trees and bushes, presumably for good luck, or so their wishes at the top would be granted. Probably a pre-Islamic rite. Since Carol had already participated in the rituals of the White Pagoda in Hami, China, it couldn't hurt to be ecumenical, so she tied one on.

At the top, there was nothing to do but watch people praying intently at the mouth of the mausoleum, look at the panorama of Osh below us, and watch people walking along a trail to a supposedly dull museum at the other end of the rock. Mike noted that for the first time we were seeing people with builds other than the slender Han and Uighur body types.

We passed on the rest of the walk and headed down. On the way down, there was a teen-age girl who was clearly suffering from heat exhaustion. Mike gave her friends some additional water and Carol made her eat some Turpan raisins.

At the bottom, we stopped at a mini-mart for some cold drinks. The young man who was running the place spoke beautiful English, as well as Russian, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkish, and maybe Persian. With those language skills, we wondered why he was tending shop.

Two hours at the internet followed.

Then back through the park, where we had our first fried fish, served hot from a wicker basket carried by a vendor walking through the promenade. 45 som ($1.30) for a deliciious fish, bones and all.

At the bazaar, we bought tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet red peppers, for the next two days' breakfast. (The total was maybe $1 for 4 of each item.) We also got a yellow melon for 25 som.

In the main section of the bazaar, we saw every kind of printed tee-shirts. All the big brands (Addidas, for the attention-challenged; Aidas, for the music afficionados). Carol was especially taken by a tee-shirt that showed basic directions: "Right" on the correct side; and, of course, "Lint" on the other. Too bad it was in a child's size.

Back to the hotel after much walking, by 6 pm. One of the tee-shirts which we had washed and hung on an outside line, had fallen down in the bushes, gotten very dirty, and had to be Barfed, along with the next batch of laundry. Mike went out for some water, and to buy Uzbek currency (sum). The official rate was 1316, so Mike was astonished when he got 7000 sum for $5 USD and went back for another 7000. The vendor had only 500 sum bills, so Mike had 28 bills, representing his $10. This was just a precursor of much more to come.

At 6:30 pm. we walked out with Mirco and Iliana, down along the bazaar, through the park to the internet, where Mirco needed 2 minutes. Then back through the park to a restaurant which had looked great for lunch, but was now ready to close, and had sold out of almost everything.

After such a disappointing dinner, but some lively conversation, it was now well after 9:30 pm. We walked back to the hotel, stopping briefly at the 24 hour market, where we found some soft cheese, the first on our trip.

The market is next to a mosque. We heard the final evening call to prayer, which was delivered by a live muezzin. Kyrgyzstan allows the call to prayer to be heard in town, unlike China (or Uzbekistan).

The whole day there was no electricity in the hotel. The owner promised electricity by 6 pm, and indeed it came on. Apparently in Kyrgyzstan, there are non-electric days, presumably announced officially in advance.

We shared the melon, and to bed by 10 (Carol) and 11 (Mike).

What Really Happened on Aug 4, and What We Couldn't Say About It REV

2008-08-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

On the morning of August 4, China News reported that two Uighurs in Kashgar (28 and 33 years old) had stolen a truck, slammed through the police gates at a Kashgar police station while the police were in the yard for morning exercises. Reportedly, the two opened fire, killed 16, and wounded an equal number. Reportedly, the assailants were in custody.

That morning, at 11:30, we could not get Blogspot.com to allow us to create new posts or edit old posts, and our e-mails out were returned. Our credit cards not being honored at the China Southern Airlines office shortly thereafter may have had something to do with the internet blockage.

At 4:30 pm in a different internet cafe, some foreigners near us told us of the attack. They were going to Kashgar that next day, and were worried. At that point, we called our tour guide, who, after contacting the tour group currently in Kashgar, assured us that all was OK on the ground.

Even in Urumqi, our bags were checked mpre frequently as we entered stores and buses. There were more police on the roads than we had seen previously in China.

By the next day, we were able to send e-mails, so we sent the blog to our kids in the US, who posted it. Blogspot finally worked on Aug 6.

When we did get to Kashgar and south XinJiang, there were lots of extra checkpoints on the roads. The fact that we were forced to get an Alien Travel Permit to go south to see Mustaghata, may have had something to do with this (or maybe not).

We saw a little tidbit on CCTV 9 (the English station) on the morning of Aug 6. Nothing on the Chinese stations.

Later we saw news about the attack in Beijing on an Olympic athlete's relative only through Google.com. We did, however, hear commentary on how fantastically wonderful the Opening Ceremonies were, over and over and over and . . . . . .

Thanks to those of you who sent us e-mails during this period.

NEW NEW NEW Today (Sep 29) there appears an article in the New York Times about how some tourists in the hotel across the street witnessed the attack and disagreed with most of what the Chinese reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/world/asia/29kashgar.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=kashgar&st=cse&scp=1

From our point of view, the pertinent part of the article is as follows:

Other officers were trying to disperse civilian onlookers, the tourists said. One of the officers saw the photographer with his camera in his hotel room window, the tourists said.
For about five hours after that, police officers locked down the hotel and went room to room questioning people, the tourists said. They seemed unthreatening, the tourists said, but they kept asking about photographs and checking cameras.
“They asked if we took any pictures; we said no,” the relative said. The tourists had stuffed the camera into a bag. “They asked if we sent any e-mails. I said no.”

We now understand why our e-mails didn't work for two days.

Aug 11- 12: CN to KG

2008-08-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

We got an early start, and we the first ones at breakfast. As we were finishing, we saw 25 or so UC Berkeley alums who had taken an eclipse trip, seeing in it the Altai region of Xinjiang (almost to Russia). They had also gone over the Khunjerab Pass into Pakistan and come back and done other fascinating things. They reported that as they came back into China, the Chinese had gone through their cameras and deleted those pictures they didn't think that the visitor should have taken. So, as a precaution, Mike changed the card in the camera, and put the other card in his backpack.

We got to the International Bus Station at 9:15 AM BT (7:15 AM XT and KT (Kyrgyzstan Time)). The bus was scheduled to leave at 10 AM BT (8 AM KT). There waiting were our 2 Italian friends from Hotan, and 4 French friends whom we had briefly met at John's Information Cafe in Kashgar. The rest of the bus filled up with Chinese going to Kyrgyzstan and carrying large amounts of baggage. Also a few Kyrgyz going home.

The bus took off at 9 AM XT after taking all sorts of cargo, including 4 exceedingly heavy small metal wheels, which the porters struggled to load.

Although we had purchased upper beds, many nice guys switched with us, and we ended up on lower bed. Carol had a center bed with a VCR monitor. It was never switched on, however.

20 minutes down the road, the bus pulled off, and along came a pickup truck loaded with vegetables, melons, and bottled water. Amazingly, it all got on the bus, with heavy boxes packed on top of cauliflower, chinese broccoli stuffed into crevises, etc. The whole back of the bus was filled up with this cargo.

There was a stop about 100 km in for lunch, and we bought a plate of laghman for 6 RMB, and then went down the road for 1.5 kg of grapes. On to the border on good roads in reasonable weather. We had good views of a 6300 m mountain on the Chinese-Kyrgyz border.

We arrived at Chinese customs at about 2:30 pm. Near this facility we saw a cafe offering "Ancient Uighur Fast Food." Unfortunately, our bus did not stop there.

It took us 3+ hours to clear Chinese customs. After we had all of our passports stamped, we had to reload the bus. One of the passengers on the bus was in charge of loading, and was demanding 5 RMB per bag to get your bag back on the bus. No money, no bag. The Chinese and the French paid. The Italians and the Fromans took care of this and carried our bags into the passenger area of the bus, where they sat amid the melons and cabbages. With all of the luggage loaded back on the bus, the Chinese officials collected the passports again, and held them until we actually cleared the border 10 km or so further on, through no-man's land. Only then did we finally have our passports. There were lines of trucks in both directions for what seemed to be miles.

We crossed over into Kyrgyzstan after 6 pm. Our driver greeted the customs guys warmly, took out 3 boxes, and presented these to them. Mike could see that one of the boxes contained a set of dinnerware. Our bus, filled with goods, did not get searched very thoroughly; later we did see our driver hand over armfuls of vegetables to selected customs personnel.

It took us about 1 hour to clear Kyrgyz customs, and we were on our way at about 7:15 pm.

The whole trip is 520 km - slightly less than one half on the Chinese side. 520 km is 320 miles - roughly the distance from Seattle to Portland or Boston to Philadelphia, or Denver to Durango. In America it takes 5 hours to drive this.

The scheduled trip from Kashgar to Osh takes at least 24 hours (we were actually told 28 hours). From the border toward Osh is on some of the worst roadbed in the world for "paved" roads - it is pitted, rutted, washboarded, etc. It goes over several mountain passes, and has many hairpin curves.

We saw a spectacular sunset, as we bounced and jounced into the darkness. At times the driver was doing less than 10 mph. Carol pretended that this was a boat and that we were experiencing was the slapping of waves instead of tires meeting rocks and ruts.

After 100 km of this the road, it apparently got smoother. We, amazingly, got to Osh in only 11 hours from the border. That works out to about 15 mph.

As we were approaching Osh, the driver made an angry phone call, and before long, we had pulled into a commercial parking area, where 3 small pickups carried off all of the vegetables and water.

We finally arrived in Osh a little after 6 am. We and the Italians decided to share a taxi. However, we had a standoff with the taxi driver who wanted to charge us 50 Kyrgyz som apiece (34.91 som to the USD) instead of the standard 50 som for this short ride. Finally, we settled on 80 som and we were in the hotel area.

Crouching Tourist, Hidden Toilet (Rev)

2008-08-10T07:57:00.001-07:00

In the United States, there are two types of toilets - (1) urinals, for men, and (2) toilets with seats, for both sexes - we will call the latter "sitters."

In the rest of the world, at least outside Europe, there is a third kind, sometimes called the
Turkish toilet. It is a hole in the ground, sometimes in porcelain, sometimes just a rectangle hole. You squat down, keeping your pants, skirts, underwear, etc, out of the action, and aim for the hole. We call these "squatters." Sometimes they come equipped with elaborate and effective flushing mechanisms, usually not (you fill a pail with water and dump it in).

Chinese squatters also include a trench system. Several stations, each separated by a short wall, are placed along a trench. Your feet straddle the trench. This system is deeper and less likely to cause splashback. Periodically water is piped through the trench, effectively cleaning all sections. That is, if there is water.

It was a trench squatter that the Indian woman fell into on the way to the Eclipse on Aug 1. See details in that post. She violated the most important rule of squatters: one foot on either side.

Carol has become resigned to this new world of toilets, although her performance is not consistently up to Olympic standards. This raises the question: What kind of toilets are found at the Olympic venues, and athletic housing, and media centers?

About the only place where the toilets are consistently of the sitter variety is in better hotels throughout China. We have had sitters in every room we have stayed in so far, but sometimes the lobby facilities are of the mixed variety.

Handicap (ie, sitter) toilets also appear at museums and other institutional settings - only one per bathroom, often out of order.

Mike has not come to grips with any of this, and has had to use a squatter only once. For this reason, he now clearly understands the meaning of the first prayer in the Shacharit service (intended to be said immediately upon wakening) in which the men say: Thank God for not making me a woman. If you have followed this blog, you will remember that Carol had already come to this conclusion in Beijing.

Finding Toilets

Toilets are usually found in the little alley streets that come off the main streets. This is so because many of the inhabitants of these neighborhoods have no indoor facilities where they live. The toilets that just contain squatters are usually just marked by the Chinese characters for "man" and "woman." The ones that are marked by the symbol "W C" may also contain showers.

In the cities, we have taken advantage of the "Caucasian pass" at big hotels. That is, if you look to be of European origin, you can just walk in with determination and eventually find the facilities.

Carol has added her contribution to the grounds of several Unesco World Heritage Sites.

Did We See the Olympics? (Rev)

2008-08-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

For the many months before the trip, we said we were going to China this summer. The first question was: Are you going to the Olympics? Our answer was invariably, "No, by the time the Olympics start, we will be 3000 miles away in the farthest point of China from Beijing, getting ready to leave for Kyrgyzstan."

We need to amend that answer. The Olympics are everywhere. Every town has the parks and signage festoons with the five relentlessly cute pandoid figures of the Olympic mascots - BeiBei, YingYing, HuanHuan, JingJing, and NiNi. The TV stations have been broadcasting something to do with the Olympics 24/7 on nearly every channel (except for those channels with old American movies, and those channels doing educational programming).

Yes, we went to the Olympics. We just weren't in Beijing on August 8, and didn't have any tickets to the events.

PS: After we wrote this, we saw on TV that two pandas were born and were named after two of the mascots. This, by the way, is not new. Our Chinese guide on our tour was born in 1957 and given the Chinese name for Sputnik.

Aug 10 - Kashgar and the World Famous Sunday Market (Rev)

2008-08-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

We got a slow start because the local food was starting to interfere with Mike's digestion. Watched morning Olympics and harvested more wash. Got down to breakfast about 9:45 BT (7:45 XT). This time the dining area was filled with tourists from all over. We sat down at a table with Italians. They were in the middle of a trip from Tashkent, through Kyrgyzstan, now in Kashgar, then eventually to Urumqi, Dunhuang, Golmud, Lhasa, Tibet, and ending up in Nepal. They gave us advice on what to see in Kyrgyzstan, and one of them suggested sending home the camel we were about to buy on a magic flying carpet, which we should also find at the market. Just yogurt and tea for us.

By 9:15 XT we were ready to go out. Our goals for the day were to see the historical sites, the Sunday Market, the separate Sunday Animal Market, take photographs of clothing and food, change some remaining RMB into Kyrgyz som, and buy water and food for tomorrow's long bus trip. Mike's personal goal was to keep his underwear clean, having taken two immodium and a cipro.

Carol was wearing a long skirt and long sleeve loose top. Mike had on the white skullcap which he had purchased in Hotan. We decided to first walk to the Id Kah Mosque in the center of town. The street around the corner from the hotel which goes to the mosque, passing through a small market area. As we approached the mosque, Carol put on her net cap and scarf. She waited outside while Mike went in first. Mike could have gotten in free as a Muslim Turk, if he had identified himself as Muslim. He paid the 20 RMB instead. The mosque is approached through a large shaded tree-lined courtyard. The mosque itself is quite small, and made of relatively plain wood construction and design. Carol went in afterward (not being challenged at entry): she enjoyed walking in the cool garden and merely peered through the windows into the mosque.

Just wearing a long skirt and long sleeves does not make you a local woman. In Hotan the prevailing style was absolutely mismatched patterns. Here in Kashgar, tulle, sequins, embrodiered gold medallions, and glitzy net layering over shiny underskirts is the prevailing style. The gaudier the better. Deep, deep red, wedding gown white, vivid turquoise, acid green, etc. Heaven knows how these women keeps this polyester clothing clean. At least sitting next to some of these women on the bus, one senses that they don't. Another difference between Kashgar and other previous cities was the large loose-weave brown cloth that some women use to completely drape their heads (not even an opening for the eyes).

We decided to continue walking toward the Sunday Market. This took us across the street into an extensive food market, many blocks long. Restaurants were plentiful, and we saw the preparation of all sorts of dishes and breads. The large flat bread so common to this area is prepared by rolling the dough into a flat bread, giving it several twirls like a pizza, crimping the edges, then stamping the bread center with a design with a pronged tool that produces a design. The bread is then pasted to the inner wall of a nan oven, and pulled out with a hook when ready. Smaller rolls, stuffed buns, and bagel shaped rolls are also cooked on the inner walls of the nan oven, and pulled out hot. Several days earlier, Mike had tried a fresh, hot, bagel-shaped roll, and found it fairly heavy and tasteless. It looks like a bagel, but it is not a bagel.

As we were walking, we walked past a restaurant, where outside there were three guys preparing food. One was tending a huge pot of pilav (polo), with pieces of lamb shank, and a yellow vegetable. It looked so tasty that we sat down for a bowlfull and a pot of tea (a big 8 RMB - by this time we were feeling that 8 RMB was a lot to pay for just one bowl of food and tea). One of the others was making meat stuffed pastry, which he steamed in large stacked wood steamers. The third was cutting up very fresh lamb for skewers, placing a small piece of fat between the meat chunks. As we watched, orders for this food came from inside the restaurant, and from elsewhere on the street. As we sat, we photographed a number of interesting dress styles of the women walking past.

Maybe 45 minutes later, we proceeded on. All along the street were crowded 7 buses, going from one end of the Sunday Market to a point almost to the mosque. That point was near where we had stopped for our first meal, and watching the buses turn around, backing out into the small street, was amazing. The street eventually became residential, and finally opened onto a boulevard, across which was the first part of the huge Sunday Market. On this street we saw almost no other tourists.

We were skeptical of the Sunday Market, because many guidebooks describe it as having become too touristy. We had seen many markets, especially the lively bazaars in Hotan, and we knew what to expect, and that we were unlikely to see anything different here.

