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Wednesday 2004-03-17 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Turkish music
Back to Barry’s bazaar; the Turkish music seller soon sees me. Alas, he explains, he wasn’t able to find anything on such short notice. But, he has a tip: there’s a Turkish video store in the Kinkerstraat that also sells music. He gives detailed directions for where to find it. That’s great! I’d never have thought to look for music in a video store! This time I stay for a cup of coffee, and tell him about my trip. He also tells me there are Iranian stores on the Rozengracht; at least one of them should have music. I should have realized: with so many nationalities in Amsterdam, there should be an Iranian store somewhere.
Off to the video store then; I find it easily with his directions. Once there, it takes some explaining what I’m looking for (traditional music, not pop) but the man is incredibly patient, comes with all sorts of suggestions, and lets me listen to everything. One CD has a nice picture of a shaded pool on it that reminds me of Labi Hausz in Bukhara: it’s in Urfa, he tells me; the CD title also has Urfa in it. I buy three CDs, all very nice, and all different in style.
When I get home I do some googling and find that Urfa is actually the same as Şanlıurfa: I’m delighted I actually found music from one of the places we’re going to visit!
Wednesday 2004-06-02 - Yazd, Iran
Getting lost
First priority this morning in Yazd is changing money - I’ve already borrowed some from Thom and Carla. So we head for the old town where the bank should be near the mosque and next to the post office. According to our city information, it’s very easy to get lost in the old town — and getting lost is exactly what we do. Not a real problem: the old town is quite beautiful and reminds me somewhat of the old town of Bukhara with its network of alleys and mud-plastered walls. When we finally find ourselves in a ‘real’ street again we find we weren’t even far off: we actually already passed the back of the Jame mosque (I even took a picture without realizing it was this mosque) and once we’re in the right street, the post office is easy to find — but where is the bank?? After walking up and down the street and asking several times we find we walked passed it at least twice already: the bank building is on the corner and they’ve just built a new wing; they are now renovating the main building - meanwhile neither building has a sign this is the bank!
We have to practically walk through a building site to get to the money-changing desk in the new wing. Changing money is a complicated affair with three forms, showing your passport, signatures and stamps, and then going back down to the other building to do the actual exchange at the cashier’s. While working through all the forms the bank employee who helps us chats with us a bit and tells us they actually do a lot of business with people from the Netherlands: Iran is importing a lot of seeds from seed growers in the Netherlands, such as for cucumber and carrots.
The Jame mosque, of which we already had a glimpse, turns out to be one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, with splendid tile work. It’s also a nice, cool space and we see how several students take advantage of this and sit around on the carpets and against the tiled walls with their study books.
Tuesday 2004-06-15 - Chardzhev, Turkmenistan
Sick over the border
We have to leave Mary early this morning to have sufficient time for the border crossing near Chardzhev. As soon as I wake up, I know I’m sick: I have diarrhea and a little later I have to throw up, too. No fever, so I’m not really worried but I do feel very weak. Bad planning for a border crossing day… When I enter the restaurant next to the hotel where we’ll have our breakfast, just the smell of the food makes me sick again, I have barely time to make it outside to throw up again, let alone to ask for the bathroom. I try a bit of tea, but even that upsets my stomach.
I’m put in the front of the bus and soon doze away; the landscape is boring anyway. At Chardzhev where we need to cross a pontoon bridge before the border crossing a little further on I wake up again because we seem to be going in circles. We are. The driver can’t find the entry to the bridge because all the original routes have been closed off. Finally, with the help of some locals, he finds the way. At the bridge, Bava starts negotiating: normally the bridge can be crossed only by locals and trucks — travelers have to take a taxi across to the border. Some baksheesh takes care of it though: more expensive than taxis but also more comfortable. As a ‘bonus’, we can take a picture of the railway bridge next to the pontoon bridge — illegal but safe from our bus with a trusted driver. It was bombed several times by the Germans during the last World War but they could not take it out of action.
