Eastern Europe seems never to reside at the top of anyone’s ‘must see’ travel list. The strange, self-defining, un-geographical title (for example we don’t call Greece ‘Eastern Europe’ despite its easterly direction) does not help to renew the images in peoples mind when they hear eastern and Europe next to each other. The preconceptions some Western Europeans have all stem from shared history of the now 21 Eastern European countries: 40 years of Communism. Even after more than 20 years since the fall of the wall, Europe is still split in most of our heads.

Our route from Asia to Germany steers us through 5 Eastern European states. A tiny fraction, but an impressive jaunt in a part of the world where young democracies are more or less eager to queue up for European Union membership, where relics of the Soviet-era sit awkwardly beside fresh faced capitalism and where tourists are more and more willing to spend a good time.

From Istanbul we cross into Bulgaria and head straight to Sofia. We then visit Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (with famous Sarajevo and Mostar) before travelling further west to the coastline of Croatia. From Split we travel north to Zagreb. Small Slovenia and Austria are all that separates us from Germany, approximately 1000 kilometres are left and we still can`t believe that our travel4more journey is about to end. Entering Serbia we were once again in the Central European time zone, sparking memories of our first day in Australia – adjusting our watches 12 hours forward.

Bulgaria

The EU’s last stop to the south represents our official entry into Europe. Having become a renowned tourist spot for sun worshippers and skiers alike, Bulgaria now gets almost 10 million visitors a year. After 500 years under Ottoman rule, 1878 saw the dawn of Russian assisted, Bulgarian independence.  During the Second World War it fought on both sides finishing up on the Soviet side and embracing communism.

NATO accepted Bulgaria in 2004, the EU in 2007, but conversations with the locals reveal that some are worried about EU regulation changing their way of life, and are sceptical of the improvements supposedly enabled through membership.

Sofia is a charming, relatively small city which can be toured in a day or two. The Russian style, gold-domed, Aleksander Nevski Church is a remarkable centre piece named after a Swedish born Russian warrior in honour of Russia’s help towards independence.

Serbia

Serbia is often seen as the ‘Baddy of the Balkans’, by 1986 Serbian nationalism was horrifying the surrounding republics with more and more signs of empire expansion under Communist leader Milošević. The subsequent of occupation of Kosovo, siege of Sarajevo, and Albanian ethnic cleansing forced a response from NATO, who after the failure of the 1999 peace talks in Paris, launched a 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia. In June 1999 Serb forces finally left Kosovo.  In 2006 Milošević was found dead in his prison cell, marking the end of a period of painful history in the region. However, the consequences of war are still very visible and manifest in the small chance Serbia has of becoming an EU member.

Belgrade was our only destination, and was a surprise. Huge green parks make up a large part of the city centre, and wide streets are filled with bars and cafes bristling with locals and tourists. Shopping, a vibrant night-lift and monuments from several different eras are not the only things to be discovered!

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)

With only 4 million inhabitants, Bosnia and Herzegovina and especially its capital Sarajevo is famous for some good, but mainly the wrong reasons.

Sarajevo became a city with the arrival of the Ottomans in the 15^th century and the capital of independent BiH in 1992. It was here that in 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungarian and his wife Sophie were assassinated, the spark that ignited WWI. With only 300,000 people in Sarajevo the city`s sights are plentiful and cover an unbelievable range of religious monuments: Ashkenazi Synagogue from 1902, the Cathedral of Jesus` Sacred Heart from 1889, the Orthodox Congregational Church of the Holy Mother from 1868 and the Gazi Husrev Bey`s Mosque from 1531. The religious diversity has not always been a blessing and was one of the main factors leading to Serbia`s war against its neighbours. The siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege of any city in recent history. It lasted more than 1,300 days from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996, leaving around 11,000 people dead. For comparisons, the siege of Leningrad during WWII, which until 1992 was considered the longest siege in modern history lasted “only” 872 days! The bullet holes are still visible in many of the cities buildings. The sad but rich history can be re-constructed by visiting several of the interesting and thought-provoking museums of the city: the National Museum of BiH, the Historical Museum of BiH, Museum of Sarajevo and the Museum 1878 – 1918.

Driving only four and a half hours west we arrive in Mostar (literally “bridge keeper”), a picturesque little city located at the Neretva river and home to its world-famous Stari Most (old bridge), a main transport gateway for the expanding Ottoman Empire, which was finished in 1566.

Croatia

With a beautiful 1,779km-long coastline and 1185 islands, the Adriatic coast of Croatia is the main reason for the more than 11 million tourists who visited the country last year. Croatia will join the EU in July next year, leaving the 4.5 million Croatians divided in their opinions about their future.