We entered the market from the unofficial end, not the one where tourists pay for entry. We plowed through, approaching the side where most tourists enter, and when we first started to be addressed in English, we gave up and got out. After all, everything in this market was Made in China, anyway. We saw one uncanny replica of a Tanglewood shirt that was also MiC. To be fair, there were vendors selling the pots and other utensils used in the street vending business, and vendors selling the stampers for making embossed flat breads.

It was not approaching 1 pm XT, and we walked awhile to catch the 16 bus, which is supposed to end at the Sunday Animal Market. The ride takes a several km trip into the far SE part of town, on a bumpy, more rural, poplar-lined road. The bus dropped us off exactly where we were supposed to be.

This market caters to local rural people, and sells animals, their gear, melons, vegetables and cooked foods. The entry area was for the sale of goats. Then we passed into the sheep area, with plenty of the famous fat-tailed sheep. The melon sellers were off to the side, huge fields of different kinds and colors. We saw a goat chomping away at the inside of a half of a watermelon rind. We also saw the "parking lot" for the donkey carts: several of the donkeys served as very effective cart alarms, braying at the top of their lungs. At the end of this area was the fertilizer collector, maintaining a sizeable mound of goods.

In an enclosed area off in another direction were the cattle, hundreds of them. Then we passed into another sheep and goat area where animals were being sheared before leaving with their new owners. But where were the camels?

Finally, at the far corner, we found 4 camels. Maybe we were too late, but it was clear that the camel of our dreams was not there. We would have to forgo purchasing one and flying it back to the States. These seemed to be remainder camels.

We walked back to the street. Mike had seen a large number of guys getting off the bus at the stop before the end, where there was a large used car bazaar. So we walked over to this bazaar. At the entry were a number of metal fabrication shops, producing decorated entry doors for houses. Past these "BlaKsmith" shops, were the car market.

Mike claims to be the only tourist ever to fly 8000 miles to see and photograph the Kashgar Sunday Used Car Market. Anyone else out there who disputes this claim, post your photos.

Between the "BlaKsmith"s and the cars, Carol noticed food vendors twirling out fresh noodles, and pots of stew. There was also a different kind of pilav, with raisins. So at 1:45 pm XT we sat down for tea and a bowl of laghman (noodles and the stew) and a bowl of pilav (actually called polo), topped with two lamb chops. This was a family run business, and we saw at least 4 kids from the family serving, bussing tables, and sweeping the room, while the parents presided outside.

The food was very tasty, and the bill was only 12 RMB. We asked about the yellow chunks of vegetable that we saw in the rice, both this morning and here. The proprietor identified it as "sebzi," which happens to be the general Turkish word for vegetable that Carol had learned. Calling it vegetable didn't clarify matters a whole lot.

Took a very crowded 8 bus back to town, and got off one stop before the Id Kah Mosque. Walked into the business area of this old neighborhood. There were craftsmen producing metalware, and wooden steamer baskets for the restaurant trade. We sampled a Uighur-labeled Coke, a tri-colored popsicle, and two large fresh figs, served up on a fig leaf. Talk about biodegradable packaging. We passed a vendor with a cart of bunches of the stubby yellow-white carrot objects. We asked him the name, and he said "Sebzi." Carol's Uzbek dictionary also identified "Sabzi" as carrot. Mystery solved.

We got back to the hotel maybe around 4:30 pm XT, and just relaxed. We saw the Italians, getting ready to fly to Urumqi. They had been at the animal market earlier than us, where they had seen 6 camels, one of which may have been our intended. Too bad, so sad. You snooze, you lose.

It says something about Kashgar that the Sunday Market has only 6 camels, but well over 500 used cars.

Did our packing while it was still light. Went out for the final water and munchie run (no need for dinner), and changed 200 RMB into 1000 Kyrgyz som with a street money trader hanging out by the hotel (the actual rate is 5.09, so we didn't do too badly).

Internet and to bed. Off to Kyrgyzstan first thing tomorrow - inshaallah.

Aug 9 - Kashgar and to the Mountains

2008-08-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

We got up at 7 am BT (5 am XT), harvested the part of the wash that was already dry, did a little more wash, went to breakfast at 8 am BT, and walked out to meet our driver at 9 am (7 am XT). The driver was a little late, coming at 9:30.

We traveled in a comfortable 4 wheel drive Honda. Our driver was a Han from Lhasa, Tibet, who had driven nearly every road in XinJiang, and probably a lot more. Mike and he conversed in Chinese, as best they could.

While still in town, we reached the first checkpoint, and had to show those precious Alien Travel Permits, without which we would have gone nowhere. So much for the taxi drivers and their promises.

Soon we were on a nice new road, going south. Very few cars. Mostly donkey carts, bicycles, motorcarts, and motorized farm vehicles, pulling carts. Occasionally trucks, a very few buses, some taxis, and almost no personal cars whatsoever. Through a few towns, each more rural. Then, except where it was irrigated, the country was dry and rocky. About 50 km out of town the road adjoined a river, which we followed uphill to Kara Kol (Black Lake), and farther. This river was fast running, and not clear. Mike stopped one time to run his hand in the water to try to feel if the water was muddy or silty, and decided on muddy.

The driver told us that he would pull over any time we asked him to "Stop." We did so many times, especially as we started climbing, and started seeing some of the snow covered mountains in the distance. We started off in the standard Kashgar, south Xinjiang haze, and as we went south, it started to clear slightly. Kongur was the first mountain we may have seen, and we stopped to take photos of whatever was there.

By the 125 km point or so, we had passed our third checkpoint, and shown our travel permits three times, our passports three times, and our filed driving itinerary once.

We came to a point (not Kara Kol) where the river opened into a lake, and we stopped for photos. Immediately 5 kids descended. We took their picture, and they showed us the beads they wanted to sell us. One of the kids was saying: "Pishti," which we still do not understand as a number in any of the local languages. Anyway, one of the girls said: "Tourmaline," of an attractive string of small purple beads. So Mike splurged and pulled out a 10 RMB bill, which she eagerly grabbed. 10 RMB is in fact a lot of money - after all, 11 RMB bought us a lunch for 2 in Hotan. 10 RMB equals $1.50. By this time, the mothers were coming out with pieces of "jade" and textiles, and we were attempting to get back into the car, when a tour bus rounded the corner to save us.

Onward to the first views of Mustaghata. We came upon Kara Kol. It was somewhat of a disappointment, not a pristine lake. There were yurts on the shore, and Kazakh people (identified by their white hats), but not enough reason to stop and pay for admission to enter.

We pushed on for the last 25 km, up the hill from 10000 feet to the mountain pass at Su Bash at approximately 13000 feet. From here we had good views of the bottom of Mustaghata. There was a dirt track leading southward toward the mountain. Since we were in a 4 WD, and since our driver was willing, we drove in another 5 km or so. We stopped for the view, for our lunch of hard-boiled eggs, carrots, and pickled beet root. Carol took a hike for maybe 40 minutes over the next hills, where she found prairie dog colonies and flowering lichen.

The temperature started out in the city morning at 23 C, but was only 14 - 16 C at the top in the height of day. It was 33 C back in the city when we returned at 6 pm BT.

The way back was much faster, with fewer stops and only one checkpoint. At one point the driver was doing 75-80 mph (120-130 km per hour), passing the donkey carts, etc.

Back at the hotel yet more wash, a trip by Carol to get 8 more liters of water, and then a long internet session.

Aug 8 - Kashgar

2008-08-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

The day of the Olympics had finally arrived. At the furthest point from Beijing, still in China, the Olympics were 24/7 on TV, and scattered all over public signage.

We got out of the hotel about 11:30, to explore the town. Three goals: (1) change some more money; (2) get a taxi to go on a day trip to Tashkurgan on the road to Pakistan tomorrow (Saturday); and (3) buy bus tickets for the Monday ride across into Kazakhstan.

As for number 2, this road climbs and passes within 30 km of Kongur Tag, a 7700+ meter mountain, along Karakol (Lake), a 10000 foot high supposedly pristine lake, and 20 km of Mustaghata Tag, a 7550 meter mountain. Mustaghata is the tallest mountain in the world within 20 km of a road, and Kongur is the tallest mountain in the world within 30 km of a road, so they are likely to be the tallest mountains we would ever see in our lifetimes. These heights, in the 24000-25000 foot range, are higher than any mountains in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. The only higher mountains are in the Himalayas and the Karakorum Ranges. As an aside, Mustaghata is reportedly to be an easy mountain to climb among the mountains of this height, needing only 12 days to climb and come down from. Tashkurgan is a town of people who speak their own language, a Tajik-like language called Tashkurgani. The town is in the Tashkurgani Autonomous Region of Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

We were told by several people that we could not just take a taxi down this road, but needed a permit. That was quite too bad, because a taxi driver gave us a quote of 500 RMB for the whole day, at least as far as Mustaghata, which we decided was far enough. We also asked about laundromats, and were told none existed.

There are two centers of tourist concentration in Kashgar, one at Qinibagh, and the other, 1+ km away, at Seman Hotel. Both feel like Sultanahmet in Istanbul, catering to backpackers and groups of international travelers. We hadn't seen this many round-eyed ones yet on this trip (other than the eclipse groups in their own buses).

On the way we changed $300 US easily, for the first time, after finding the right kind of bank. It was Carol's turn for general collapse. We hadn't eaten anything since a piece of leftover bread this morning, and nothing else since Hotan. We stopped at a supermarket and bought 5 popsicles, 3 milk-mung bean, one "green," and one chocolate. The sugar and coldness revived us. There was a bookstore across the street where, on the way back to the hotel, we bought two nice maps of Kashgar, and were able to figure out the local bus system.

By 1:30 or so, we were at the Seman Hotel. There were three travel agencies, vying for our business. We finally settled on John, who runs John's Information Cafe. For 800 RMB ($118 USD), plus another 100 RMB for two travel permits, we arranged for a 9 AM departure on the next morning. As we were to clearly see the next day, there are travel considerations right now that have isolated the regular tour drivers, causing difficulties in getting in and out of town in certain directions. We heard that Torugart Pass was closed for several days, and met one guy who had waited five days to cross over into Pakistan.

On the way back to the hotel we bought 2 4 liter bottles of water (8 in all) for 16 RMB. That is a better price than buying individual bottles, to say nothing of the environmental impact.

Finally, up to the International Bus Station, where by 4 pm, we had two tickets on the Monday sleeper bus to Osh in Kyrgyzstan. The bus runs only once a week, and costs 440 RMB per ticket. By this time, we had a choice between the back of the bus lower level, and first seats upper level. We chose upper level front. Time will tell whether this was the right decision. The 500 km or so trip, over difficult and rough road, is scheduled to take 28 hours. This will either be the high point of the trip, or a hellish experience.

It was time for food and internet, so we took an 8 bus, into south Kashgar, a different part of town, far from the tourists. We got off at a small bazaar street, got our eyes attracted by roasted ducks, complete with head and neck, coming fresh off the grill, and bought a whole duck for 30 RMB ($4.50 USD). The duck was hacked up and we ate it right there. It was quite tasty, but did not come with its own numbered certificate. We bought for the next days trip. We got 6 carrots, and a pickled beet root. Walking out of the market, Carol spied dried apricots, 20 RMB for a kilogram bag.

Purchases complete, we crossed the street, and after a few questions, found a local internet cafe, where the guys in charge had never sold time to foreigners. They sort of finally figured it out, but when our time ran out, the place was closed down, and we had to leave. Mike thinks that as soon as we left, they all came back, and reopened the place.

It was already 6:30 pm, and the Olympic Opening Ceremony was to begin in aboiut 1.5 hours. We got back to the hotel, and started a monumental wash of everything dirty in our possession, heaviest first.

Mike was thinking about trying to go to a public square, where earlier we had spotted a Jumbotron, to watch the Olympics. Nobody at the hotel would give us an unequivocal answer as to whether the Olympics were going to be shown in public. Carol was still washing clothes, and Mike chose not to go out exploring on what was likely to be a wild goose chase, so we watched the opening ceremonies on TV in our hotel room. The entire uncut (no commercials on China CCTV) thing was already going at 6 pm XT (8 pm BT), and lasted close to 4 hours. We fell asleep without going out again for some kind of dinner.

Aug 7 - 8 Hotan to Kashgar

2008-08-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

A sleeper bus is a really amazing vehicle. Imagine no seats, two aisles, and three rows of beds, with the foot section of the bed behind snuggled under the headrest of the bed in front. Then stack another set of beds on top of these. Imagine that some beds are 1 foot longer than the others. The result is four classes of accommodations on this sleeper bus: (1) Long beds, lower level (most expensive): (2) long beds, upper level; (3) Ordinary beds, lower level; and (4) ordinary beds, upper level. We didn't understand about the length of the bed, so we got two tickets for the ordinary bed, lower level. We had beds 1 and 2 on the right.

You must take off your shoes before entering the bus (placing them in plastic bags) since the floor is carpeted. This makes loading and unloading the bus very slow. There were some old people on the bus who had real trouble moving around. Carol's conclusion was that if you compared this to an airplane, getting a sleeper seat was almost like flying internationally on
Singapore Airlines.

This was fine for Carol, who is 4' 11", but a little uncomfortable for Mike, who is 5' 9". On the left hand lower seat 1 were two girls, sharing one bed. The 7 or so year old mad elife miserable for somewhat older sister, kicking her and crying. Daddy was in the middle lower bed, and had his hands full.

Mike fell asleep immediately. Carol watched the feature movie, projected on upper and lower level on TV screens. The feature movie was a Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock-Dennis Hopper about a madman placing a bomb on a Los Angeles bus. At the same time that we were driving through villages with watermelons and donkeys, Sandra Bullock was steering her bus through L A and environs toward LAX. The film had been dubbed into Uighur. Carol got a real kick out of hearing the dude with dreadlocks yell, "Apla!!!" at dramatic moments. When the young girl asked her daddy at a scene of mayhem, "Where are they?" he replied, "That's America." Guess it is in the eyes of the world.

The 520 km trip took 12 hours. There were 3 or 4 bathroom stops on the open road. There were also 2 or 3 security checkpoints, where Carol showed her and Mike's passports to the officers.

We arrived at 9:30 am at he "Long Distance Bus Station," not to be confused with the "International Bus Station." During the trip, Carol had her eyes on two young men she supposed to be Japanese, and the only other tourists on the bus. As we picked up our luggage, we discovered that they were Chinese and already had reservations at a local hotel. We hopped in a cab, followed them to the Qinibagh International Hotel, and were able to check in and shower immediately (280 RMB per night, no bargaining.)

Aug 6 - 7 Hotan

2008-08-08T02:52:00.000-07:00

Originally we thought we had a three star hotel for only $25 US, but the presence of a flyswatter on the table, and the fact that we could not figure out how to get hot water, along with unbussed tables at breakfast, and nothing to drink, led Mike to downgrade it to a two star hotel. On the other hand, Carol was tremendously satisfied with the view out of the window - a huge gilded onion dome a block away, a minaret a block further back, a large statue of Mao and the Uighur peasant, and people exercising in the morning on the square.

We woke up about 8 am, after a half nights sleep. The early morning sky was a repeat of Beijing, except this time it was sand in the air, sand on the pavement, sand everywhere. You could barely see the sun through the haze. Another place where it might have been safe to view an early morning eclipse without safety glasses.

At breakfast, we met an Italian couple, who are doing almost exactly the same trip we are doing. We met them again the next morning for breakfast, and inasmuch as we are following almost the same track, we will probably cross paths again and again on the trip. They considered us courageous for Americans to be doing this trip, but hopelessly bourgoise for paying others occasionally to do our laundry when we could just as easily be doing it in the room.

Our first two tasks were to (1) find the bus station and buy bus tickets to Kashgar for Thursday overnight; (2) find a map of the city with bus routes; and (3) find water in containers larger than 600 ml. We started off walking several blocks, seeing a park of the ancient city walls, crossing a small river, and reaching an intersection. We realized that we had been walking away from everything, so we took the 2 bus back toward downtown, not knowing exactly where it was going. We followed it to the other side of town (east). There we were told that the 5 bus would take us to the bus station. It did not. It took us part of the way and stopped at a bazaar, which we explored.

Hotan is a city of Kodak moments. Even if you took 10,000 photos a day, you could hardly capture its essence. As we were walking through the bazaar, Carol decided to put on her scarf, and Mike decided it was time to buy a Uighur cap - he settled on a white one, with embroidery, for 8 RMB. Instant hajji. He attracted a large crowd. Those who thought it fit thought he was a Turk or a Pakistani. Most thought it incongruous. Carol decided "What the Hey," and took off her scarf when she realized that it was hot, and she is what she is.

The next bus was a 10 bus to the end of the line, which we thought was the Main Bus Station, but was merely the parking spot for several local and regional bus lines, including the 10 line. Carol tried to ask where the main bus station (aptostantsia) was in Uighur. She was immediately surrounded on all sides by 15 men staring intently at her. She panicked. No ticket here, but at least a bathroom.