Crossing the border is near torture: it’s extremely hot at midday, everyone is tired, customs at the Turkmen side takes a very long time with all luggage opened (though for a cursory look only) — and then, after saying goodbye to our guide Bava whom I promise to email, we have to walk a long way across no-man’s land in the burning sun to the Uzbek side. It doesn’t help that I’m very light in my head but I’m not the only one suffering. I bless my luggage on wheels though: without the wheels I wouldn’t have made it! At the Uzbek end things are a little easier — the same type of customs declarations as we had for Turkmenistan is required, but at least they have an X-ray machine for the luggage. Two mini busses stand ready to take us to our first Uzbek city. In the front of the bus again I fall asleep immediately. It’s still 97 km to Bukhara.
Tuesday 2004-06-15 - Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Like coming home
A little virtual elastic band ties me to Uzbekistan and especially Bukhara. Last time, two years ago, I found coming here was like coming home. This time, my third in Bukhara, I wake up when we enter the city and it’s no different. When we get to the center of the old town, I recognize the women selling bread from my photographs: they’re still here! Only at the other side of the street, in the shade now. They have a surprise waiting for them.
Our hotel, “Lyabi House”, is quite close to the Laby Hauz complex with its centuries-old pond and trees and the three madrassahs. It’s one of the old Jewish merchant’s houses turned into a comfortable hotel, like many here in the old Jewish quarter. There are tapestries on the wall in each room, one of them in ours I immediately recognize as Turkmen. While I lay down to rest, Carla goes out to change money for both of us and brings back water, cola and cherry juice for me, to help bring back my inner plumbing under control. Later, we walk to Laby Hauz where we have a light meal at one of the restaurants near the pond: delicious and healthy yogurt for me!
Wednesday 2004-06-16 - Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Ouch!
First plan for today is to try and deliver the portraits I took of people here in Bukhara two years ago: the bread-selling women, and a family near Chor Minor. Carla and I go out before breakfast: last time I brought them photographs I was treated to a nice breakfast - and I don’t need two! When we arrive at the spot where they were yesterday afternoon, as usual, we see only the men though (it seems their sons and husbands sometimes take over). Since I’d rather give the pictures to the women, we walk back to the hotel and have a nice buffet breakfast there.
The women will probably be back later in the day, so our next target is Chor Minor: this building, of which the Tadjik name means “four minarets” is worth a look anyway. Its original function is not exactly clear: the four towers definitely aren’t minarets (no one can stand inside to call for prayer) and it’s too small for a mosque anyway; but it might have been a tomb, or maybe the entrance of a (now completely disappeared) caravanserai. Whatever it was, it’s a charming building, beautifully restored, and I’m looking forward to see it again.
On the way out, in the hotel lobby, I suddenly hear (feel?) a distinctive ‘crack!’ from inside my body somewhere and find myself rolling onto the floor… I must have missed the small step in the lobby. The ‘crack!’ was my right foot, I think - it hurts! A man from the hotel comes running and helps me up. At least I can stand on it, but it’s very painful. Quickly, he puts me in a chair and examines my foot. I can wiggle my toes, everything seems in the right place, I can stand on it. “OK!” he declares. Reasoning that it will probably get very thick if I don’t walk on it, I go out with Carla anyway, walking very slowly now.
Delivering photographs
On the way to Chor Minor we come past the bread sellers’ spot; the women are back now! My pictures are a great success, and very welcome. Carla takes a few pictures of the whole scene, and the oldest women poses together with me. We also get a delicious bread, still warm. Bukhara bread is the best in all of Central Asia!
On we go, very, very slowly, to Chor Minor. The woman who has a little souvenir shop in the building comes out to open the gate but we gesture we’re not interested and walk on. On the corner, where the family on my pictures (little girl, father the truck driver and grandma) lived, I don’t recognize the home, only the steps in front of where it was. Disappointed, we go to ask the shop lady who takes us back to the corner: the door to the house is now somewhere else, but the mother (the truck driver’s husband) lives there and is very happy with the pictures though a little shy. Carla and I go and sit on a little wall in the shade — mainly to rest my foot: it’s getting very thick now, swelling up over my sandal straps. Just when we decide to go back to the hotel, and maybe have my foot examined, mother comes out again, accompanied by an older girl. The girl turns out to speak English quite well; she is the small girl’s older sister, she explains, and invites us in again. This time, we get tea and delicious home-made sour cherries on syrup. The charming girl is 16, just finished secondary school, and will go to college (“the institute”) in September to become a teacher, she tells. Mathematics is her favorite subject.