You can easily spend one or two weeks in Croatia, relaxing at the many beaches and discovering some of its old towns. Don’t expect perfect sandy beaches though, rather stony, dramatic coast-lines, which are no-less inviting!

Slovenia

Slovenia is our next destination – a small country, just half the size of Switzerland. Being part of the EU since May 2004, Slovenia replaced its Tolar with the Euro in 2007. An economic powerhouse in Tito`s Yugoslavia, Slovenia today – with just 2 million people – is one of the richer countries in Eastern Europe.

Eastern Europe as a travel destination

City-trips, beach holidays or skiing – Eastern Europe has it all. Although it`s not as cheap as it once was: our parents used to sell a pair of Levi’s and live like kings for a week. Nevertheless it`s still cheaper than Central Europe, with prices coming very close only in the touristy regions. A great night out, shopping and relaxing in one of the many parks: Belgrade is the place to be. Nice restaurants, rich history and beautiful walks: Sarajevo and Mostar are our recommendations. Beach, relaxing and good wine: Croatia and Bulgaria are calling. Hiking and enjoying the green environment: Get out of the cities and you have a big choice to choose in all of the countries. The best thing is coming from Western Europe: a road trip by car or by one of the many low-cost busses or train lines which connect Central with Eastern Europe are not only a relatively cheap option, but also a sustainable choice: no need to step on a low-cost carrier, small, family-owned pensions and hotels as well as lots of home-cooked food are waiting for you!

Special: Iran and guests

Iran was one of the most beautiful countries we have ever visited, but to improve it even more we were lucky enough to have some special guests, the Brunners! Sina`s family joined us for a week, touring around the historical sites of southern Iran, check out some of our photos here.

Are you not warm enough?

Despite a whirlwind tour of Iran, Sigrid was still able to knock out loads of her famous knitwear. If the weather is still not warm enough for you at the moment or if you want to be early with Christmas presents, Sigrid has produced more socks for our good cause! You can get in touch with us through the website or talk directly to Sigrid. The whole amount is transferred to our partner organisation just-one!

Eastern Europe

Our official arrival into Europe made some waves, seismic ones that shook Sofia, Bulgaria to the tune of 5.6 on the Richter scale. Although we managed to sleep through the shaking, street parties sprung up around the city, whether this was to celebrate our arrival, or to escape crumbling buildings is debateable.

From Sofia we travelled to the very green capital of Belgrade, Serbia. We then journeyed to Sarajevo, Bosnia (where we are at the moment) and took in the very sad, but very interesting history of this amazing city.

Over the next two weeks we will make our way west to the Croatian coastline and stick with it all the way south before jutting into Zagreb. From the capital we will cross into Slovenia and then Austria before our ultimate German border crossing at Salzburg/Traunstein.

The Home Coming: Be part of the travel4more-video!!!!

As part of the travel4more project and as a small thank you to all the people kindly donated money to our partner-organisation just-one, we took small videos along our route (if you haven’t seen it yet, click here). Now you have the unique opportunity to be part of the very last shot: once we arrive in Mömlingen (our small village in Germany), we will meet at the town hall in Mömlingen , at 11:00 am on Saturday 9^th June and join us as we dance the very last meters of our trip! The “filming” will be as unprofessional and funny, as all the previous shoots (with our small camera rested on our camera bag). We will dance in and out of the shot for about 20 seconds in front of the town hall. If you want to be part, make sure to join us there. For more details click here and join the Facebook group! We are really looking forward to seeing you there!

Outlook – what`s to come

The next two weeks will be busy for travel4more as we have lots of interesting posts waiting for you! Due to the difficulties in many countries, especially in Iran, our rate of posting dropped and now we can finally clear our backlog! Look out for our China and Iran articles especially. Of course, in true tourist style we have more pictures to share – this time it’s beautiful Eastern Europe – we will also introduce our tips on how to become a “better” tourist – we were not perfect, but we definitely tried hard and have some simple and handy tips to help you!

A “Thank you” for spreading the word of travel4more.org

We also want to use this post to thank other travellers, hosts and absolute strangers along the way who became aware of our project and helped in spreading the word. We owe you and the children of just-one in Kathmandu appreciate you.

Personal blogs were used to tell friends and family about the travel4more.org project, such as

Seiltanz , Eurasien-tour,Varekai and many more! We want to thank you very much!