We started walking up and down this road, and maybe an hour later found the main bus station. We passed a fancy restaurant with large numbers of people nicely dressed entering. As both of us entered the front door, we saw only men. We saw women entering a side door. We finally decided that it was a wedding, or some other nice family occasion. Realizing that they had mistakenly forgotten to invite us, and that unlike the rest, we had no gifts, we walked on.

We finally got to the bus station, bought our tickets on the sleeper bus (lower level - 95 RMB per ticket) at about 2 pm. It was time for lunch, so we walked back to an outdoor restaurant where we had seen the ladies making what we thought were manti (kreplach, small wontons), but which were described as something else. We ordered a serving and 3 skewers of lamb. They brought out a pot of tea and the skewers atop an onion nan bread. After a while, the manti came out as part of a bowl of hot spicy soup, with spinach, lots of garlic slices, and some tomato. Very tasty.

At the conclusion of lunch, we paid 4 RMB, the price quoted, and walked to the nearest bus stop to catch a bus to the Silk Factory. Mike was remarking on how amazingly cheap that meal was, being only 60 cents US. A minute later of of the restaurant ladies came over to us on her motorcycle, asking for an additional 7 RMB, which we gladly paid. Still, 11 RMB ($1.65 US, or 1.05 Euros) was not bad for lunch for two.

The Silk Factory was at the end of the 1 bus line, 3 or 4 km from town. We went over there, were given a short tour of the automated silk weaving machinery. The guide books say that you also get a tour showing how the silk is separated from the cocoons, and how it is processed, but that was missing from our tour. We also were not given the tour through the gift shop. Maybe it takes a tour-bus load of potential consumers to elicit the full monte. The machine rooms were exceedingly noisy, and did not seem to meet OSHA standards for safety. It was nearly 4 pm when we left.

Back to town for several hours at an internet cafe, where we were able to post on our own for the first time in three days.

Then back to the hotel on a different bus. Went out for dinner about 8:45 pm BT (6:45 pm XT). We walked around the corner from the hotel where there were a number of food stalls. A crowd was patronizing a stall with two immense pots. These contained a very thick bright yellow orange soup made from corn, squash, greens, a bit of meat, and seasonings (5 RMB). We split a bowl, and it was delicious, unlike anything else we had eaten.

The next day, we met the Italians at breakfast again. They were going to Kashgar on the daytime express leaving at noon. We got a slow start, with two goals before checkout time at noon. First, go to the central shopping square to find a map of Hotan with bus routes. We stayed on the bus too long and had to walk back, but eventually we found the Xinhua Book Store (shudian in Chinese, kitaphane in Uighur (Carol's guess)). We settled on two nice maps of Hotan at 6 RMB apiece, and made it back to finish all the packing and check out by noon, leaving the luggage in "Left Luggage."

At this point, Mike was at the point of collapse, being down many quarts of water apparently. Carol went out on a liquefying mission with 15 RMB. At the "supermarket" nearby, she bought two containers of Green Tea Drink for Mike, a 1 liter box of carrot juice for herself, and a 1.5 liter bottle of water. This came to exactly 15 RMB, no more and no less. Since we had been paying 1.5 RMB for 600 ml of water, 3 RMB for the 1.5 l bottle was somewhat of a buy.

It was now apx 1 pm, and Mike needed time to drink and revive. Carol went out for maybe an hour and a half, walking around the neighborhood, looking for more of the old city walls. Hotan is an exercise in urban renewal/neighborhood removal. Indeed the Onion Domes and Minaret that we had viewed from the hotel window were actually new construction housing apartments and shopping. We found nothing in this town that was old and historic, except for the city walls, even though the town itself is very old. Bland high-rise apartments effectively hide the old one-story XinJiang housing of the past. Much of this is mud brick construction, which doesn't age gracefully. Inner neighborhoods often have a guard, and the apartments (most of which seemed to be occupied by Han Chinese) are gated and fenced. So Carol had to take a very circuitous route and got a dressing down from two different guards. However, she managed to find public bathrooms on her own.

At 2:30 or so, both of us went out to the Internet Cafe from a day before. We found a bazaar at Nawage Lu (Street) and got some fresh-cracked walnuts, which were fairly green and probably meant for cooking or roasting.

After one hour of internet, we emerged. Mike needed some tea, bananas, and water. Carol had a freshly cooked egg-crepe with green onions, cooked in a sizzling iron pan at least 14 inches across (2 RMB). The place where we sat down for just tea, no food, refused to charge us anything, so we left 2 RMB on the table. We took several long bus rides to kill time and complete our exploration of the town.

For dinner, we arrived at the soup stall at 7 pm, about an hour before the soup was to be ready. So we sat and watched. Finally, the soup was ready and we got our bowl, along with bowls for the other dozen or so people lined up and waiting.

Back to the hotel at 8:30 pm, for a last trip to the bathrooms. Picked up our luggage at 8:45 pm. When Mike picked up Carol's covered backpack, he found that it was sticking to his leg. There was something gluey all over the front of her bag cover, and now one of his pant legs. So we got the hotel staff to scrub the bag cover with soap. The substances was so persistent that it took two staff members armed with toothbrushes to begin to make the cover acceptable. We got it towel dried, by 9:15 pm, caught a taxi to the bus station, in time for the 9:30 pm sleeper bus to Kashgar.

Aug 5 - 6: Urumqi to Hotan

2008-08-07T01:27:00.000-07:00

At 21:00 we all boarded a bus to carry us out to our plane on the tarmac. The plane was probably 40 percent sold. We were the only non-Chinese on the plane, it appeared. We took off before 21:35, and were scheduled to get to Hotan ahead of the 23:10 pm scheduled arrival.

As we achieved scheduled altitude, there was an announcement we should keep our seatbelts on because of rough weather. The takeoff itself had been bumpy. We didn't fly through clouds at all, but the plane kept on lurching.

Slightly before 23:00, the stewardess got on and told us that the pilot did not want to attempt a landing, so we were returning to Urumqi. There were unhappy cries in Uighur and Chinese.

We unloaded back at Urumqi about 00:20 on Aug 6. There was a sign in Chinese that apparently informed us that we would be taking off again at 00:50, to try again on another piece of equipment. We walked over two gates, and boarded a smaller plane, at about 01:00. We took off at 01:20. This time most of the folks took different seats, and Carol ended up in her own original seat of 18A, after being unseated, and in turn unseating someone else. Mike ended up in the aisle seat on the next to the last row of the plane. Carol managed to sleep most of the flight, but Mike became an instant curiosity, and was talking the whole flight.

Everybody was taking pictures of Mike, the round eyed one, who was actually trying to say some things in Mandarin. Across the aisle was a woman who taught English in Shanghai, who was visiting some of her students in Hotan. She insisted on trying out her not-very-good English on Mike, with such useful questions as "Do you like China?" and "Why are you visiting Hetian and Kashgar?" These questions would be difficult in any case - after all, we are writing an extensive narrative on this question every day. So Mike looked up the Chinese word for camel, and explained that we were going to Kashgar and Hotan to buy a camel, and fly it back to the United States on the seat next to us. Ask a general question that can't be answered when you don't share a language well, and you get a stupid answer.

The plane arrived at 3:00 am, we had our backpacks by 3:25 am, and we walked out of the airport as they were locking it behind us. Of course, we had no hotel reservations in hand. There were a number of taxis there and they all peeled off with passengers, except one. The policeman there indicated pretty strongly that we needed to take a taxi into town, as soon as possible. He told us and the driver that the fare WAS 20 RMB to the Hetian Binguan. The taxi driver loaded up our stuff, but refused our 20 RMB note. He apparently had visions of charging us 100 RMB, or such like.

We unloaded our stuff and stood there. Eventually, the taxi driver accepted the money, we loaded up and were off to town.

We got to the hotel at maybe 3:50 am, in a quiet residential neighborhood. The gates were locked, and there was a guard there. The guard said something like "No vacancy." The taxi driver talked with the guard for a few minutes. Eventually, the taxi driver drove off, the guard pointed across the street, indicating to us in some language we did not really understand that we could not stay on his side of the street. So we carried our backpacks across the street, past an outdoors bed containing a sleeping man, and awaited the dawn.

We didn't have to wait very long, because 2 policemen, one in uniform, and one in civilian clothes. were walking down the street. We showed them our passports, and our airline tickets, and Mike explained in his best Mandarin: "We want a hotel. We want to sleep."

We all walked back across the street, with the policeman in uniform making a bunch of cell phone calls. He apparently was convinced that the hotel was full. Soon several more police cars pulled up, and the conversation sort of switched to Uighur. This was not a good night for understanding languages not our own, but we showed them the eclipse stamp in the passport. Carol's ears perked up when she heard the word "Yatak" (bed in Turkish and, evidently, Uighur).

Soon we were in one of the police cars heading off. Were we going to spend the night in the pokey?

We headed into town, and he pulled up to another hotel, the Yu Du Hotel. We went inside and learned that a room was available for 168 RMB ($25 US) per night. We agreed to two nights, or 336 RMB. They asked for a deposit of 600 RMB, which we finally understood when one of the clerks used the word "deposit" in English.

We handed over 6 bills, and our policeman friend left us. By now it was 4:30 am. Breakfast was from 8 am - 10:30 am BT. We took the elevator up to the 5th floor, opened the door to room 518 and found a lovely 2 bed standard room with a view of the main square of town. The beds were great and we collapsed.

Question: would things have worked out like this in any other country?

Aug 5 - Urumqi

2008-08-07T00:45:00.000-07:00

Got up and went to breakfast with Joe at 9 or so. We got to talking about our families, and Joe pulled out a picture of his nine boys and four girls - all home schooled, none adopted.

Mike went out just before 10, waited for the bank to open, and changed another $300 US. No tang or other drinks, but the request for the exchange was written in blue and therefore had to be redone in black. 20 minutes later he had the Chinese RMB (the rate had increased to 6.7825.) It would have been a little simpler if we had the passports back. As he walked the block back to the hotel, one of the stores was playing "We wish you a Merry Christmas," in August. We told Joe that this music was a good omen for his trip.

Mike went up and tried a phone call to the hotel in Hotan (Hetian Binguan) where we hoped to stay that night. He heard "You" meaning that there were rooms, but could understand nothing else.

We checked out of the hotel and left our backpacks with the Left Luggage department, and the three of us started walking to the north for the Regional Museum (Qu Bowuguan). We arrived at 11:50 am after an apx 1 hour walk in intermittent drizzle, and cool temperatures.

This is a really world-class collection of ancient relics and contemporary folklore, very well curated in Chinese, English, and Uighur. The museum really makes the most of the concept of XinJiang as a historic crossroads of the world. The highlight is 12 remarkably well-preserved mummies, many with Indo-European features, removed from the Astana Graves, Hami, and other XinJiang sites. Although some date from 2000 BCE, their clothing, hair, and skin is remarkably well preserved. So the Celts took a wrong turn. One female mummy is known as "The Beauty," and has striking hair and features. Another is dressed in a long scarlet robe, all intact. Carol was most taken by the mummy of a six month old swaddled in bright blue cloth, with a blue and red hat. Arrayed with this mummy was a small horn and a sheep's teat, both placed in the grave to give the child a plaything and food. Too bad that we couldn't take photos.

There were also rooms of Uighur rug patterns and ethnographic displays of the 12 cultural groups of XinJiang.

We left the museum just before 2 pm. The market from which the rooster had emerged was about 1 km away. Everything is organized by sales type, spices here, raw meat there, cabbage elsewhere, you get the idea. In the back were the live animals. All kinds of poultry and rabbits awaiting their transit moments. But no row of food stalls, and we were by this point, ready for lunch.

As we emerged from the market, we saw a stall with breads and watched as a man had a bun-like roll split and filled with items from 5 small bowls. We ordered one apiece and a large 11-12 inch crepe like pancake, brushed with spices and folded up. The buns were a standout item with vegetables and meat - a messy, tasty meal (3 RMB apiece).

As we headed out to a street, Carol spied an old man with a push cart full of lotus leaf packages. When unrolled, they revealed a sweat steamed rice desert filled with red dates, still containing pits. This triangular blob was pierced with two sticks, rolled in coarse sugar, and handed over to the eager eater. (1 RMB)

By now it was 2:30 pm. Joe headed off to take a bus to the airport to meet the rest of his crew, flying in from Novosibirsk. We took the bus to the consulate, to pick up our passports, which were to be ready after 12.

We got to the consulate at about 3:15 pm. There were just a few people there, and the place was locked up tight. The gentleman minding the gate said come back at noon the next day. This was unsatisfactory, because we had tickets that evening for Hotan.

One of the woman outside had internal numbers for the consulate, and finally, after much pleading, in bad Mandarin, Uighur, and Russian, we were connected with some people inside, who said they would come off lunch at 4:00 pm, and would give us our passports then.

So we settled down to wait, and finally at 3:30 pm, the woman at the first desk inside the day before came out with our passports, and their register book. We signed for the passports, quite relieved, and headed back downtownwards on a 536 bus, which clearly traversed the neighborhoods, but how we had no idea. 30 minutes later we were about 2 km north of our hotel, so we just walked it, picking up the mended, clean skirt almost as we got to the hotel.

We put in an hour on the internet, sending the blog to our kids as an e-mail. From the States, they were able to get on to post, where we had not been able.

Walking back to the hotel, Carol wanted a popsicle. She picked out a popsicle, with a smiling corn on the wrapper. When opened, it was the equivalent of a frozen ice cream (corn) dog with a bready shell like a cone, surrounding the corn flavored ice cream. At this time "We wish you a Merry Christmas" started to play again in the background, and we broke down laughing. This was clearly one of the top ten failed commercial ideas for popsicles.

We got back to the hotel with a birthday tiny tort (cake??) for Joe, whose birthday it was, and gave it to him, along with our Turpan and Hami travel info, that we were ready to discard.

Our plane was to leave at 21:35, and we were supposed to be at the airport by 19:35. We took a cab, fought the Urumqi evening rush hour, and got to the airport at 20:00. Getting through security was uneventful, and we were to board at 21:05.

Aug 4 - Urumqi (First Day of Our Solo Trip)

2008-08-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

At 5 am (3 am Xinjiang Time or XT) the rest of the group got wakeup calls. So did we, so we went down to see them off at 6:15 am for their 8:10 flight to Beijing.

We were looking for a 24 hour internet, so at 6:45 am Beijing Time (BT), we wandered around downtown unsuccessfully looking for same. We found two internet bars, but they were both locked. Carol was not happy to be in what seemed to be a big boring overbuilt city, unlike most of what we had enjoyed about China up to this point. She was ready to leave Urumqi that evening.

The agenda for the day simple: (1) get our Kazakhstan visa - be at the consulate by 9 am; (2) wash our clothes; (3) buy an airplane ticket to Hotan (Hetian); (4) get some internet time; and (5) convert some dollars.

At breakfast we saw another foreigner sitting alone. We invited him over - his name is Joe, and he was coordinating a group of Baptists who were going to be trying to spend 8 days converting Uighurs. Joe is a really neat guy from north central Alabama, who had experience in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia, among other places. He was a "missionary kid" who spent his early years in Hong Kong. We agreed to explore the town together that evening.

At 8:45 we took a taxi to the Kazakhstan consulate, (apx 5 km to the north), arriving at almost exactly 9 am. There was a large crowd there, but we were waved in immediately, along with a few other non-Kazakhs. After filling out our applications, going out to get our passports copied exactly the way they wanted, being interviewed, and paying 522 RMB (apx $78 USD), we were told to come back Wednesday at noon to pick up our passports. We pleaded, so they changed it to Tuesday at noon, as they had done for the Dutch foursome who were also there. There was a knife edge balance of bureaucratic control and the need for efficiency broken by a grandmotherly Kazakh woman who pushed her way to the front of the line, and screamed her entire party of 5 including a baby through the necessary processings. On the way from the copy place to the consulate, Carol tripped over a protruding wire in the sidewalk and took a hard fall, causing a bad cut on the back of her left leg.

Went up the street to an Internet Cafe. Could not get on to post and also had trouble with accessing other sites. Wondered why, and moved on.

Next block we saw a bank and went in to convert $400 USD. This was made slightly trickier since we no longer had our passports, but only a laminated color copy of the pertinent pages, a receipt from the Kazakh consulate, and our hotel plastic key. The bank hostess fed us plenty of Tang from a cooler, and hovered over us, while the tellers were figuring out how to process this transaction. Finally, 20 minutes later, we had our RMB. The rate had slightly improved to 6.778, so it was slightly more than 2700 RMB.

Took a bus back toward the hotel. The 45 bus came along. Not knowing exactly where it went, we got on. For a while it went downtown on the main road. Then it took a right turn and headed away from downtown. We passed a market on the right and an old woman got on the bus.

AT THIS POINT WE ACHIEVED ONE OF OUR LIFE MILESTONES.