Keeping it on ice
We walk back to the hotel, as much as possible along the main road because the better pavement is easier on my foot. In the hotel I find there’s a thick blue swelling on it now, and I hold the foot under the cold tap for a while, while Carla goes in search of help which appears in the form of Beatrice, an American staying and helping in the hotel who turns out to be a fully-qualified physician, working for the WHO. Her conclusion: is it’s not broken (it doesn’t “feel” broken to me), but probably a dislocated foot bone which simply snapped back into place. “It will stay stiff for seven weeks” is her verdict. Great. She also arranges to put ice on my foot: she “steals” some small water bottles from the freezer in the kitchen. I lie down with my foot up, an ice bottle held in place with a towel wrapped around it.
Around lunch time, she knocks on the door again, asking if “the patients” would like some soup and salad; a little later she appears with a tray with two bowls of soup and two carrot salads! The soup feels good in my still a bit wobbly insides — and the ice feels very good on my foot — but I’m worried it will get very stiff if I don’t exercise it. A short walk to the Synagogue nearby (we’re right in the middle of the old Jewish quarter of Bukhara) feels doable; I put on my good walking shoes now to support my foot, and take my monopod which doubles as a walking stick. On the way out I check with Beatrice: “You won’t hurt it,” she says, “and if it hurts, just come back.”
Jewish Quarter
When we arrive near the Synagogue, just one street further off Laby Hauz, a young man approaches us. It’s closed now, he explains (we can see the big lock on the door), but if we can wait a bit he’ll ask the rabbi to open up for us. While it’s new for Carla, I’d like to see it again: last time I was here they were busy restoring it so I’m curious what it’s like now. A few minutes later the young man comes back; the rabbi will be here in 20 minutes, he says, would we like to see the old synagogue in the mean time? I didn’t know there was another one here! So yes. On the way through the labyrinthine streets of the old Jewish quarter he tells us he’s a Jew himself and while his relatives would like to emigrate to the US (not Israel), he wants to stay here and work as a guide. We pass a small market (empty now) with stone benches to displaying the wares, where kosher meat is traded, and a small kindergarten where we’re allowed a peek inside. The children are just having a bite and a drink, and are quite curious to suddenly see a pair of strangers. The elementary school nearby is empty now (the kids have vacation from June through August) but we can have a look there, too: they’re busy restoring it but it will be ready for the new school year in September. 600 Jewish families still live in Bukhara, our guide tells us. He speaks Tadjik with friends he meets on the street, so he could be qualified as a ‘Jewish Tadjik Uzbek.’
At the Synagogue we can look inside; downstairs, there’s a row of chairs for older women, otherwise the men sit here; younger women sit upstairs om the balcony. There’s a homely atmosphere, it looks and feels very much like a religious home for a small close-knit community — an atmosphere very similar to the Armenian churches we’ve seen in Turkey and Iran. When, after a short visit to the young man’s home where we get a cup of tea and I buy an old book, we finally get back to the ‘new’ Synagogue, it’s closed again: the rabbi must have gotten tired of waiting since our tour (with me walking very slowly and much farther than I’d planned) took a lot longer than 20 minutes.
In the city, it’s hot (“it’s cool now,” says our guide) but the smell of hot dust is relieved here and there by the aroma of freshly baked bread — the best bread in all of Central Asia — somehow the combination is typical Bukhara. After a cool beer at Laby Hauz we go back to the hotel so I can rest my foot and put more ice on it. I’m a bit less worried about it now: it’ll be very uncomfortable for a while and I’ll be slow but at least I’m mobile. It’ll heal.