Littlemissitchyfeet shares our love of travelling and made a little interview with travel4more.org, check it out here (in German only): 4 Freunde, 1 Ziel – Interview with travel4more.org

From here we head to Pamukkale (meaning ‘cotton-castle’), famous for its ancient mountain of brilliant-white calcium, complete with idyllic, light-blue, swimming pools. The Romans had capitalized on the healing powers of the water for centuries, but now bus-loads of tourists fill the Roman shaped gaps and their boisterous arrival tells us it’s time to go west once more…

A relatively short 3 hour ride drops us in Selcuk, a base to visit Ephesus, the best preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean. The city was once the largest Roman port and as such was a huge busting, highly wealthy place. This wealth can still be witnessed in the grandeur of the library facade and the size of the Great Theater.
A day finally spent relaxing puts us in good stead for the last homeward leg of the journey, the city run as it has become known…first stop, the ever effervescent Istanbul.

We didn’t realize just how big the city is, cut into three main parts by the expansive Bosporus the apartment buildings fan out into seeming infinity. We indulge in the cultural offerings of the ‘golden horn’ including the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya and the Grand Bazaar before enjoying a night of Turkish hospitality and drinking while watching the Champions League Final.
The whistle-stop tour of Turkey does not do the wonderful country justice, but we feel that we have made the most of a short stay and are excited to be finally heading into Bulgaria and Europe after eight months on the road…

Having said goodbye to our surprise guests in Tehran, we were on the way to the bus terminal (original plan was to go to Tabriz) flicking through the guide-book again, wondering what Kordestan, the province close to the Iraqi border, looks like. We change our plans 5 minutes before getting on the bus and we’re off  … Sanandaj as our final destination.

Iran has more than 6 million Kurds (about 10% of the population) with most of them living in this province, in the mountainous west. Kurds also live in Iraq, Syria and Turkey (where we are at the moment). Wandering through the pleasant and lively city of Sanandaj (capital of Kordestan province) we can`t help notice the traditional cummerbunds and baggy trousers of the local men, as if in some bizzare tribute to MC Hammer. We are not alone for long and have already two appointments for the next day:

1. Joining the English-class at Kordestan University

2. Visiting a small village close to the Iraqi border and meet our new friend`s family for tea

Our two hours as “special guests” at the university are amazing! We are not only surprised by the refreshing openness Kurdish students show when engaging in conversation about personal characteristics, but also by their friendliness.

Sina ends up with some girls in the back row and talks about their marriages (they have all being married to their cousins when they were between 16 and 21) and participates in a huge photo shooting after the class (see above). An unforgettable experience!

We then head off to our new friend`s village… 2.5 hours on the local bus later we arrive, hiking further into the mountains and visiting his parents and sisters in their small house where they work their land and take care of their goats.

We enjoy the tea, the view and the peaceful atmosphere and are sad to leave…. This was not what we had in mind when thinking of the Iranian-Iraqi border…

Back in Sanandaj we are yet again invited to our friend`s, friend`s house – his mother had prepared some real Iranian dishes and welcomes Sina with 3 warm-hearted kisses on her cheeks. Even after 3 weeks in Iran we can`t get over the hospitality these people show.

We head further to Tabriz, where we spend the last 3 days of our stay in Iran – all the visa troubles were all well worth it.

We continue our journey further south: Yazd is calling us and has been calling civilization for the last 7,000 years, making it the oldest living on earth!

Finding your way in the maze of old adobe covered houses is impossible. And so we spend a great deal of time getting lost and gazing at the small treasures that await us around every corner – like the Jameh mosque (left). Unique Badgirs rise from the houses, catching desert winds and directing them over cold pools of water which act as air-conditioning systems!

As the birth place of Zoroastrianism we visited the famous towers of silence where the dead were once laid in wait for vultures to pick the bones clean. This tradition doesn`t continue – due to hygiene reasons the process had to stop in the 1960s.

Our travels continue to Shiraz and Persepolis – once one of the greatest cities on earth. Shiraz is not only famous for its wine (a shame you can`t drink it in Iran – alcohol is illegal and can be punished with up to 60 lashes), but is also celebrated as the heartland of Persian culture.

Persepolis was the jewel in the crown of the Achaemenid Empire, building began around 515 B.C. Today only its skeleton remains. Alexander the Great ransacked the city in 330 B.C., requiring 5,000 camels to remove the treasures.