The woman was carrying a large live rooster, bound on the feet by a cloth cord. She was holding it by the wings. It was remarkably relaxed. So we have now seen live poultry on urban public transportation. In the spirit of Olympic competition, WE ARE NOW GOING FOR THE GOAT.

After a mile or so, we decided that enough was enough. We got off, walked across the street, showed the map to two older guys, who told us to take the 907 bus from there downtown. As we were almost to the hotel, we saw the China Southern office, so we got off the bus, and went in to buy our airplane tickets to Hotan. None of our credit cards worked, (we wondered why). So we pulled out 2020 RMB ($300 of the $400 we had just gotten) and got our airplane tickets. Goals 3 and 5 accomplished. Goal 1 well underway. Goal 4 mysterious.

We walked the last 5 - 6 blocks to the hotel. At the hotel we bandaged up the leg, discovered a small rip in the skirt, but a lot of small blood stains. We took the skirt over to a nearby laundry to be dry cleaned and repaired. Amazingly, all of this was to cost only 7 RMB ($1.05). It was to be ready tomorrow at 3 pm.

We could not find a water laundry (laundromat, not a dry cleaners), so we did a 2 day wash in the room sink.

Then out to the internet (it is now about 5 pm), where we still could not make anything work. More on this after we leave China.

Back to the hotel, where we called Rana, our local guide on the XinJiang portion of the eclipse trip, who assured us that Kashgar and Hotan were fine to visit.

Joined up with Joe about 6:30 pm. We walked south toward the EdDaoQiao Market, on the Uighur side of Urumqi. We started off in upscale downtown, and then walked through an electronics -cameras market, where MP4s and other cutting edge things were plentiful. Then we crossed a street and now there were Uighur guys selling large melons. Quickly, there were side streets with vendors of food. At this moment, it started to rain. Wise Carol opened her umbrella she had brought, while Joe and Mike ducked under awnings. We bought some onion samsa and watched a 10 year-old kid try to sell umbrellas for only 10 RMB.

It cleared up a lilttle, and we turned down a side street where there were welders fabricating tandoori and nan ovens, large canopies and water closets. Serious metal cutting and acetylene torch welding right in the middle of a busy market alley. Mike and Carol bought a couple of kabobs, and Mike turned back to buy a large 4 kg melon, which we then carried the rest of the night.

While Joe and Carol were waiting, he pulled out his camcorder to film some cute kids to dance for him. Their mothers, fathers, and grandparents gathered delighted to view the short flick. He was planning to bring this home to show his family and friends to show what life was like in this bustling part of China.

We passed an apothecary, with dried lizards, frogs, live snakes, and so much more, all for the healing of the greater Chinese population. There was a handy grinder for customers to concoct powders from the purchases of their choice.

We stopped at a "Booc Store" to check for a Uighur-English dictionary in Western alphabet. No such luck.

While strolling through the market, we sampled a strange, knobby, bright orange fruit, which peeled open to reveal scarlet pips, with a light rose taste. We were touched by the people who went out of their way to help us find our bearings.

Finally, after wandering through and about and back and forth, we found Avral, the ice cream shop listed in the Frommer's Guides, and sat down for three individual bowls of the house specialty, an amazingly good butterscotch ice cream, along with a pot of tea.

By this time, it was well past 10 pm, beginning to rain again, and time for Mike and Carol to take a bus back to the hotel and to sleep. Joe stayed out for a few more minutes.

Carol's final opinion: Viva Urumqi!

Aug 3 - Turpan to Urumqi

2008-08-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

Breakfast was from 7 to 10. Internet at the hotel was from 8 am on at the Business Office. Carol came down before the office opened, and went to breakfast, but by the time Mike arrived at 8:10, there were two people online and one waiting. Luckily by 8:30 a computer opened up, and we were able to post successfully.

During breakfast, we learned that some of the group members in male only rooms had received calls and knocks on the door in the middle of the night offering "a massage." The time came to leave our hotel (10 am) once again into the HEAT of Turpan.

The first tourist attraction was JiaoHe (the intersection of rivers), a Unesco World Heritage site since 1986, a thousands of years old ancient city, last inhabited in the 1300s when it was sacked by the Mongols. It was in its prime in the Tang Dynasty era (7th - 10th century). This city was build in sandstone on a plateau, bounded by steep ravines, with rivers at the bottom sustaining crops and pasture. In the distance were snow covered peaks of the Tian Shan range.

The entrance is to the South. In the North are the Buddhist Temples, and further to the north are the stupas. The residential, government, and business areas were clearly delineated. There were elaborate gates which included watch towers. You couldn't get in if you were not wanted. Visiting these remains in August at 100 degree heat in the morning gives you some idea of how difficult it must have been to live here.

Next we went to the Karez. To the north of Turpan are mountains, which have snow and water. Early inhabitants built gravity driven waterways leading down to Turpan, an amazing feat of engineering the world should have learned about in history books, but never did. This almost surpasses the Roman aqueducts. But for the Karez, no one could grow anything in Turpan. With the water, you can grow some of the sweetest grapes, melons and fruit in the world. As we descended into the structure, cold water flowed through channels, and the temperature dropped markedly.

Turpan grapes are famous. As we left, Mike bought 200-250 gram bags of each of 14 different kinds of raisins. Total weight 3 - 3.5 kg. The store asked 250 RMB and Mike held to 150 RMB. In retrospect the fair price was probably 130-150 RMB. We now have enough raisins for the rest of the trip.

At the front of the museum, we tried the fresh squeezed grape juice (5 RMB for a small cup), incomparably delicious. 5 RMB for a pound of grapes inside. 5 RMB for 1 kg of grapes just outside. (The group shared some fresh grapes at lunch.) There was wine tasting of reds and whites of varying sweetness. The Chinese person in the group bought a fancy bottle of what he said was the best local vintage.

Finally, at about 1 pm, to the Emin Minaret, built in 1778 in honor of the builder's father. This is a mosque, used only for Friday afternoons and holidays, plus a single minaret, which is supposed to be very rare. The minaret had a beautiful brickwork pattern.

Back to town (Turpan) for lunch. Then at 2:30 or so, off for the 3 hour ride to Urumqi on a modern 4-lane interstate quality road. We were climbing steadily, passing the Bogda Feng mountain, a 5445 m mountain, which our guide had actually climbed, on a 3 day climb. As we passed the ancient town of DaBanChang, David Peng and his daughter led us in an old Chinese folksong about a local son who invited a local woman with beautiful long braids for marriage, and also asked her to bring along her younger sister.

At the rest break, the vendors were selling huge quantities of roasted flavored soy beans, the Chinese version of crispy snacks. Yum. However, the dried yogurt snack was yuck.

Throughout our long bus drives, the back of the bus crew had been working their way through several Will Shortz (of NPR fame) puzzle books - riddles, anagrams, and lots of laughs, as people competed to shout out the answer first.

Finally, into Urumqi, to check into the Xin Jiang Grand Hotel. We arranged a second night for $80 US.

The final dinner of the tour was at 8 pm, where we had plenty of bai jiu, white alcohol, and plenty of ganbei (empty your glass) toasts. We honored the first time eclipse viewers, the person who had viewed the most eclipses, the oldest, the youngest, the vegetarians, the person who rescued the one who fell into the latrine, the one who traveled farthest, etc. Lots of goodbyes all around.

Aug 2 - Hami to Turpan

2008-08-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

We woke up for a 9:00 am bus boarding for a long trip (410 km) to Turpan on rough 2-lane roads with plenty of short construction detours. Lunch was to be at Shanshan (Pijan) about 320 km in. The road went slowly up, reaching perhaps 6000 feet, then slowly down and down. Shanshan is within 1000 feet above sea level, and is a whole lot hotter than Hami, which was 98 F. We had mountains generally to the north as we traveled, being the long Tian Shan mountain range. The highest peak on this stretch was at 4400 m or so, which is low by Chinese standards, but is still close to 14000 feet. We took a number of roadside pit stops, women to the right, men to the left, not much terrain or foliage for modesty. We swapped eclipse stories with everybody on the bus, and there was puzzle solving in the back to try to pass the time.

Lunch was at Shanshan, at 2:40 pm. Again we had a whole fish dish per table, as a treat. More of the old luncheon standbys - scrambled eggs with tomatoes, chicken with potatoes and veggies, various vegetable dishes, etc., and of course soup as a last course.

Between Shanshan and Turpan we had two scheduled two tourist stops. Between the two cities there are the Flaming Mountains, a series of fairly colorful mountains, in which we believe the desert scenes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed. By now we were close to sea level, and the temp was well above 110 F (perhaps even 115 F). We pulled into the Bezeklik Grottos, and got off into the scorching heat. The grottos are a poor sister of the Mogao Caves, especially since a number of Sinologists (German, mostly) took away almost all of the Buddhas and a good number of frescos in 1905, or thereabouts. These treasures were located in a museum in Berlin, which was destroyed by Allied bombing in the Second World War, so they were lost. That which had not been taken was generally not taken because the local muslims had damaged the faces over historical time. On top of that, local farmers also scraped the surface for use as fertilizer. That said, the contrast between the fertile below, the Flaming Mountains above, and the line of caves is still striking. Using flashlights, we could scan some of the remaining frescos inside. Ceiling in "Thousand Buddha" patterns were the most intact sections. There was a local musician outside playing a long string instrument with a bow. We ran the sale area gamut, and picked up a Bezeklik Grottos booklet, for only 10 RMB, which had colored pictures of the frescos, much better than anything we could actually see in the dark grottos. Oh, the wonders of photoshop.

As we were leaving, a couple of the Irish guys on the trip bought a Hami melon, and attempted to dunk it through the basketball hoop in the parking lot. Unfortunately, they missed catching it on the way down. Mike tried a bit of what landed peel-side down, and it was only an average melon. Still, no respect for the melon!

Then across the road to the Astana Tombs. These are apx 2000 graves, 400 of which have been excavated. 3 are open for display. Of these three, only one had the mummies therein. The other two had only some frescos. You have to use a lot of imagination here, and our sweaty and tired bodies had little imagination left.

There was a third scheduled stop, at the Grape Valley, a tourist spot where you see how grapes are grown. It was the unanimous feeling that this could be skipped, and we did so.

We arrived at the Oasis Hotel in Turpan at about 6:45 pm. HOT HOT. Luckily the rooms were air-conditioned, and the showers perhaps the best so far on the entire trip.

Dinner was at 8 pm. We were at the table with a couple celebrating their 29th anniversary, and so another couple had gotten a bottle of a Loulan dry red wine, which we all shared, and which was quite tasty.

After dinner, it was out on the town. Just near the hotel was a "supermarket" which had some food, and various sundries. They had underwear for "Big Fat Man" with an appropriate picture. Carol got a 1 RMB popsicle - green bean enrobed in a white milk layer. Very tasty. Mike went back much later to get some water for the room, and discovered that they charged .1 RMB (1 jiao, or 1.5 c US) for the plastic bag.

After the market, we walked around a little bit. Mike was approached by a little girl, of apx age 4 or 5, who was aggressively waving a 1 RMB note in his face. Carol noticed a guy close behind Mike, and we quickly got away from the situation. A chance to steal something from the tourists??? Who knows.

At 11 pm we finally found an internet cafe, but we were refused service. Why?? Maybe they were closing, but midnight is early in Turpan, since it is only 10 PM in XT (local time).

Back to the hotel where we found the tail end of an ice cream party, and a group playing cards. So we joined them for a while, and then to bed at about midnight.

Aug 1 - Eclipse Day (Rev)

2008-08-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

Got going at 8:30 am. Sky absolutely clear - not a cloud in the sky. Dropped off at the , where the Tomb of Gess (mausoleum), one of the earliest Islamic missionaries in China, where we saw the tombs of the 10+ former rulers of the Hami Kingdom (apx 1600 - 1905, when the Chinese took over). Very nice wood roofed mosque.

On the bus and off to the eclipse site, apx 200 km away. We go off north into the desert. About 50 km north of Hami, parallel to the road is the Karlik Tagh (Karlik Shan), a mountain range, part of the larger Tian Shan mountain range. The highest peak in the Karlik Tagh is 4885 m, or 15000 +. We get to the pass at about 7000 feet, (Hami is about 3000 feet in elevation) and go right another 90 km to Yiwu, a town of 20,000, then north to a special site called Eclipse City, built by the Chinese and one of the eclipse chasing groups somewhere in the world. There is a building and museum here that supposedly tourists will go 200 km out of their way to see forever and after.

In order to get on this road (303, then 302) , you had to buy a special 300 RMB ticket ($45 US) in advance. Your driver had to buy such a ticket. Your bus had to be registered, etc. This is called (by Ralph Chou, he of 17 prior eclipses) MCE, or Maximum Currency Extraction.

The first checkpoint was right out of town (Hami) . It took 20 min or so to get through this checkpoint. Finally cleared, we drove up into the mountains, along a clear stream, through beautiful cuts in the rock, with occasional clusters of small homes. Lots of buildings for drying fruit, and lots of police standing on the road, to make sure one did not leave the road.

At the pass, we stopped for an early lunch. It was 10:40 am (8:40 am XT), so it was much more like late breakfast. We were early and finally got served about 11:30. Huge platters of "finger pulling" lamb, along with the rest of the food we had been eating, but this time, like last night, it was uighur cooking, not Han Chinese. Mike and Carol, for some reason, got special trays containing a selection of foods along with a marvelous stir fry of big chunks of spicy green pepper, long dried hot red peppers, lamb slivers, star anise, and other spices. In another party of 4 Indians, there was an older woman, dressed in an elaborate sari, who went to the latrines, and instead of straddling the opening, leaned over one side and fell in. Amy, of our party, had to rescue her, and thus was late getting back to the bus. Amy reported that the woman would probably have to be towed behind their vehicle for the olifactory comfort of the group.

There were clouds in the sky to the south. The sky was no longer absolutely clear.

On the bus on to Yiwu (or Yeeee-Whooo, as everyone kept shouting). The second checkpoint was halfway to Yiwu. There we saw a 12 car/bus convoy of Dutch who had DRIVEN from Holland to that point, passing through, among other roads, the Pamir highway, that we had had to scratch from the trip because of visa and time constraints. Lots of long hair and provocative slogans on their vehicles. http://www.amsterdambeijing.com/.

Everyone on the bus had to surrender both tickets and passports, for checking. Without proper documentation, you could not proceed past this checkpoint. The whole spectacle was a source of amazement for the local Uighurs, who gathered to watch.

By the time we got to Yiwu, the clouds were building up pretty substantially, but it was clearer to the north, the direction we were supposed to go. Some on the bus wanted to go to the Eclipse City site, and continue north along the road perhaps another 40 km north of the center line to a town shown on the map as Nom.

However, when we got to Eclipse City, before 3 pm, the driver turned into the site, and there was nothing we could do about it. That was what we were permitted to do, and that is what we did. When the Chinese say, "This is the best place to see the eclipse," they really mean: "This is the ONLY place to see the eclipse."

Our tour company had set up a tent for some shade, and some of us wandered over to the freshly-minted museum itself and the surrounding booths to (1) buy Hami melons, to (2) get a commemorative t-shirt, to (3) get an eclipse postmark in their passports, to (4) see the museum, and (5) to use free bathrooms within, since they were charging 2 RMB (30 c) to use the port a potties at the tent. We did 1, 3, 4, and 5.

The clouds were building up, and some wanted to go at least a couple hundred meters north. so 15 minutes before first contact (apx 6:10 pm), the bus moved and most of the group got on. Ralph Chou and about 6 others stayed at the original site. The ones who moved had made great effort to set up their cameras and they had to pick them up and reset them up.

Anyway we moved north. At least we were looking at the eclipse across an empty desert, instead of across a long line of parked tour buses. Several Uighur women with young stood in our area. They had gotten floppy disks, that they were using, so we gave them some extra glasses. They ran back to their village to tell them that the floppy disks were insufficient.

As eclipse totality approached (apx 7:09 or 7:10 pm), the sun was being blocked by a large cloud at the original site, and the cloud was approaching the northerly group. Some immediately started running north as fast as they could, leaving behind the cameras. We walked north quickly. Everybody ended up seeing the eclipse, although I think we saw it through it through thin clouds. Nice diamond at the end, and great colors in the corona. After the eclipse, we broke out a melon and 3 bottles of champagne. The Irish couple (Mary and Dan) who had brought their huge lens (called "Trouble") never got to use it, but filmed themselves running and cursing with their video camera.

Back on to the buses at about 8:20. Stopped at sunset for a group picture. No more road police. Stopped in Yiwu for beer and fresh water. Stopped in the mountains for a group piss stop - the skies were the clearest we had seen in many dozens of years.

Back at the hotel just after midnight. To sleep.

Jul 31 - Hami

2008-07-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Breakfast today was served Uighur style, outside in front of the hotel. An interesting combination of peanuts, a bowl of yogurt, several other kinds of packaged yogurt, breads with honey, jams, and peanut butter (evidently a big local product), fried or boiled eggs, and fruit. No rice, no vegetables, no steamed buns.

