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Saturday 2004-06-19 - Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Catching up
We’ll be leaving for Tashkent only after noon, so I have time to try out an Internet cafe in Samarkand; there’s one on Tashkent street just around the corner from the Chorsu cafe. Many young boys sit around here and play games (suggesting they have fast and modern machines). Access speed is reasonable — I don’t need much for my travel blog email anyway: most of the time I’m just typing. One of the young boys seems to be managing the place, redialing the modem when necessary, and taking in payments, although an older man is around who seems to be the boss. I manage to catch up with my blog until arrival on the Turkmen border; for the 1:45 hours I pay only 900 so’m: less than a dollar.
Saturday 2004-06-19 - Tashkent, Uzbekistan
More catching up
I’m puzzled that the road to Tashkent looks unfamiliar — it takes a while before I realize I’ve never been here: both times before in Uzbekistan I’ve flown to and from Tashkent. Along the first stretch the landscape is pleasant to the eyes: rolling hills and low mountains with a wide plain in-between covered with fields where mainly grain is grown. Lots of small farms, with low walls up and down the hills all around their property. Later, we see a lot of beehives along the road where farmers are selling honey. When we get somewhat higher, we can see the Shardara reservoir in the distance before us but the road doesn’t pass along the lake; far to the right we see the snow-capped mountains of what must be Tajikistan, but apart from that the landscape isn’t as beautiful any more.
In Tashkent we’re staying at the Orzu hotel, a familiar place to me. After a nice dinner outside (I have a delicious “Lens soup” and a Kazakh beer) I walk 50 m, back down the road where there is what they call here an “Internet Club”, one of very many in this city. Their connection here is very fast (supposedly they have an ADSL contract with a Chinese provider). When I arrive at 8:15, it’s still very quiet but by 9 the place is packed with all machines in use, sometimes two to a machine. While game-playing costs 400 so’m per hour, Internet access is 800; after I explain I’ll be online only part of the time, the price becomes 600 per hour! After two hours of fast typing to update the travel blog I need to pay only 900 so’m though — and all of Turkmenistan is up-to-date now.
Back in the hotel I treat myself to a nice beer paid with my last so’ms: all that typing made me quite thirsty!