Thursday 2004-06-17 - Shakhrisabz, Uzbekistan
Healing water
After a night of tossing and turning (I keep losing my ice bottle when I turn around) we have to get up early for breakfast at six: president Karimov will visit Bukhara with other leaders from the region (among them president Putin of Russia) and the city will soon be hermetically closed: we have to be out before that! Although our target today is Samarkand, we won’t go straight there but via Shakhrisabz, another city that was once on one of the branches of the old Silk Road where there are some nice historical sites. The two-and-a-half hours we get for lunch and site seeing is too short to see everything (especially at my current snail’s pace) but it’s worth while.
Together with Carla I go to one complex of mosques and tombs along the main road; when I was here three years ago. the buildings were closed while they were being restored and I could see only the outside; the restoration is finished now. The mosque (Ku’k Gumbaz Masjidi, built 1434-1435) is of a very special style: inside, there are only tiles on the lower walls, and above that all decoration on walls and ceilings is painted: mostly blue and white with gold accents (here and there replaced by yellow but the gold is real). The decorations are very refined and I’d never seen this style before. Across the beautiful courtyard are two tombs side-by-side; Gumbasi Saidon Maqbarasi, built in 1437, has the same type of decorations; the other tomb next to it is older (Shayx Sham Siddin Kulol Maqbarasi, 1373-1374) and has plain white walls. A friendly girl leads us around — not that she wants to be a guide or even earn anything: she studies philology but merely wants to practice her English a bit. One of the tomb stones in the Gumbasi Saidon mausoleum has a small depression in the top, highly polished by many hands since the water that’s standing in it is supposed to have healing qualities, she tells us. I take her at her word and put a few drops of it on my foot.
Behind this complex (where we also buy a few souvenirs at the stands in the courtyard) is another one, in rather worse repair but with a nice, shaded courtyard. A few men sit around in the shade; one of them, with a long white beard, deaf and nearly blind, is 120 years old, the others tell us. I can take a picture of him, he doesn’t mind; I doubt he’s really 120 years old (I doubt he quite understands my question), but he’s definitely very old. Then it’s time to (slowly, slowly) walk back to the bus.
Saturday 2004-11-27 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Back together again, and making plans
Our second reunion for the 65 days across Asia trip, this time at Carla’s place in Amsterdam. I figure out the shortest route and walk over there in just half an hour — good practice for my foot! We’re all there (even Thom, who arrived back from Egypt late last night!), and the “family” feeling that resulted from traveling together for over two months is immediately back. We exchange presents, and photos that we ordered with each other. Carla prepared snacks and a meal with an Uzbek theme (really delicious plov!), and I was able to make small contribution by bringing the herbs-and-spice mix that I was given by a friendly and hospitable local on my first visit to Bukhara; it turns out not to be just good on cucumber but also on the plov.
Unavoidably, we talk not only about our past trip together and earlier adventures, but also plans for next year. We’d already heard from Marie Josee, our travel companion (who seems to be in Damascus right now), that the Chinese are working hard on the railroad to Lhasa; in fact, it looks like they’ll be finishing it even before the planned date. This railroad is expected to make much of original Tibet and Tibetan culture disappear at an increased pace, mostly by a greater influx of Han Chinese; meanwhile we’ve seen the breakneck speed of renovation in Kashgar, and I expect the same to be happening in Lhasa as well — so I’m not surprised to hear the “four girls” want to go to China and Tibet; they want to organize it themselves. I also want to go to Tibet for the same reasons (like now, before it’s all gone), but I prefer an organized trip (no hassle about transport and lodging, more time to explore) and so does Carla who would like to go as well. We also have the same preference for overland travel instead of internal flights; we’re planning to go to the Vacation Fair in Utrecht in January and we’ll likely be able to agree on a trip and go together! And with a bit of luck (September seems to be the best time of the year) we’ll meet the girls there, too! Nothing firmly decided yet, but Tibet is looking extremely likely now.