Mike woke up with a slight touch of Genghis Khan's revenge, took a Cipro and a glass of immodium product, and stayed at the hotel.

The group headed off at 10 am Beijing Time (BT) (8 am Xinjiang Time (XT)) for the Hami Melon Research Center and Farm. We learned the illustrious history of the Hami melon through a series of murals, and its spread through the Silk Road to royalty. At some point, melons were grown on traveling carts to satisfy the disbursed customer base. Evidently there are 180 different kinds of Hami melons, and a typical Xinjiang house will have a niche in front to display a melon for good luck. The extensive gardens contained red dates (called Chilan, as opposed to the Arabian date), pears, grapes, flowers, and other plants in addition to melons. There were some more cryptic signs: "Easedecar fully," which we later saw as "Eased carefully," and "Carefully Electrocution."

Then off to the Xiao Nanhu Pagoda, a Tang dynasty shrine also known as the Happiness Tower. Here, a spring has flowed for centuries. Traditional Buddhists have come to the site atop a hill to circle counterclockwise, dring from the spring, then splash water on a tree, and make a wish. There are 51 sites to make special prayers for such items as
Riches and Honor,
Satisfactory,
Longevity,
Health and Strong,
Harmony,
Good Luck,
Polymath,
Happiness Signs,
Family Fortune,
Go Out Safely,
Harvest,
Cultivate the Paddy,
Embrace the Fortune,
Lifting the Beam by Wrapping the Red Cloth,
Roll One's Hoop,
Prosperous Husband,
Babies in Group.

Mike relaxed and learned that Silk Road in Mandarin is Si chou zhi lu. He also bought a melon from a local uighur who was pushing a cart with a dozen or so Hami melons. The original price seemed to 26 RMB, but after Mike said too much, he offered 2 melons, and bought it.

Lunch was at noon XT (2 pm BT). Special, for the first time, a whole fish! After lunch, the group went to a standard department store mall in downtown Hami for some shopping. Inside there was a free-standing Tupperware store. We got some batteries and bottled water, and a chance to finish up the coin collection. Coins are generally available only at big stores, because it is only there that goods are priced in the fractions of yuan, and so coins become necessary. (There is no sales tax). Anyway, getting the 1 fen and 5 fen coins (a fen is 1/100th of a yuan) and the 1 jiao and 5 jiao coins (a jiao is a 1/10th of a yuan) is really difficult, because these just don't circulate. Occasionally, one sees a 1 jiao and a 5 jiao bill, but transactions are usually in even yuan increments.

Back to hotel. Took a bus back downtown (apx 1.5 km) to refind the bazaar that Carol had been in earlier. The only thing we knew was that it was across the street from the Post Office. We got off at the downtown stop, and were pointed "that way." So we walked along a park-like street. July 28 had been the date of the Hami Melon Festival. Shortly we got to the stand where they had celebrated the official festivities, and viewed posters of "Chiquita Melon" and verdant fields. All of this somehow mixed in with Olympic symbolism. We found a bookstore, bought a 2004 map of Hami showing bus routes 1 - 12, but could not find a Uighur-English wordbook, with western alphabet for the Uighur. Across the street we found the market, and walked through quickly, because we now had only 15 minutes to get back to the hotel by 5:30. There waiting for us as we ran to it was the 14 bus, which we knew went by the hotel. We hopped on, and it turned the wrong way. The bus fare collector said in Chinese: Stay here. So we wandered on a loop through most of the known world of inner Hami. Finally, 20 minutes later (5:40) we were at the hotel, where our tour bus was fashionably late.

At 5:50 we got on the bus to go to a Uighur folk arts museum, where they had plastic representations of the major Uighur foods, along with costumes, musical instruments, etc., and artwork drawn by farmers. Then on to dinner at a countryside site, the Abdurahman Uighur Ethnic something or other. There every tour group in Hami seemed to converge. We sat at one very long table, and one small table (for the three vegetarians) in a courtyard under a grape arbor. We got there by 6:30 or so, but they really didn't start serving until 7:30 or so, so there was plenty of time to wander around and enjoy the plantings and the critters soon to be on our plates. David Peng told us some interesting stories while we were waiting.

At dinner, a band started playing and there was folk dancing. Carol got up and danced with the ethnic Uighurs. Great job. Lots of arm waving, partner circling. The group has lots of pictures, and we supposedly will be sharing photos after the trip. The food was at least sufficiently local that there was a plate of kabobs on long skewers, and yapmak (a dish of lamb shunks and carrots in layers of thin pasta like bread - sort of a lumpy Uighur lasagna). Back to the hotel for 1 hour of internet and sleep.

Jul 30 - On to Hami

2008-07-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

We boarded the bus at approximately 1 pm. The route goes north on China highway 215 for about 130 km, then west/northwest on China Highway 312 for maybe 250-270 km. 312 is the longest highway in China, running from the Pacific Ocean across the country to the Kazakhstan border. Had we not taken the train in Lanzhou, we would have ridden on it all the way from Lanzhou to Urumqi. The total length of the road is apx 5000 km.

The road north/northeast from Dunhuang to the 312 junction is mostly flat and straight. It is, however, badly maintained and is bumpy from beginning to end. As a result for much of the road, the bus was able to do only 50 km per hour (32 mph) and that was really pushing the limits of the vehicle. It felt like our morning camel ride. At one point in the desert, we saw a beautiful lake mirage off in the distance.

About 50 km north of Dunhuang, we passed by the remnants of the western extension of the Great Wall, heading west from the Jiayuguan Fort. Apparently off the road to the west of us, the wall is in better shape, but right at the road, there are only fragmentary remnants.

The remaining 80 km were of the "Daddy, are we there yet?" nature, mile upon mile of the same slow bumpy road. Occasionally, the driver drove on the wrong side of the road just to get a slightly better bit of pavement. No rest stop, no houses, no real evidence of anyone on the road at all. Finally, with the junction of 312 in sight, we pulled over for the second rest stop, in the middle of the desert - ladies to the right, and gents to the left.

We anticipated 312 to be a fine piece of road, because from Jiayuguan to the turnoff, it was new 4 lane divided highway. However, this stretch was 2 lane, bumpy, and generally in bad shape. For most of the length, there is a parallel road being constructed, and within several years this will all be a new 4 lane road. But now, it was really slow. It carries a huge amount of long distance truck traffic, and our bus driver spent much of his time passing the trucks.

Not long after we passed into Xinjiang, we had to stop for a toll stop (tolls on this piece of crap of a road!!!), and were waved over by a policeman to show the buses credentials and passenger list. Finally, the driver was allowed to pull forward to a gas station, to fill up. Not much in the way of snacks to buy - vacuum packed hundred year old egg, and various crispy items. Outside, Mike cut up a melon that Charlene had been given by the passengers in another bus. We all had a piece of melon, and we were off.

After another 150 km, another toll stop, and another pull over by the police. As we got closer to Hami, we ran into numerous stretches where the road was under construction, and we were diverted onto a gravel side detour at 10 mph or so.

We didn't get into Hami until 8:30 pm. Our driver dropped us off at a restaurant, where we met our new guide (one per province) and then dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and was immediately back to Dunhuang over that same 7 hour stretch of rough road, at night. The bus was needed tomorrow for another tour, and he had to put in a 15 hour day.

Our new guide, Rana, is Uighur from Urumqi. She speaks Uighur, Mandarin, and English, has a mischevous smile, and a great sense of humor. After dinner, we all got in a new Xinjiang bus (the other was a Gansu bus) for the short drive to the hotel.

Quick check in, and then at 10:30 pm, off to an internet cafe just down the street. To bed close to midnight.

Jul 30 - Dunhuang and on to Hami

2008-07-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Another early start - wakeup at 6:30, breakfast at 7, baggage outside the room by 7:20 and off by 8. We went to the Ming Sha Shan, the singing sand dune park. This is a huge long sand dune, 40 km long. The highest dune reaches 1715 m, perhaps 150 m from the bottom. You pay to enter the park, and then climb the sand dunes and then slide down, then climb and come down, etc. Or you can do as we did, and take a camel ride to near the top, then continue to walk around a bit. Then you get back on the camel and ride to Crescent Moon Lake, a naturally occuring body of water surrounded by green trees and planting. There you get a chance to climb other dunes, and slide down. They take a picture of your camel train and each individual on the way up. The are matted, then sold at a ridiculously cheap price, at 20 RMB ($3 US). So we have a picture of us on the camels.

A camel ride for one hour is only 60 RMB ($9), pretty much the cheapest tourist camel rides in the world. So we did the tourist thing big time, and had a blast. After all, shouldn't everyone ride a camel at least once in his/her lifetime? There must have been 200 camels kneeling, all waiting to be ridden. By the time we returned, there were only about 20 available in the staging area. Strings of camels were all over the park.

On the way out of the park, Mike bought a Hami melon for 5 RMB. When we opened it for lunch, it was OK, but not yet really ripe. Between the park and lunch, the group had 45 minutes to kill, so we visited the Handicraft Factory (an oxymoron if there ever was one) where we saw the making of carpets and the preparation of fine jade objects. The jade cups were so translucently thin that you could see through them, but they were also very expensive, and impossible to carry in our backpacks for the rest of the trip.

Lunch at 12 at the Silk Road Dunhuang Hotel. Left at 1, and got a glimpse of the real residential Dunhuang, as we picked up our guide's ten year old daughter for the trip to Hami. To be continued.

Jul 29 - Dunhuang

2008-07-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Just a few words about clothing. Carol has seen some dresses she would buy off the backs of passers-by: wonderful shaped seams ans fitted clothes. There is also the close -your-eyes approach: pattern doesn't matter.

Back to the narrative... Got an early start - 6 am wakeup call (even though we are going west and the sun is now close to 2 hours past meridian - i.e., the sun is due south at 2 pm), we are still on Beijing time, sort of like being in Denver on New York time. This was the second breakfast at the "terrific food" hotel. Every kind of vegetable, fruit, and composed dish you could imagine. Also a big pot of soy milk to flavor as you wished.

The bus pulled out at 7:30 am, and after two rest stops, and 5 hours of travel on modern roads, first 4 lane interstate standard, then wide 2 lane, we pulled into Dunhuang. First for lunch at our hotel, the Sun Village Hotel, on the outskirts near the new railroad station. (For years, visitors to Dunhuang had to take the train to Liuyang, and then take a grueling (to be explained) 130 km bus ride to Dunhuang. Now plenty of trains go directly to Dunhuang.)

After lunch, we went to the Mogao Caves World Heritage Site. There are apx 735 caves, each containing a Buddha, and most containing original paintings and other statuary. They date from 4th century through the 11th century. Most were built by wealthy patrons who wanted to thank Buddha for granting them safe passage across the Silk Route from China to Venice. Some are quite elaborate. Some have been substantially damaged over time, by an 11th century earthquake, by Muslim visitors, by years of weathering, by tourists, by some 1921 White Russian soldiers imprisoned in the caves, some by modern Sinologists who felt that they should remove some of the statues and paintings from the walls and try to carry them back to Europe.

The entrance is among the most expensive in the world - 180 RMB for foreigners in high season ($27 USD). By comparison, in 2006, Petra was 21 Dinar or $31 USD.

For this price, you get a guided tour to 10 of the 735 caves, open on a rotating basis. The whole tour generally lasts 2 - 3 hours. Our group got Kathleen, this fantastic guide who had worked at and studied at the caves for 15 years. Her English was excellent, and attracted hangers on to our group. We saw the three caves with the huge indoor Buddhas, one reclining. The tallest of these (35 m) is the third largest indoor Buddha in the world.

We saw the library cave, number 17. This cave, sealed off of cave 16, was hidden until 1900, when it was auspiciously discovered by the curator, who opened it. When he opened it, he discovered that is contained a 50000 document library used by the Buddhists active when the caves were active. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your point of view), Aurel Stein came by in 1907 and for a pittance, carted off 20000 of these documents. Another 10000 were carted off a year later by Paul Pelliot. Assorted other groups got into the act. Zhou Enlai protected the caves during the Cultural Revolution. These documents are now scattered over the libraries and museums of the known world, and there are efforts now to scan them all on a centralized database, and perhaps bring them back to China.

These caves are so much better preserved than the painted caves we have seen elsewhere, such as Cappadocia or Jordan. These caves sometimes have thousands of painted Buddhas on the walls and ceilings. They also have so many other images, including the Buddhist flying angel, the apsara, and so many others. One image of the smiling Buddha had the feel of Mona Lisa. Another Buddha was in a Christ-like pose. It appears that each cave was painted and sculpted by a different master, and the guide said that artesans were brought in from other countries and around the known world to create these caves. Since cameras were not allowed inside the caves, we contented ourselves with buying postcards.

It was a very rich tour, and the place is worth traveling around the world to see.

Then, at 5:30 pm back to the Sun Village Hotel to check in. At 7:30 to dinner at the Silk Road Dunhuang Hotel, a 5 star Hong Kong based hotel. Then to the Sun Village. On the way back, some members of our group got off the bus in downtown Dunhuang to see an acrobatic show, and others stayed to see the night market. We were tired. Carol went to sleep, but Mike had to send e-mail.

Jul 28 - Jiayuguan

2008-07-28T05:28:00.000-07:00

The train tickets are 275 RMB for an upper bed, and 286 RMB for a lower bed.

We shared our cabin with a young Irish couple. He had, in preparation for the trip, purchased a $3200 USD lens, which is carried in a 20 pound metal case. He had managed to arrange to resell it at the end of the trip to someone for 3400 Euros, for a profit of over $2000 USD. The customs at the Beijing Airport was understandably worried that he would sell it in China, so they confiscated it, and it was released later only on the posting of a considerable bond. It seemed that everywhere that lens went, it attracted difficulty, so he had named it "Trouble." We also shared the cabin with "Trouble", uneventfully, it would seem. The cabins have an overhead storage area, adjacent to the upper bunks. We stored our belongings under our beds (they were nice enough to let us both sleep below) and they fitted their stuff above.

To the south of the train are the QiLian Shan, and as morning light came, we could see snow covered mountains to the south. One of those mountains is itself QiLian Shan, over 17000 feet, but we have no assurance that we saw that specific peak.

The restrooms on the train were difficult to use. They were not allowed to be used when the train was stopped, whether in the station or on a siding, waiting. As the room said: "No occupation while stabling." In each car, one toilet was a squatter, the other a sitter. On the sitter, there was a message: "Please drainage develop." (flush)

From the train station, there was a new bus and a new driver, waiting to take us to the 4 star Hua Yuan Hotel on the central town square. There we had breakfast, the best so far. They had 60+ dishes, including hot soy milk, fried twisted bread, fresh noodles, prepared in the hotel room while you watched.

Our rooms were not going to be ready until 10, so we took a short walk downtown. There we found an Internet Cafe which we would come back to twice (2 per hour), several markets, including one where bulk tofu was being sold for 2 RMB per half kg, and all sorts of melons, garlic so fresh from the ground, it was still dirty, sunflowers, etc. were sold. We found a Uighur restaurant but didn't stay. We found a laundry. We got back just at 10.

Up to the room with the baggage, for our much needed showers and changes of clothes. We packed up all of our dirty clothes and went back to the laundry, extracting a promise that they would have the clothes ready by 8 PM that night, not tomorrow, for a price of 65 RMB ($9.75 USD). We got in a half hour of internet, and found a local icewine in the grocery store for 33 RMB, to be handed around after dinner.

Lunch was even better than breakfast. After lunch, we hopped on the best to go 7 km north of town to the Jiayu Fort at the end of the Great Wall. This is a mostly restored building complex. Unlike the parts of the wall around Beijing made of stone, this is made of mud and brick. It consists of a number of beautiful temples, built at the time of the Ming Dynasty, perhaps 1st century BCE. Again we were told that the elevation was 1500 meters or so. I had disbelieved all of this because the Jay Anderson eclipse maps in one of the earlier posts showed the Hexi Corridor at 1500-2500 feet above sea level, not 5000-6000 feet above sea level. However, Ralph Chou got his GPS working and it showed the elevation at 1746 m, or perhaps 5600 feet. No wonder this little bit of climbing yesterday and today was so tiring.

Anyway, this area gets only 8 cm of rain each year (3 inches), and were it not for the water from the mountains, it would be dry as a bone.

Jiayuguan was nothing more than a small fort town until maybe 40 years ago, when the government realized that the mountains had iron ore, coke and lime, and a huge steel industry came to the town. So it is a quite new town.

After the trip, back to the internet cafe with 5 others for an hour. A few minutes in, the entire cafe lost power. We had to change computers, and then 15 minutes later, change again. We finally got in the whole hour, but it was very unsatisfying. We picked up our clothes, so beautifully clean and folded, and then went to dinner.

Dinner featured a plate of roast duck (Yum!!) along with a number of other dishes.

We found another internet cafe just across the street from the hotel, instead of 1+ km away, and are now finishing up. It is 9 pm and Carol is totally zonked. So we are now signing off, anticipating an early start and 5 hours of morning driving to get to Dunhuang, and the famous Magao Caves.

