Uzbekistan’s Question
Uzbekistan is perhaps the country most associated with the old silk roads, however what I will take from it is not the majestic madrassahs, the comforting caravanserais or even the iconic blue domes, but the warmth of the Uzbeks who lit up this leg.
With Rustam in Tashkent
For some reason, I felt this most strongly on the day I arrived into Tashkent. In one of the central parks, a couple of stone’s throws away from the statue of Amir Temur (aka Tamerlane, who once ruled around a quarter of the world), I sat heartily sipping a cappuccino – my first for a week – watching a group of technicians set up booming speakers for an evening outdoor performance, when an older man, white-haired and white-shirted came up and sat next to me on the bench. He asked about Chris, and I told him I was riding to Beijing. Rustam, a former physics professor at Tashkent Technical University researching gas compression for car engines, then asked me the question evocative for me of Uzbekistan.
“How can I help you?”
They have a lovely way of asking it here in Uzbekistan. It is said with quiet matter-of-factness and serious intent but without self-consciousness. It is meant genuinely and wholeheartedly. The simplicity and sincerity belied the generosity of the question.
“What can I do for you Luke?”
I said I was fine. “No, but do you need food, drink, money?” Rustam asked. We chatted for a further fifteen minutes, as I tried to keep up with his life story and the technical details of his profession.
I left buoyed. It was one of those encounters of simple human kindness that lifts spirits and reaffirms mankind’s capacity for good.
Kudrat’s father’s map of the USSR
One other incident that sticks in my mind was meeting Kudrat’s father in a small village shop, still 80 kilometres away from Khiva. It was sunset, and a gorgeous orange streamed from the horizon, the beams seeming so solid you could almost drink them. I stopped for bread, attracted by the smoke coming from the round clay tandir oven, and ended up with a lot more. Kudrat’s father, a wizened man of 65 – though he looked at least 10 years older – and keen map-collector started chatting to me as I sat for a couple of minutes in his son’s shop. Soon we were discussing adventures down the Nile and his work as a border policeman, patrolling the Uzbek-Turkmen border. After a few minutes he asked “How can I help you?” I said I was all sorted, but mentioned I was camping (yes, perhaps there was a flicker of opportunism). Kudrat’s father was having none of it: “You’ll stay with my son and you’ll have dinner with me”. It was a kind offer that I gratefully accepted.
With Kudrat’s family
A couple of hours later, a mountain of plov was placed in front of me, alongside an expectant glass of vodka. It was my second dinner of the evening, having already eaten with Kudrat, but no matter the size of excavation I made in the hillside, Kudrat’s father insisted I ate more “Are you full yet? You must have energy for your ride”. Soon the heavy food and strong spirit made me sleepy, but that evening held one more surprise. A short walk away was one of the irrigation canals and we floated in the warm water, looking up at the teeming bright stars, in a world that felt at once magical and impossible. Such are the experiences that I have been welcomed into, and have been incredibly lucky to have.
At points during the Uzbek leg, I had thought the questions that best represented the Uzbek mentality were: “Where are you from?”; “How old are you?”; and “Are you married?”. My answer to the last question was usually met with looks of disappointment, particularly as my answer to the second indicated I was already several years late. As much as people were interested in where I was from and my family (“You’ve been away from them for 10 months!!??” This seemed almost incomprehensible), I have come to realise that what sets Uzbekistan apart, for me, is their unstated but deep warmth of welcome to travellers. This is what makes this country so special to me, and travelling by tandem bike has consistently brought this out. It is an example I wonder how I can adopt when I stop travelling.
With Sunnat who joined on the back of the tandem
There is a coda to this. I had the privilege of sharing Chris with Sunnat, a young Uzbek, between Bukhara and Samarkand. This was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my time in Uzbekistan and I want to write more about this in future. As we exited Bukhara, we were given the treatment I had grown accustomed to: honking, waving and thumbs up from the cars passed. Sunnat, in his Bristol2Beijing top, shouted to me that he’d never experienced this level of friendliness and warmth from his own countrymen and women. And this continued when we stopped: people taking an interest, encouraging us to try different foods and giving us water. Sunnat seemed quite affected by this - he was seeing a whole new side to his country, which despite living there his whole life he had never seen.
This has prompted me to reflect on the interactions the ride creates and how people perceive me, the ride, and what side of them – and me – it draws out. What I see can be quite different from what other people see – not for better or for worse exactly, but it’s important to remember that those differences exist and ponder why that might be so. I’ll leave this thought relatively unformed for now, but it’s something I want to pick up on in the future.