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8.05.2004 ||>
So after the bombings, a friend and I decided to get on out of Tashkent and so we took a 12 hour drive to the city of Urgench. Along the way, we were casually molested by sketchy Uzbek men until, waking up to find a hand hovering near my breast, my friend slapped his hand, called him an animal and told him that he should be ashamed of himself. The minibus pulled over, everybody sort of looked at us and when the guy was properly embarassed, we continued on.
Urgench is a very nice-looking city. Everything looks clean, the roads aren't very bad and the taxis are cheap. We even managed to stay at a decent hotel for a good price. The hotel didn't have a third floor, which we found rather odd, but we aren't picky at this point, so it was just an interesting aside. Urgench doesn't have much to offer it in a cultural sense except that it is a convenient 30 minute drive from the city of Khiva, which was the last famous city on my list of Silk Road cities to see. For a dollar, you can climb a minaret, unless of course, you are afraid of heights like me and chicken out. I did sit on a camel though, so my ego was soothed a little bit.
The other cool thing about Khiva was that it's not as touristy as Samarkand or Bukhara. People were laid back and seemed to like bargaining with us in Uzbek or even Russian. At the other two cities, sellers can be really awful about insisting on speaking in English even when their English is unintelligable. In Tashkent, if someone starts bargaining in English or prices in dollars, I just walk away. Everything was pretty cheap there too. We ran into these cute pre-adolescent girls who were pushy as hell and hilarious. They kept undercutting each other and giving us pendants as "presents" so we would buy the expensive stuff. I think they should found a car dealership together. They're naturals.
Labels: peace corps, uzbekistan
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