Jul 27 - Lanzhou

2008-07-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

Breakfast early. We check in at main floor of hotel at 7:30 am for trip to airport in Beijing. We get in a tour bus. Our luggage is in a small van going separately. We meet at the airport, and go through security. For a local flight in China the standard for liquids in carry-on is zero/nada/zip. No toothpaste. So the toothpaste and the skin creme and the mosquito lotion and the lipstick all goes in the checked baggage. We had to run our eyeglasses through the x-ray separately. We are all through security by 9:15 or so. Our flight leaves at 10:50.

Mike stopped at a small bookstore/variety store/essential airport needs place, and asked for a luggage lock. Lo and behold they had one, and it was only 22 RMB ($3.30). It is not TSA compliant, which means that in Chicago, when we come home, it will probably be destroyed by the TSA, but a TSA compliant lock in the States is at least $10.

We eventually took a transfer bus to the waiting plane, sitting out on the tarmac. The air is so chalky white that we thought of the IQ test you give to the 3 year old: "What color is the sky?" Any three year old knows that the sky is blue, except for Beijing toddlers. God knows what color they think the sky is, but it is most certainly NOT BLUE.

About 10 minutes into the flight the air started clearing up somewhat. The stewardesses on the China Eastern Airlines flight we were on were competent in both Mandarin and English, and all instructions were in both languages.

Between Beijing and Lanzhou, you fly over a whole lot of mountainous, dry land. The Yellow River runs through the land, and we crossed over it a number of times. We landed at Lanzhou Airport, which is apparently some 75 km from town, collected our luggage, and met our new guide, Charlene Li. Even though we had all eaten on the airplane, we went for lunch at a hotel near the airport.

The local beers served at lunch were MONS and Huang He (Yellow River). After a few glasses, we realized that if you turn the bottle around, MONS is really SNOW. You end up drinking a lot of beer because your safe beverage choices in China are beer, soft drinks, bottled water, all of which seem to cost the same. All end up on the buffet table in front of you.

Each of our meals up to this point, and presumably for the rest of the trip, are served buffet style. Lots of dishes are placed on the lazy susan in front of you, and everyone takes for his own plate. For some reason, the last dish usually seems to be soup.

It took close to an hour to drive into town. Charlene told us that we were at 1500 m of elevation, close to 5,000 ft above sea level. The town of Lanzhou (pop. 3,000,000) stretches for miles on both sides of the Yellow (muddy) River, hemmed in by hills. Our first stop was the White PagodaTemple, sitting on a hill on the south side of the river. We got out, climbed up to the pagoda, and looked around. It was original built during the Yuan Dynasty, 1206-1368, and now exists in mostly restored form. The walk up takes maybe 30 minutes. The point of the visit is climbing to a commanding view of the city, which is mostly on the north (other) side of the river at that point. The story is that Genghis Khan built the temple to honor a Buddhist monk. There is a Taoist shrine, and a workshop where small gourds are inscribed with elaborate designs (micro-carving calabashes). We saw several fine mosques from the mountain top.

Then we crossed the river on the Zhongshan Bridge, an early 20th century steel suspension bridge, now entirely used by pedestrians and bicycles. As we looked around at people's faces, we saw diverse ethnic features, and clothing that indicated minority populations (white turban for Huis, beards for Uighurs).

Lanzhou is at the beginning of the Hexi Corridor, a narrow band of land stretching many hundreds of kilometers, bordered on the south by the Tibetan Plateau and the QiLian Shan (Snow Mountains), and bordered on the north by the Gobi Desert, and other stretches of mountains. It was, and is, the only way out of China to the west, and had huge strategic importance. The next town we will visit, Jiayuguan, is at the west end of the corridor.

The last touristy thing we did was to view the famous statue of Mother Yellow River, a 20th century statue along the river.

We drove to the hotel in the town center, where we were to have dinner in 1 hour 15 minutes. We lit out walking, passing numerous vendors with piles of fresh walnuts in the shell. In two blocks we found our internet cafe, where we posted yesterday's posts. (Total price 2 RMB per hour)Then back quickly to the hotel, where we were 15 minutes late for dinner. We had previously requested a taste of niuroumian, the local beef noodle dish. So after all of the other dishes were served, the chef came out, demonstrated the pulling of fresh noodles, and everyone was served a small bowl of this local dish. It is a thin soup made from beef shank, with noodles of different thicknesses and lengths. You are given the opportunity to add red vinegar and chili oil, and also to add chili powder. With the right amount of seasoning, it is quite good.

After dinner, we got back onto the bus for the short ride to the train station. It had been a hot and sweaty day, and we were all quite tired and dirty, but had no opportunity to shower or change clothes. The train station was a mob scene, and Mike got separated twice from the rest of the group. Security at the train station requires that all luggage be scanned, and the lines behind were rather long.

We were taking the overnight train to Jiayuguan, leaving on train T927 at 10:20 pm and arriving at 7:23 am. We had 1st class sleepers (called soft sleepers in Chinese trains), four to a room.

Jul 26 - Part Two

2008-07-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

At 2:30 or so, flushed with duck, we headed out into the subway to go to the Big Bell Museum(Dazhong Shi), in NW Beijing. From the Hepingmen station we took the 2 line clockwise six stops to Xizhimen, where we transfered to the 13 line (walking perhaps 400 meters through a winding set of steps. One stop later, we got off at Dazhong Shi, at the Third Ring Road, to walk the 10 min to the museum. On the crowded subways, everyone but us seemed to be 15-25 years old and chivalry was mostly dead.

The TSA had not replaced one of the locks on our bags, so we were looking to buy a small TSA-approved luggage lock. There was a large furnishing market, and they said they had locks on the third floor, but those were for doors. Finally got to the museum at 3:30 pm, really tired and very thirsty. We found out it was supposed to close at 4:30, so we plowed ahead. At least they gave us the senior rate of 4 instead of 10 RMB.

This museum used to be a Taoist/Buddhist Monastery,and has many historic buildings. The museum is filled with big bells from all over China and the world. Each has external designs and most are topped with double headed dragons from which the bells hung. The Chinese have been casting big bells since before 400 BCE. The featured bell is the Yongle Bell from 1420. It is several stories high and has its own building. It has 250,000 tiny relief texts on the outside. Amazing.

We stumbled out at closing time, as the staff chased us. We got two bottles of water, took the bus, subway (with two transfers) to Xidan, a huge shopping street, looking for the elusive luggage lock. We wandered into many department stores, and saw every kind of snack food (candy, dried fruits and nuts, etc.), shirts, pants, and bags galore, (and a store called Locks & Locks, that features plastic kitchen ware that snaps shut), but no locks & no lucks. As we left,we passed two adjacent stores, Bread Party and Toast Box. The latter was a chi-chi eatery featuring square Texas toast lovingly sauteed and topped with pork fizz, etc. (Don't ask.)

Took a 102 bus back to the hotel, arriving at 6:15 pm. Got there in time to find out that the tour beginning dinner was to begin at 6:30 pm downstairs. Carol quickly showered, and we arrived 10 minutes late. We got to meet our tour guide, and all but two of the others (who were up in their room, not having gotten the word.) We got our blue Solar Eclipse shirts, had a banquet dinner, and Carol got to bed by 8:30 pm. Mike didn't get to bed until 9 pm, because someone suggested that the local supermarket might have locks. Of course not, but it was worth a try.

Jul 26 - Beijing

2008-07-27T03:49:00.000-07:00

It is Saturday, our first full day in Beijing. We got to bed finally at 11 PM. Carol had trouble sleeping at all. Mike slept pretty well until 3 AM and then both of us were up and could barely sleep thereafter. At 6 AM we were down for breakfast, a 60 item buffet running the gamut from Allbran, Carol's choice, to something called bacon, very much like Canadian bacon, with fried rice, congee, several steamed vegetables, a full salad bar, 4 kinds of juices, fresh fruit, etc.

At 7 we were off to find an internet cafe. The guidebook showed one on Dazhalan Jie, on the third floor. This was consistent with the advice we had been given the night before, when we had unsuccessfully looked around. So we set out for that address, walking through several hutongs. At 7 in the morning, you see the men getting out of bed. There are some who are living in a space no bigger than 2 m by 1 m, with not much more space than is necessary for a bed. They have no running water, no toilet, no kitchen facilities, and no private living space, other than for their bed. We wonder how much one pays for such a room. Of course, on each block there is a public toilet, and some of the landlords (or landladies) provide such amenities, but certainly not all. However, pomegranite trees with fruit just turning red, and lovingly tended trellised squash and melon plants are found along with small patches of flowers.

The hutong slowly turned into a street with hotels and hostels, and more touristy accommodations, and English language signs. We passed an international phone calling store, where you can make your phone calls, presumably anywhere in China. We asked and determined that they also had internet service, at 10 RMB per hour. We thought this might be high, or a special price for us, and so we pressed on toward the address in the guidebooks. We finally got there and found the street under frantic reconstruction for the Olympics, with many of the buildings being rehabbed, being turned perhaps into a modern Williamsburg tourist road. Anyway, nobody knew of any internet anywhere there, so we walked back to the first place, wher Carol noticed that there was a printed sign for 10 RMB per hour.

We took 1 hour and 5 minutes to post our last two entries, and offered 11 RMB, but they refused the extra money(!)

So off to the Temple of Heaven, through as many hutongs as we could find. Carol mad a stop in a public toilet where the "compost" was very rank and squatting took lots of time to find your balance. She finally understood the meaning of the blessing "She-lo asani isha."

We passed one door where the tenant had posted a handwritten note: "To the tourist. Do not believe what your guide tells you about the hutongs. You do not know how we live." We also saw snails on the walls and a crawling turtle.

A little bit on, Carol had another yogurt drink, and we learned that the name was "suan niu," sour milk.

A little further down the street, we passed the "Passion Sex Shop" and "Instinct Sex Toys". The former advertised "Medicine for penis diseases - Medicine for ladys no passion - Quality is more important than sale - Make you sex time long and long." The latter advertised "Sextoys Healthfoods Idealivesthing Adultthing" "www.baolitang.com www.th88888.com." There were a great variety of plastic items and dolls of various sizes within. Carol thought that the stores should have been named "Orifice Depot."

Not a half block further on we saw a lot where all the buildings had been razed with two large tents, and guys walking around - a squatter camp.

On to the Temple of Heaven. After passing some Olympic garden arrangements, another hutong, we arrived at the street that borders the temple to the north. About every 100 feet there were groups of people with Olympic aid shirts standing around gossiping, ready to help any passing tourist who needed help (there were plenty of locals, but they needed no help.) Carol saw the only jogger of our entire stay in Beijing, an older man trotting along slowly. Finally at the Temple gate, we paid the 35 RMB to enter and see all of the buildings within.

This is a series of buildings close to 600 years old, set up to honor the emperor of the day, with all the buildings for animal sacrifices, for good harvest for the coming year, and plenty of places to make those sacrifices for all of the appropriate deities. The park is at least 1.5 km from end to end, and takes forever to walk all of the way through.

It is Saturday morning, and in Beijing on Saturday morning in any park, people are out to celebrate, so we have shape note singers, following a leader who is calling out the next tone with her hand signals. There were also Chinese opera soloists, attracting appreciative crowds, and many kinds of physical activities. We saw Chinese couple dancing, wooden sword tai chi classes, precision paddle ball exhibitions, and two harmonica orchestras backing up singers and dance soloists. Multiple generation families, young couples, and just regular folks enjoying picnics and the outdoors in a historic setting.

We finally finished seeing all of the buildings somewhat after 12, thirsty and tired, and headed off to lunch. A bus ride on the second 826 bus (the first was too crowded to even think of getting on) took us a couple of miles to the Quanjude DuckRestaurant at Hepingmen which has been serving duck since 1852. This is quite the fancy place, but not just for tourists and visiting dignitaries. A properly white toqued chef carefully removed the crisp skin of our duck and sliced up the duck right there in the room. We ordered one whole duck, perhaps a bit much for just two people, but we had fun rolling up the succulent morsels with plum sauce and scallion slices in the thin pancakes. Total cost of 1 duck, 1 large bottle of beer, and 10% service was 270 RMB. Maybe we could gotten have a cheaper duck, but we wouldn't been handed a numbered certificate of authentication or seen the photos of Chou Enlai, Castro, Nixon, etc.

To be continued.

Jul 25 - Beijing

2008-07-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

We got to the hotel and checked in at 3:30 pm or so. The clerks at the desk were almost all "trainees," according to the badges, and took a long time finding our names. Finally, we were up in the room (a standard two bed 4 star room). Estimated group room price $80 USD, from the hotel's website.

We had two goals for Friday afternoon 1. change money (already done), and 2. get some bus maps of Beijing (to be done at Wangfujing Bookstore some 2.5-3 mi away). We met Tristina and began walking toward the bookstore. We noted that the sky was so polluted that you could look directly at the sun, and really had to search the sky to find it at all. This was a "sunny" day, mind you. The smog is so bad we had started coughing. Beijing felt like a steam oven, with a grey sky, and limited distance visibility.

We walked past a flower garden , decorated in honor of the Olympics. Everything is being cleaned or is under construction in anticipation of the Olympics, including the trees in this garden area. Large numbers of people are standing around, wearing Olympics tee-shirts and badges, doing what, we don't know. As we were walking along, on the left, were walled off neighborhoods, clearly in a state of destruction, being guarded against entry. On the right were some similar neighborhoods, in a partial state of destruction, but still with inhabitants. These are the hu tongs, the old neighborhoods of Beijing, that are rapidly being replaced with modern high rise construction. Since they originally lacked indoor plumbing, and perhaps even running water, there are public toilets every block or so. There seemed to be outdoor firepits instead of kitchens. In other hu tongs we have seen, people seem to be renting bed space only, and living spaces of 2 square meters seem to be the norm. We exited the various hu tongs, some in better shape than others, and approached Qianmen, the southern gate to Tiananmen Square. It was 5:30 pm, and Tristina decided to go back to the hotel. We pushed on, and maybe .5 - 1 mile farther on was Wangfujing Street, a major commercial thoroughfare.

On the street was a drink place, where we had an exotic green bottled drink for 5 RMB, which turned out to be, when we deciphered the characters, "green tea." We also bought, for 4 RMB, a yogurt like drink (kefir?) in a ceramic pot, with a paper top, and a straw, that we saw several other people enjoying.

On to Wangfujing Bookstore, a huge place. After some consideration, we bought two maps and a street book of Beijing, some of which were entirely in Chinese. All the bus routes were there, and time will tell if we can figure out where the buses run, and what the maps indicate.

It was now 7 pm or so, so we hopped into the Gourmet Center (Eat Street), a basement level mall of 30-40 small eateries. You buy a plastic card, put some money on it, and have at it. We settled on a bowl of laghman (lamb noodle spicy soup) from Xinjiang, and a pickled mixed vegetable salad (20 RMB total). The guy next to us had a cold mug of beer, so we also got a mug of Tsingtao (10 RMB). So the total was 30 RMB ($4.50) for a filling dinner for two. We sat at communal tables with a happy crew of families, couples, singles, kids, etc. The card was returned for the unspent remainder.

We got out at 8:15 pm, and walked back, looking quite unsuccessfully for an Internet Cafe. Several were described for us - go that way and turn left, or some such directions, but no luck. We passed the outside of Tiananmen Square, where crowds promenaded and took pictures under the benevolent gaze of the Chairman. We passed Hepingmen subway station, bought a 4 L bottle of water for 7.5 RMB, passed a number of restaurants with "Old Beijing Food," whatever that is, and finally got back to the hotel. Total walking 5 - 6 miles. Total sweat - one gallon each.

At the hotel, we used 10 minutes of Internet time at 2 RMB per minute (the minimum). They told us it was 11 minutes (we don't believe it). This morning's internet is 10 RMB per hour!
To bed at 11 pm, after showers all around, and in-sink clothes washing.

The Flight Over

2008-07-25T17:07:00.000-07:00

Our plane leaves at 7:30 am from Atlanta to Newark, arriving at 9:50 am, from which we connect at 12:10 pmto Beijing (all on Continental). So we get up at 3:10 am, finish packing, close the house, drive to the Chamblee MARTA station, to leave our car for our kids, and to catch the first train to the airport (4:46 am). To airport routinely, and we caught the plane (which was delayed because the crew was time restricted from showing up until 7:30). We met a Chinese Georgia State student who was flying back to China for vacation.

We got in 30 minutes late to Newark, which was fine with us, but hard on some who had tight connections. Waiting for the Beijing flight was a contingent of 15-20 Americans who were going to Beijing to teach folks English for 5 days (and proselytize their version of Christianity). The plane was mostly full, but not completely. As planned, we sat next to Tristina Oppliger, the 27 (?) year old daughter of the tour director. We talked about the Baja eclipse, which she had seen in 1991, and some that we had seen. She had the window seat.