She wants to see our camera and starts flicking through our pictures. “Who is this?!” she asks looking at a picture of two travelers from Turkey and Israel. “We met them in China.” – “Where are they now?” – “I don`t know; we stayed in the same hotel and hung out for a few days.” A blurry, aimless photo provokes a mixture of suspicion and photographic criticism: “What is this?!”- “Admittedly not all our pictures are Pulitzers. I can delete it.” After 5 minutes skipping through landscapes of Kyrgyzstan and 500 pictures of deserted Western China, the officer realizes that there are more than 1,500 photos and adjourns camera club.

Her attention now shifts to the backpacks, which are unceremoniously emptied. Particular attention is paid to our medical bag, (the biggest in the known universe, we have no idea what’s in it and have to call Janne and Patrice  when we want to use anything) enquiring as to each individual pill, 10 minutes of pointing to arse and head alternatively marks the end of pharmaceutical class.

Next: Literature, after finding pencils and plain writing books she gives a confused look: “What are those for?!” – “We give them to poor children along the way.” A surprised expression and a smile flashes across her tough face and the search ends immediately. “Welcome to Uzbekistan”. Luckily for us the $2000 of foreign currency, numerous books and notepads we are supposed to declare are in one bag which is conveniently placed right in front of the desk and escapes a search.

These questions as to books and writing materials were expected, yet still have an impact upon us. It brings home the type of country we are entering, a totalitarian police state with a human rights record that includes mass murder, torture, unfair trial, kidnapping, and lack of religious and associational freedoms.

A high price for independence

Uzbekistan, a country of 30 million people, was granted independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The initial reaction to freedom was rampant inflation (1000% per year), which although finally controlled, leaves a paper legacy, making us feel like drug dealers when handing over fists full of money for the smallest things. It is the most land locked country on earth, as each of its bordering countries are also landlocked and all are ‘stans; Kazakhstan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south.

Uzbekistan’s economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, potassium, and natural gas. The Russians adopted a cotton producing monoculture in some regions, redirecting the Aral Sea to irrigate the land, causing a natural disaster and leaving the Uzbek economy painfully undiversified. There are still ‘cotton picking’ days in Uzbekistan, on which occasion EVERYONE is forced go out into the fields to help with the harvest. Unfortunately slave labour is just one aspect of the abuses suffered by the Uzbek people.

Government wrongs: human rights

Although not quite the worst of the ‘stans in terms of its governmental set up (Turkmenistan is a Central Asian North Korea) President Islam Karimov has driven the country in a direction that has perpetuated his parties growth in power and disabled any opposition. 2004 saw a spate of terrorist attacks, against Government officials and US and Israeli embassies. Factions of Islamic movements took responsibility for the deaths (mostly police men were killed). These attacks formed the basis for a further curtailing of basic human rights, Andijon is the most potent example of this.

The city of Andijon seemed a quiet, relatively prosperous town when we passed through on our first day in the country, disguising recent troubles. On 12th and 13th May 2005 peaceful protests in the city were responded to with deadly force. Uzbek government figures estimate that 187 people, made up of 94 terrorists, 60 civilians and 31 policemen, while 76 terrorists were injured. Human Rights Groups estimate that 700 civilians were murdered in the street throughout those two days.

The government has also stringently reigned in media freedom in a move reminiscent to its old soviet days. The BBC was kicked out, and foreign NGOs soon followed. Internet is not as restricted as in China or Iran, but certain news outlets viewed as critical are inaccessible.

The most striking admission of its police state status is, obviously enough, the police on the streets. The capital Tashkent, has by far the most police of any place we have been to. Each subway station has an army of them, every junction is manned and if you are a couchsurfing traveler, you better watch out.

As part of governments security procedures tourists are required to register in a licensed hotel for every night they stay in the country, there is a little lee-way, but in practice the less registration slips you have, the more expensive your bribe is going to be when examined on the street or at the border. As couchsurfing hosts cannot legitimately provide registration a certain amount of living on the edge is essential, all this really means that the subway is off limits and we must cross the street whenever we spot an enormously bored, potentially enterprising constable. Night time out of the hotel or hosts house in Tashkent is not advised, but no problem, the really interesting part of city dwells within the crumbling walls of the ex-soviet apartment building we call home for a few nights…

At home with the Uzbeks

As we climb the unguarded concrete staircase to the fourth floor, locals pass us with raised eyebrows, silently suggesting that we must be lost. We take a left down a balcony over-looking the periphery wastelands of the city, counting the battered doors as we pass. Our destination looms and excitement as to the scene that lies within builds. The door is ajar and through the illuminated gap we make out a young brown eye, looking up at us.

