We travelled to Beldersay which has a 2.2km cable car ride, which is certainly the longest cable car trip I have ever been on, it felt like it took ages, but the views were wonderful and the time didn't matter when I had a beer in my hand too. From the top of the mountain which reaches 3300m were great views of Chimgan, Charvak and Chirchik areas.
Left: Irina and Nazima at the Beldersay ski area.
Right: The best way to get around those mountains.
Left: Irina and me at Beldersay again.
Right: Charvak lake.
Left: My shop in Tashkent
Centre: Amir Timur (Timerlane), Central Asia's greatest leader.
Right: Yuta and Ikiko from Tokyo in our Tashkent homestay
The first two nights I stayed again with Yuta and Ikiko, my two new Japanese friends, who I have been following since Khiva. They had heard of a good cheap homestay in Tashkent, although technically illegal as a non-registered guest-house I stayed a couple of nights there, where we had a bargain deal of bed, breakfast and dinner all for $5. The first nights meal was macaroni which was a great change from all the typical uzbek food of the past 2 weeks, the second night we were served some of sausages which were not so appealing unfortunately... I don't know what they were made from but it didn;t taste like your normal pork or beef sausage for sure, I know horsemeat sausages and worse still, horse entrails are a' speciality' in Uzbekistan cuisine, I didn't dare ask what it was, but I wouldn't try them again if I saw them on offer.
Another bit of typical Uzbek hospitaility also occured one night in Tashkent, I went along to a cafe for a beer and as the evening progressed, a few other customers started getting quite lively with some Uzbek dancing and singing (there had also been a karaoke). As i sat there quietly, I got suddenly dragged into the dancing by one of the girls and then pulled away by another and whenever i tried to escape I was dragged back into the middle by someone. After speaking they were surprised to find I was a tourist and from that moment on I was not allowed to leave, I was taken to one of Tashkent's best nightclubs, followed by a visit to a late night teahouse to round off a late and lively evening out.
After two nights I left the homestay and went to an official guesthouse, where I bumped into two Dutch I had seen in Khiva some time back, after leaving and returning later, they told me that the 'OVIR police' had been round checking people's registrations for previous nights ! Luckily I missed them by about 20 minutes apparently. Despite the reknowned checking up on tourists, I was only stopped once in the Tashkent metro and after it was obvious my visa was all in order, and that I was not carrying narcotics or weapons in my bag (he seemed to pin his hopes of a 'win' on this one!) he had to let me go, game over, with nothing more than a handshake..
One warning if you do visit Tashkent at this time of year, I regularly heard the fall of something on the ground around me, I thought at first it may have been locals playing "let's get the tourist" with some little stones, and it's not obvious when you walk around in the dark, but turns out it was harmless acorns falling off trees lading near my feet as I sat in cafes or walked around. They fall everywhere, really.
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