We were served three meals, a dinner meal (fish or "sirloin steak"), a mid flight snack of a hamburger and ice cream, and a wakeup meal (something vaguely Chinese). By far the worst food on an international flight we have ever had.

The flight sort of followed a circumpolar route, so it headed north from Newark, through Vermont, and over Quebec. However, instead of going straight over the pole, or going westerly, it headed slightly northeasterly, over Baffin Island, and extreme northwestern Greenland, across the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. Then southerly over Siberia, Mongolia, and into the Beijing area. Because it is July, the flight was in the bright sun the entire time. We were asking the question: Since we left at 12:10 pm, and got in at 1:40 pm, was this an overnight flight, or a very long day flight. The answer was clear on the plane, since the flight crew actively discouraged open windows, which streamed in lots of light into an otherwise dark airplane. Gathering to talk in the galleys was also strongly discouraged. They wanted us sitting, with eyes glued on the screen in front of each seat, or sleeping, when not eating.

In the prime seat was a seasoned traveler who was making his 10th trip on this flight. He ran a waste water treatment company, which ran 4 plants in China. His description of China is of a country with 19th century capitalists, ready to cut any corner, and cheat anybody they can to make a profit. He said: Always bargain - otherwise you will be routinely overcharged. He had bothered to learn only two words of Mandarin, so I taught him "tai gui le" - too much/too expensive.

While Mike stuck with Freecell and watching the progress of the plane across the Arctic, Carol watched the wide variety of programming. She thought it was especially neat to view a Planet Earth program "Pole to Pole" right after crossing Hudson Bay. She finally got to see the movie "Mrs. Henderson Presents."

We had to sneak over to other windows to see out, but the sky was clear over northern Canada, so we got to see bits of Nunavut, some open water, and the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. We thought tp try to take a picture of the ice, but by the time we got the camera, it had clouded over. Carol got to see a bit of southern Mongolia, and northern China, as we approached Beijing.

Despite the fact that the informational video showed three forms to fill out, there was only one form. We deplaned, went through customs much more smoothly than we could have ever anticipated, got our luggage finally, changed 400 USD into 2701.50 RMB at a bank in the airport (one RMB is slightly less than 15 cents US), and caught a taxi to our hotel, with Tristina, for 108 RMB. The trip took 45 minutes or so.

Cameras

2008-07-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

We are late adopters. For our 1999 trip we were still using a camera with FILM. By 2002 that camera was in terrible shape, so we splurged on a 4 MB digital camera, a Fuji 4800. I came with a 16 MB SmartMedia card, and we also bought a 64 MB SmartMedia card. The pictures we took were generally 640x480, and were called 500KB pictures. There were options to take 1 MB, 2MB, and 4MB pictures also. At the smallest size, we could take 633 pictures on the 64 MB card and 158 pictures on the 16 MB card.

By 2006, the Fuji 4800 badly needed a cleaning. We took the camera in to the shop, and they informed us that cleaning would take 9 weeks (we were leaving in 7) and that for the price of the cleaning, roughly, they had a new Fuji 6800 (6 MB) that they were remaindering. Same batteries, same SmartMedia cards (we got an extra battery - so we now have 3 batteries - and an extra 16 MB SmartMedia card). Great. We went on a 26 day trip, and took 500 plus pictures.

The difference in 2008 is that now we want to try a blog, so we want to be able to upload pictures on the road. We have never done it before. At home, I remove the SmartMedia card, stick it in a slot on the front of my computer, and see all the pictures. The other difference is that our daughter and son in law are lobbying for larger pictures - they don't like 640x480 and want 1280 x 1024, at least.

So I figure that all I need is a USB adapter - in one end goes the SmartMedia card - the other goes in the USB slot on the computer in the Internet Cafe, and all is right with the world. I also thought of buying a 256 MB SmartMedia card, if I could find one.

WRONG.

First, the SmartMedia card is obsolete. We may be able to find some on eBay, or back order them from the specialty shops, but otherwise - unavailable.
Second, there are no SmartMedia/USB adapters. I almost bought a $35 adapter from BestBuy that I would have had to return. I returned one such adapter to RadioShack that said SmartMedia on it, but it was a subsequent version of the card.

Next idea. My camera fits in a cradle so as to charge the battery. There is a USB port of the cradle. Just find a cord. So I carry the cradle to a electric gadget shop in my building. Two USB cords - neither fits. I go to Sears. Two USB cords, neither fits. These cables all come in that despicable plastic shrink packaging that you have to destroy to get at the internal contents, so Sears now has two used USB cables, and no money for it.

Finally, I go over to the Radio Shack and on the second try they pull out a USB cable, which claims to work with Fuji 4800Z and 6800Z. IT FITS. Yeah.

A separate trip to "A Z" gave us a $3 plug adapter for the electric cord into the cradle, supposed to work in China and the Stans. Now we just see if we can make this work in the random internet cafes we will be visiting.

Our Itinerary - Part One

2008-07-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

The first 10 days of the trip are on a tour. Here is the itinerary of the tour.

2008 China Solar Eclipse Tour
Beijing—Lanzhou—Jiayuguan—Dunhuang—Hami—Karatoruk—Turpan—Urumqi 10 days 9 nights
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008iau/TSE2008-fig06.GIF
Day 00 F 25 July. Arrive in Beijing. Overnight in Beijing 4*
Beijing: Qianmen Jianguo Hotel
Add: No. 175 YongAn Road, Xuanwu District, Beijing
Tel: 0086-10-63016688
Web: http://www.qianmenhotel.com/
Day 01 Sa 26 July. In Beijing, meet the local guide. (D) Overnight in Beijing 4*
Day 02 Su 27 July. In the morning take flight from Beijing to Lanzhou.
Beijng/Lanzhou MU2412 ( 1050/1305 )
Meet the local guide and visit White Pagoda Hill. The mountain stands at the northern bank of the Yellow River and has its name after the white pagoda on top of it. The White Pagoda Hill Park is large and a nice place for strolling, with green forests, scattered pavilions, teahouses and, from its heights, some good views of both the churning river and the city beyond. The nearby bridge, Zhongshan Bridge, was the old crossing point for travelers and merchants who were then to head north on the Silk Road. See Mother Statue of Yellow River, a modern sculpture in Xihu Park. In China, the Yellow River is also called Mother River, because so much Chinese civilization was born alongside it. Iron Bridge over the yellow river (Zhongshan Bridge). Zhongshan Bridge, also called the first bridge over the Yellow River, lies at the foot of Bai Ta Mountain and in front of Jin Cheng Pass in Lanzhou city, the capital of Gansu Province. In the evening take soft sleeper train to Jiayuguan. (B/L/D) Overnight on the train Lanzhou/Jiayuguan: T927 ( 2220/0714 )
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~jander/tot2008/map12.png
Day 03 M 28 July. Arrive in Jiayuguan, meet the local guide and visit Jiayuguan Fortress. Jiayuguan was the end of the Great Wall. Passing through the gates of the Jiayuguan fortress meant leaving Chinese culture behind for the harshness of central Asia. Today the Jiayuguan fortress is a World Heritage site and a truly impressive structure. The Great Wall Museum was the first of its kind to offer a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the history of the Great Wall. Covering a total area of 3 acres, the "beacon tower" styled complex is made up of seven different sections, with the central theme of the "Great Wall". With the help of scale models, diagrams, words and photos spanning from the Warring States Period to the Ming Dynasty (a total of more than 3,000 years), the museum gives visitors a fairly good representation of the life of this vast, snaking wall. (B/L/D) Overnight in Jiayuguan 4*
Jiayuguan: Huayuan Hotel
Add: NO.1 Shuguang Street Jiayuguan Gansu China
Tel: 0086-937-6308888
Web: no website
Day 04 T 29 July. After breakfast drive to Dunhuang. Visit Sand Dune. Dunhuang has a spectacular natural scene: Mingsha (Sighing) Sand Dune. The dune, a sand crusted hill of dozens of meters high, is 40km east to west, and 20km south to north. On fine days, the sand roars like thunder which can be heard in the city, hence the name. When visitors climb up to the dunes and slide downward from the summit, the sand can collapse with them and give out a peal of loud sound. Crescent-Moon Spring lies at the foot of the Mingsha Sand Dune and is named for its shape. It is about 100m long and 25m wide, and has fish and water weeds that are said to be good for the health. The area is often hit by windstorms, which drive up sand to shut out sunlight. Interestingly enough, however, for hundreds of years people have never seen the spring filled up with or covered by sand. (B/L/D) Overnight in Dunhuang 4*
Dunhuang: Sun Village Hotel
Add: NO.1.Middle Airport Road,Dunhuang
Tel: 0086-937-8868588
Web: http://www.dhsuntravel.com/
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~jander/tot2008/map11.png
Day 05 W 30 July. After breakfast visit Mogao Grottos. The Mogao Grottos, commonly named Thousand-Buddha Caves, and praised as "a glittering pearl that adorns the Silk Road", are the most famous grottos in China. Located 25km southeast of Dunhuang County, these caves are carved out of the sandstone cliffs of Mingsha Mountain, extending some 1600m from south to north. Constructed in 10 dynasties from the fourth to the 14th century, its 45000 square meters of mural paintings and more than 2000 color statues are regarded as the greatest treasure-house of Buddhist art existing in the world. Then drive to Hami, meet the local guide and check in the hotel. (B/L/D) Overnight in Hami 3*
Hami: Junyao Hotel
Add: NO.25 Tian Shan North Road, Hami, Xinjiang, China.
Tel: 0086-902-6986666
Web: no website
Day 06 Th 31 July. In the morning visit Hami King Mausoleum (built 16th century with combination of Chinese Uighur architectural style building complex), visit Hami Museum. Lunch will be at local family. In the afternoon visit local Uighur kindergarten where kids show their presentation of singing and dancing; also visit Hami Uighur classic embroidery family. (B/L/D) Overnight at Hami 3*
Day 07 F 1 Aug. In the morning drive to Karatoruk county through the Tianshan mountain and enjoy its gorgeous scenery, drive pass ancient beacon tower ruin. Visit White Stone scenic area, dipping irrigation system, natural salt lake,Tang Dynasty military garrison camps ruins. About 1845 ready for the eclipse observation, and be on the site (it start 2005 to 2045). After the viewing drive back to hotel. (B/L/D) Overnight in Hami 3*
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~jander/tot2008/map10.png
Day 08 S 2 Aug. Drive to Turpan. Turpan depression 154m below sea level, second lowest place in the world after the Dead Sea. Very important cultural and historical town in Xinjiang China, on the way visit Bezeklik caves(4th century), Astana tombs, an ancient burial ground for the nobles and aristocrats. With more than 400 tombs excavated with best preserved artifacts, it has been named ‘underground museum’ by the world scholars. In the afternoon visit Grape Gorge which is a long valley 5km at the foot of the Flaming Mountain to can taste grapes and wine. (B/L/D) Overnight in Turpan 3*
Turpan: Turpan Oasis Hotel
Add: No. 41 Qing Nian Rd., Turpan 838000, Xinjiang, China
Tel: 0086-995-8522491
Day 09 Su 3 Aug. In the morning visit ancient citadel of Jiaohe with history of over 2500 years. The city was built on a natural earth cliff. Still up to now, the outline of the city is well preserved. It is a protective archaeological site by the UNESCO. Visit Kariz under ground irrigation system (one of the three manmade ancient projects of China). Visit Emin minaret (1777 years built). The mosque complex building commemorates the religious head of Turpan. In the afternoon drive to Urumqi. (B/L/D) Overnight in Urumqi 4*
Urumqi: Xinjiang Hotel
Add: No. 139 North Xinhua Road, Xinjiang, Chinaua Road , Urumqi , Xinjiang
Tel: 0086-991-2818788
Web: http://www.hotelxj.cn/
Day 10 M 4 Aug. In the morning the others take a flight to Beijing, We will be leaving Urumqi on our own. First thing is to get to the Kazakh consulate early to try to get the Kazakhstan transit visa. How long we have to stay in Urumqi to do it will help us design the rest of the trip. If we are still in Urumqi on Tuesday 5 Aug, we will have changed hotels to a 0* or 1* hotel. (Our plans are to cross over to Kyrgyzstan on 11 Aug.)

Visas

2008-07-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

Our planning now is for a flight to Xian, the ancient western capital of China (now in Central China), landing in Jul 23. We will spend 4 days there, seeing the city and getting rid of the jet lag. Thence westward, via Lanzhou, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, Hami (where we will see the eclipse at the edge), Turpan, Urumqi, then to Kashgar, and across the mountain pass into Kyrgyzstan.

We will need 4 visas, the first being China, then in no particular order Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The Chinese visa, we are told, is at best a 90 day tourist visa, good for one 30 day visit. If it is granted on April 25, the visit can start any time up until July 24, and last for 30 days after the initial intake into China. China requires you to go to your nearest consulate. We live in Georgia and the nearest consulate is in Houston, so I am planning to drive to Houston on Sunday, May 2, and be at the consulate early on Monday, May 3, to apply.

About April 18, my wife goes to AAA to get her free visa photos. The woman at AAA goes off to the computer and comes back with the announcement that we cannot do the trip that we planned. She takes her pictures and comes home with this news. So we get on the internet and sign on to the Lonely Planet travel blog, called Thorntree. This is a wonderful blog. Even if you are never going to travel, it is a fascinating place to visit - with arcane inquiries like: "I am stuck in Bishkek for a dismal winter. Any ideas on what to do?" or "I had heard that the road from A to B was in bad shape. Any information on its current condition." Also, really useful stuff, like how does one get a Chinese visa.

The story starts on March 10, when China adopts restrictions on its visas: Must apply from your home country; no extensions of current visas, etc. On April 14, the next shoe drops: Tourist visas to China only to those who have tickets to fly in and out (we were going to take the bus out to the west) and have confirmed hotel reservations for each night (we had none). There is a special blog entry on Thorntree which quickly has 500 + posts.

This clearly is not going to work for us - our alternative is to buy a ticket to Xian, and a cheap, refundable ticket from Hong Kong to somewhere, get some reservations in Xian, and lie about what we were doing in China. We seriously considered doing only the Stans part of the trip. We also started looking on the internet for solar eclipse tours.

Of the various tours, one, TropicalSails, has a pretty good tour. It tracks the trip we were going to take almost exactly, except that it starts in Beijing, flies to Lanzhou (no Xian), thence to Urumqi, fly back to Beijing, and depart. The price isn't too bad, compared to other tours. $2388 per person, or $4776 for the two of us. We had been budgeting $100 per day for the two of us.

I e-mailed the director of the tour: (1) would he allow us to leave the tour in Urumqi, (2) would he give us a discount for the flight we weren't taking, and (3) would he make it contingent on our getting the Chinese visa. The answer to 1 and 3 was yes, and the answer to 2 was a discount of $366, and he recommended using MyChinaVisa.com in Houston. They would discount their usual $39 fee to $30. I called Mike at MyChinaVisa, who said "no problem." So we decided to take the tour, buy the airplane tickets to Beijing, and send off the visa applications, along with the application fee of $130 per person. We sent our itineraries: (1) take the tour, leave the tour in Urumqi on Aug 4, make our way to Kashgar, and cross over into Kyrgyzstan by bus/taxi on Aug 11. The package got to Houston on April 25, and we got the visa on May 1. It was a 1 year, multiple entry visa! (We now have a tour for $2,022 per person, or $4,044, instead of maybe $1,000, but we will be staying in 3 and 4 star hotels instead of 0 and 1 star hotels, we will actually see the eclipse at the center line instead of the edge, and we got the Chinese visas.)

Several weeks passed (serious mistake). Was trying to find an company to do the applications for the rest of the visas. Finally, we decided to do it ourself, so we prepared the Uzbekistan application. Their fee is $131 per, $197 per rush. Ordinary service is 3 weeks, rush is 1 week. So we send the passports and visa applications off rush, by USPS Express Mail, with a tracking number. They arrive in Washington, DC, at the Uzbek Embassy on Thursday, May 29.

Friday, Jun 6, comes and goes with no passports or visas, so on Monday, Jun 9, I start calling. There is a visa phone number which is never answered and has no voice mail ("Voice Mail not Activated"). There is an embassy number which is almost never answered, but which if it is answered, they forward you to the visa number. Finally, on Wednesday, Jun 11, a woman answers. The gentleman who processes the visas is on vacation, but will return on Monday, Jun 16, and will process them then. No passports on Tues, so on Wednesday, Jun 18, I call and get through to Nadir, who does the visas. He will do them today (18) or tomorrow (19). No visa on Friday, so I talk to Nadir, who says the visas have been issued, but not yet mailed. He will make sure they are mailed today (Fri the 20th). By this time, my wife seriously thinks that they have lost the passports and are refusing to admit it. I am seriously ready to drive to Washington, and show up on Monday AM to pick up the passports and hand carry them to the next embassy. No evidence of mailing by Saturday evening, so I drive up and stay with an old friend in Fairfax that night. The visa office opens Monday at 10:06 AM, and I am the first one in line. Nadir recognizes my face, and tells me that he mailed the passports on Saturday. I call my wife, who confirms that the return tracking number still hasn't been activated. So I wander around Washington a little, have a lunch, and start driving back to Atlanta. The next day they are delivered in Atlanta, having first shown up at the Dulles postal facility on Monday at 4 PM.

