We spent our last day enjoying milkshakes and wi-fi.
It looks like Kyrgyzstan is out and we will just head straight to Shymkent by shared taxi. We went to a few different travel agents to ask about the flight to Bishkek and nobody seemed to be able to easily get us tickets. We wouldn’t have very much time in the country anyway. Bishkek is not the place you go to see when going to Kyrgyzstan and unfortunately there wouldn’t have been much time at all to see anything other than Lake Issyk-Kol. The other delay for us was over a beautiful tea set we saw that was made by a famous potter here in Uzbekistan, Rustam Usmanov. An entire day was devoted to the purchasing of packing materials, which sounds like it would be easy but literally we had to go from stall to stall in the Chorsu bazaar trying to find some sort of packing materials. I’m really glad that out of the minimal Russian that I have that I had learned ya hachoo kopeet… and would then show a piece of packing material we found on the street. Eventually, we did find everything we needed although it did take a few hours. We haven’t had the best luck with pottery in the past and this one had a hell of a trip ahead of it. But the price was great and if we get any one piece of it home I think we will be happy.
We ran into the British couple again randomly in Tashkent, very small world indeed, especially considering they were expecting to be in Tajikistan by now. Met up with them for lunch/dinner at the Italian Restaurant and took advantage of the internet for several hours. We had the chance to catch up on emails, blogs, and do some research on our next moves. Randomly, Bobby found an article saying that North Korea has eased its tourism restrictions. Everyone was inspired and considering we all both finishing our trip around the same time we are considering meeting up in North Korea for the mass games. So maybe we will make a stop in Pyongyang before coming back to the States?
Tomorrow we will leave for Kazakhstan. It shouldn’t take very long to get to Shymkent, I think it is under 200 kilometers away. I have really enjoyed Uzbekistan though and I have a feeling we will be back here. The food was great and was still inexpensive despite the varied price gouging in tourist areas. We were easily able to find good and reliable transportation for cheap, also with a bit of a headache in the haggling. There are amazing historical sites and some truly great people here. To be honest, I am shocked that we haven’t heard more about Uzbekistan before.
Please don’t go to North Korea! I know your are super-adventurous, but…Their restrictions may be eased for the moment, but the government can change rules capriciously once you are in the country.
It looks like the costs are going to prohibit us from entering anyway. Surprisingly, North Korea is not a budget destination. It will be back to the U.S. for us after China!