Next in line is Kyrgyzstan. I had talked to Bolot at the Embassy, and we had worked out a multiple entry 3 month visa for $110 for my wife ($50 for me because I am a senior citizen). We doubled it for rush (3 business days instead of 10 business days), and sent it off. It was received on Wednesday, June 25. Monday, June 30, is supposed to be the third business day, and no passports on July 1 or 2, so on Thursday, July 3, I call and talk to Bolot. He expresses surprise that I paid the rush fee, so he promises to issue them on that day. They actually are in the mail on Thursday. The post office tries unsuccessfully to deliver the passports and visas to my office on Saturday, July 5, and they are finally delivered on Monday, July 7.

We have added Kazakhstan to our trip when we bought airplane tickets back from Almaty rather than Tashkent (to be discussed in a later post), so we need two more visas, and we have 10 business days left. We had friends who received their passports and visas to visit Iran on a tour by UPS at 7 AM on the day they were leaving, and we were determined not to come close to doing that, so for this reason and several others (also to be discussed in a later post), we cut Tajikistan from our trip, and decided to try to get the Kazakh visas on the road (Urumqi, Tashkent, or Bishkek).

Total costs so far for visas, including the FedEx packages and USPS Express Mail packages, approximatly $1200. We still will have to pay for the Kazakh visas, when we get them.

RECIPROCITY

At this point, we need to discuss reciprocity. After all, you may have been wondering, why are the China and Uzbek visas so costly ($130 and $131, respectively). The answer is "reciprocity." What country A does to (or for) country B, country B does to (or for) country A. Tit for tat.

This sometimes works in our favor. We got 1 year, multiple entry visas to China, why? Because the US is granting 1 year, multiple entry visas to the Chinese, and certainly within a day or two after April 14, there was a high level conversation between the US and the Chinese diplomats which used the word reciprocity several times. So US citizens get 1 year, multiple entry visas. The Brits, Aussies, French, etc., get 90 day, 30 day single entry visits.

On the other hand, Brazil and Chile are now charging Americans $100 for a tourist visa. Why? Because we are charging the Brazilians and the Chileans $100 to visit the US.

My guess is the Uzbeks are charging $131, because the US is charging the Uzbeks $100, and Chinese and others are charging Americans $130.

Oh, well.

Languages of the Silk Road

2008-07-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

SURPRISE! Most of the languages of the Silk Road are Turkic (Ugaritic - of the same language family and similar to Turkish). Starting from China, which speaks Mandarin and all the dialects of Chinese, next in Xinjiang (the northwest Muslim territories of China) they speak Uighur, which is a Turkic language.

Then westward to Kazakhstan, where the non-Russians speak Kazakh, a Turkic language. Kyrgyzstan contains people who speak Kyrgyz, a Turkic language. To the west is Uzbekistan, where the language is Uzbek, a Turkic language. To its west is Turkmenistan, where the language is Turkmen, a Turkic language. To the west, across the Caspian Sea, is Azerbaijan, where the language is Azeri, a Turkic language. Then we have Georgian and Armenian, which are not Turkic. Finally, we have Turkish.

My wife speaks maybe 2500 words of Turkish, and we are hoping to put that Turkish to good use on this trip. We still don't know how close Uighur, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek are to Turkish, but a quick perusal of some of the phrase books and dictionaries shows a whole lot of similar words and similar grammar. We'll see.

There are six major language groups in this area: Turkic, Arabic, Persian, Hindu-Urdu, Chinese, and Russian. Generally, the Arabic starts at the border of Iran and Iraq and goes westward. East of that and south of the Turkic belt is the Persian belt. It includes Farsi (in Persia), Tajik, and some of the Afghan languages. East of that are the Hindu-Urdu languages, including some of the Afghan languages. North of all of this is the old Soviet Union, with Russian.

For our trip, I am trying to learn 250-500 words of Mandarin (while we are in China) and 250-500 words of Russian (for the Stans). Because of their history - the Stans mostly became independent in August or September 1991 - anyone in the Stans over 25 years old speaks native Russian. We are still trying to get a feel for how good the Mandarin is for the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Some tell us that everyone there speaks perfect Mandarin. Some tell us that the Mandarin there is so heavily accented that no one can understand it. We will see.

My wife is polishing up on her Turkish, and taking a few steps toward trying to learn Uighur/Uzbek (apparently the two languages are quite similar).

The great unknown is how many folks speak English in any of these areas.

Similarities:

To say hello in Arabic, say "A-salaam aleykum." To say hello in Turkish, say "A-salaam aleykum." To say hello in Persian, say "A -salaam aleykum." To say hello in Uzbek and Uighur, say "Salam aleykum."

To say thank you in Arabic, say "Shukran." To say thank you in Turkish, say "Teshekkur," which is another form of the Arabic word. To say thank you in Persian, say "Rakhmat." To say thank you in Uzbek/Uighur, say "Rakhmat," but "Teshekkur" in Uighur seems to mean thanks, so there.

One, two, three in all of the Turkic languages is very close to Bir, ikki, uch. Bread in most of these languages in Nan, at least a certain kind is called nan.

Of course, coffee, tea (chai) and chocolate are the same in every language. Shashlik and kibab are universally recognized in these areas.

However, most of the words are different, and isn't that the great joy of all of this.

Why A Trip At All - Part Two

2008-07-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Silk Road/Silk Route is a series of trade routes from China to/from the Mediterranean. Two pictures are

[img]http://library.thinkquest.org/13406/images/SILKMAP3.JPG[/img]

[img]http://www.chinapage.com/silkrd.gif[/img]

Initially, we conceived naively of the Silk Roads as roughly paralleling a road along the following cities: Xian, China, to Urumqi, China, then west to Almaty, Kazakhstan, then to Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Uzbekistan, then to Mary, Turkmenistan, then across the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan, Armenia, and across the entire length of Turkey. I figured that we could travel this in 30 days.

I mentioned this to my Silk Road sophisticate friend and he said: "Are you going to Kashgar?" After the first response: "Where is Kashgar?" I did a little bit of looking and found out that Kashgar is at the extreme SW corner of China where China, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan all come together. This city of 1.5 million may be the most isolated city in the entire world. It has a Sunday market (animals, and everything else) that is worth traveling around the world for.

So we, of course, had to add Kashgar.

From Kashgar, you can go southwest into Pakistan across the Karakoram Highway at elevations over 15,000 feet, with the Himalayas to the east and the Pamirs to the west and northwest. This is God's country, but you end up in Islamabad, with no real option but to fly out, or travel back to China along the same route. Furthermore, who wants to visit Pakistan, with the possibility of Taliban activity in the lowland portions of this route. That stayed in the background as an option.

The real way to leave Kashgar is to the west/northwest through the Irkeshtam Pass into Kyrgyzstan. This is a grueling 10-15 hour bus ride, with a 4 - 8 hour delay as you leave Chinese customs, and enter Kyrgyzstan customs. It leaves on Mondays (only). You end up in Osh, an ancient Silk Road town with not a lot of history left, right on the border of Uzbekistan.

The easy roads through Almaty are now no longer part of the trip planning.

From Osh, to the west is the Fergana Valley. Aside from the Fergana Valley, rich, lush, and fertile, everything so far is like Arizona and California - hot, dry, desertified, with high mountains (Mustagha Ata in China (close to 26000 feet), the Tibetan Plateau peaks just south of our route (in the 14000-17000 feet range)) and low desert (the Turpan Depression is 500 feet below sea level). Think, for example, Death Valley and Mount Whitney in California. Think of temperatures as high as 115-120 in the hot August afternoon sun, and below freezing in the high mountains. Think of sandstorms whipping across the desert.

The natural route goes through Fergana Valley to Tashkent, an old Silk Route which was totally destroyed in a 1966 earthquake, and is now a modern Soviet city. Then to Samarkand and Bukhara, the gems of the entire trip. Old cities, dating back at least 2500 years, with old neighborhoods, old Jewish populations (most of which have emigrated since 1980), old connections to historic Islamic scholarship and Persian civilization. Off the track, 7 hours to the northwest, lies Khiva, an old city that has become a preserved heritage site.

As one website puts it:

"Khiva may be a small city -- its population barely tops 40,000 -- but its history as the best preserved stop on the old Silk Road gives it a broad appeal for tourists tracing the historic trading route. In the Khorezm oasis of the Kara-Kum Desert, Khiva was the capital of the Khivan Khanate from 1592 until the Bolshevik take-over in 1920.

"Nobody seems to know exactly how old this ancient city is, though the story goes that Khiva was founded by none other than Shem, the son of Noah (of “and the Ark” fame); at the very least, the city dates back to the 7th century, and probably much earlier. Despite its seemingly romantic history as a Silk Road oasis, the city became most notable as Central Asia’s biggest slave trade center." [url]http://www.tashkent.org/uzland/khiva.html[/url]

From there the road goes west into Turkmenistan, with the ancient ruins at Mary [Merv].

We now digress a little about Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is an ex-Soviet country, which at birth was dominated by a dictator who named himself Turkmenbashi, the father of all Turkmen. All citizens of Turkmenistan were required to read the writings of Turkmenbashi, to view lovingly the huge statutes of Turkmenbashi, to have pictures of Turkmenbashi in their houses, perhaps in a more prominent place than Mohammed, etc. The place was widely ridiculed as "The North Korea of Central Asia." It became fairly clear reading the guide books that one does not get a visa to Turkmenistan without either a personal guide, or a tour.

Even though it makes sense to go west through Azerbaijan, the real Silk Roads mostly continued to the southwest through the Iranian cities of Mashhad, Teheran, and to the west. Iran, while a wonderful place to visit, also cannot be seen by an American without a personal guide, or a tour.

A little practical timing. The eclipse is on August 1. If we land on Xian and take 3 or 4 days to see Xian and survive the jet lag, the trip starts on July 24 or 25, or even earlier. If you are going to the Sunday Kashgar market, and why go to Kashgar if you don't see the Market, then you will be in Kashgar on Aug 10, and cross the Irkeshtam Pass on Aug 11, arriving in Osh on Aug 12. That means that that you can't realistically leave Bukhara before Aug 22. This is already a 30 day trip, and you haven't seen Kyrgyzstan, the Switzerland of Central Asia, at all, and you haven't seen the Pamirs at all.

Ah, the Pamirs. Lying south of Kyrgyzstan is this high plateau, mostly between 12000 and 15000 feet, called the Pamirs. Nearby are some of the highest mountains in all of the former Soviet Union, at close to 25000 feet. This is God's country. It is hard to get into and out of. The usual way to do it is to hire a private driver, and spend 3 or 4 days just driving, stopping for dinner, staying with the locals, having dinner and breakfast, maybe sleeping in a yurt, and then driving again. The Tajiks consider this a sensitive military region, so you need a special permit to enter, and you are subject to lots of military checkpoints, which your driver hopefully handles.

Got to add the Pamirs (5 - 7 days).

So now the trip is: Kashgar, to Osh, across the Pamirs to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikstan, through Penjikent, another old Silk Road town in Tajikistan, then to Samarkand, etc., finally doubling back to Tashkent, where you fly out.

What happened to the rest of the Silk Road on this trip? Swallowed up by the realities. Can't do Turkmenistan, can't do Iran, couldn't do Iraq or Syria, the next countries on the Silk Road. Turkey, part of the point of this exercise, seems to be another trip now. In fact, most of the western Silk Road seems to be reserved for another trip, time and place.

The tentative trip now goes from Xian to Tashkent. It starts on July 22 and ends on Aug 28 - Sep 1, flying back from Tashkent, with maybe a stopover in Istanbul, Turkey, on the way back. Pakistan, and the Karakoram, are gone, although we may be able to take a day trip up to the Pakistan border. A side trip into northern Afghanistan, suggested by some, is also gone. Too much time, too much risk, too little gain.

What happened to viewing the eclipse? You will notice from the maps that the main road runs along the south line of the eclipse. If you want to see the eclipse from the center line, you have to get off the beaten path, and go into the Gobi Desert (into isolated country). So, even though this was nominally an eclipse trip, we will now see the eclipse only from the edge. We will travel 8000 miles, in order to see a 5 second eclipse. Oh well, we have seen eclipses before, but have never seen this part of the world. And if we see it this time, we probably never will see it again.

Next, the languages and the visas.

Why A Trip At All - Part One

2008-07-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

I (Mike) have been interested in Solar Eclipses all my life. My wife (Carol) comes along for the ride.

I saw the eclipse of 30 Jun 1954 in the St. Paul, MN suburbs at sunrise with my parents as an 11 year old, having dragged them out of bed.

As a college student in Boston, MA, I piled into a car with 5 others and we drove 24 hours to Nova Scotia, getting to Halifax on 7 Mar 1970 just before the eclipse was to start, finding the sky overcast, then driving down coast toward the narrow slit of open sky, and finally seeing the eclipse in absolutely clear skies in Brooklyn, NS (look it up on a map). My wife saw the same eclipse in Massachusetts.

We then ignored eclipses for 20 or so years, missing the 30 June 1973 eclipse in Saharan Africa (over 7 minutes long - longest in our lifetime) because we were just married and had no income. I can't remember seeing the annular/total hybrid eclipse in Atlanta on 30 May 1984, even though I was living in Atlanta at the time; Carol remembers pulling off the road to watch the shadow crescents projected through the leaves. We also ignored the eclipse of 11 Jul 1991 in Mexico and Central America (next longest in our lifetime).

By 1997, however, our kids were 16 and 10. Just for the hell of it, we decided to fly to Curaçao to see the total eclipse of 26 Feb 1998 from the north end of the island of Curaçao. Our luck held and although Curaçao had had the first drizzle in many months and was clouded over in the morning, by 3 PM, the sky was perfectly clear with temperatures in the high 80s. The sounds of crowing roosters and barking dogs during totality were memorable.

The next eclipse, the next year, was going to be a family vacation. The eclipse was total on a path from extreme SW England, through northern France, southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Black Sea, Turkey, etc. For a few months, I traced out a 28 day "country-a-day" trip through Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, that got us to Bucharest in time to see the eclipse, and then back to Hungary and Austria, where we would fly home. My wife's first and final reaction to that was yuk - 7 countries and 6 languages, only one of which we sort of knew. No way. Eventually she found an eclipse cruise that went from Piraeus, Greece, through the Islands, to Istanbul, Constanca, Odessa, view the eclipse in the Black Sea, back through the Bosporus, stop at another Greek Island, and back to Piraeus, all in 7 days. Before the cruise, we tacked on 6 days in Turkey, followed by 6 days in Greece. We added 6 days after the cruise in Sparta and Athens, and we had a vacation. The four of us had a great time. On eclipse day, all of Europe was overcast, except for parts of Romania. We, on the other hand, had an absolutely clear sky. The water was so quiet and the boat so still that the photographers were able to set their cameras up on tripods on the boat deck.

So now we had our family eclipse vacation ground rules: We will try to see every eclipse where we could make a decent vacation out of the trip. We will skip those eclipses where the only point of the trip is to go to some obscure place, travel 2 days to get there, see the eclipse, and turn around and come home.

So we passed on the eclipse of 21 Jun 2001, visible in Angola, Zambia and Madagascar (Angola was too dangerous to visit, and we didn't feel like visiting Zambia). We passed on the eclipse of 04 Dec 2002, visible in Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Australia (right at sunset), and the hybrid eclipse of 08 Apr 2005, visible at sunset in Panama (with an 80% chance of cloudiness).

But the eclipse of 29 Mar 2006 beckoned, being visible on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. My wife and I love Turkey, and after the 1999 trip, she had started taking Turkish classes. So we arrived in Istanbul on 16 Mar 2006, made our way through Turkey to Antalya. We viewed the eclipse from above the Roman ruins at Aspendos, looking over the countryside, in perfect weather. Then we flew to Jordan on 31 Mar, saw Petra, crossed over to Israel on 3 Apr, and flew home on 10 Apr.

The next major eclipse is to occur on 22 Jul 2009, visible in China from Shanghai, Wuhan, and much of east central China. It is the third longest eclipse in our lifetime, and we plan to go. (I am 5 for 5, my wife is 4 for 4, and this one is likely to be cloudy, but China must be seen.) However, on 1 Aug 2008, there also was a strange short eclipse that would cross Siberia, western China, and ended up in central China at sundown.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008iau/TSE2008-fig02.GIF
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2008/TSE2008iau/TSE2008-fig06.GIF

The more I looked at the path, the more I realized that to get there, you had to traverse a part of the Silk Route, that ancient set of routes that went from Xian to the Mediterranean. The combination of China and Turkey and the possibility of seeing both on one trip grew more and more fascinating.

Next, planning the trip.