“Hello” we say, and with an awkward jolt the door opens to reveal a small boy. Extending his hand he greets us in perfect English and asks us to come in with accustomed ease. The hallway is bare and separated from a further room by a small double door where a curtain is draped to conceal a view in. We push back the cloth and step into the living room, a few meters square with blue, worn couches surrounding a simple coffee table and a large old PC in the corner. To our immediate right is a huge, 3 tiered, teak stained bunk bed complete with two French travelers. The mother now appears from a small kitchen and welcomes us warmly with tired eyes, again in perfect English. We take a seat and talk to the children while she prepares us dinner. The father, our initial contact, is busy working his second job in an internet café across the street.

We are extremely humbled by the generosity of these people to whom we are strangers. It is obvious that money is tight and that a flow of traveler’s constant enough to justify bunk beds in the living room is a strain to bear. Our nights here are spent talking English and watching movies with the children, seizing opportunities to help out in the house and inquiring as to why they participate in couchsurfing. “When I was in Austria I surfed for 3 months, I think I surfed every single couch in Vienna” explained Fahrod, the hardworking, mechanical engineer. “I now have to give that hospitality back”.

We were intrigued by the family and Uzbek family life generally. The children go to school at 12 in the afternoon to allow teachers to work back to back shifts, teaching the first group from 7am to 12pm. The mother of the family was educated and worked at the university, which we understood to be an allowance not usually afforded to married women in Uzbekistan.

The war of the visas

Although our surfing experience is priceless, our stay in Tashkent has a strategic purpose, it is a battle arena in the war of the visa. The Iranian embassy in Beijing had been a massive waste of time and our decision to abandon hope had placed all our visa eggs in the Uzbekistan basket. We need an Iranian visa in order to collect a Turkmenistan transit visa. However to attain Turkmen permission to pass, it can take weeks, and due to Uzbek visa restrictions, it’s time we don’t have…

Battle one: Iran

Our application numbers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had finally arrived, and as we speak to the embassy staff member behind the glass, we can feel an air of congeniality that encourages us. Our hopes are reinforced by the appearance of a very friendly consulate, who assures us that there will be no problem as he hands us application forms half the size of those tangled with in Beijing. Fingerprints (essential for a British application – the British require fingerprints of Iranian applicants) are taken on the spot, using what seems to be the back of a cigarette packet. One small problem remains however – the computer that prints the visas isn’t working but this may be resolved next week…

We take off to breath-taking Samarkand and Bukhara – ancient, culturally-rich cities along the Silk Road, while our passports are processed, easy-peasy.

Travel4more – 1 – Visas – 0

Battle two: Turkmenistan

There are few countries stranger than this despotic, dystopian, gas desert and its embassies like to export a little of that home baked madness to the countries they make base in. A 5:30 am visit got us on the appointment list for the two hour opening slot. However, when we return at 11:00am they decide to scrap the list and go with a novel, yet highly technical ‘shout loudest at the gate’ roll call system. We finally get in and apply for transit visas, but they cannot give us any collection date and predict at least two weeks, probably three. No ground lost, but none gained, the score stands the same.

Travel4more – 1 – Visas – 0

Battle three: Uzbekistan extension

‘Go to the Immigration office at the Airport, one week exit extensions are processed on the spot’ said the Lonely Planet coaxing us into a false sense of security. 16 hours, four meetings with senior officials and 5 taxi rides later we are without extensions and assured of the impossibility of attaining them. This singularly destroys any hope we have of completing our journey to Germany overland as we must now exit Uzbekistan in two days, forfeiting the Turkmen visa we are supposed to be waiting for.

Travel4more – 1 – Visas – 2

We lose.

Other options to navigate around Turkmenistan had been considered over the last few weeks, but all presented insurmountable difficulty:

Afghanistan has Taliban checkpoints on the road we need to use; we contact an Afghan tour operator, just to make sure that there is really no possibility: “Due to security reasons, we do not operate at all in this area.”

Kazakhstan, ‘greatest country on earth’ – although a visa should be easy to get in Tashkent, an overland route back entails onward travel through Russia which isn’t possible in our time frame (Russian visa requires Letter of Invitations, etc.); a ferry to Azerbaijan and onward to Iran would be possible (although it doesn’t run regularly); however, new visa regulations force Germans to apply in their home country, our final destination.

Our only option now is a flight out to Tehran, Iran. Disheartened and sour from the taste of defeat we make the call to Iran Air that seals our fate and failure. However, as we consider our position in the departure lounge we realize that not all is lost. We are placated by the fact that we had tried everything in our power to get the extension we needed and excited by the prospect of our next destination, the paradox that is Iran.

The last weeks have been some of the most interesting on our whole trip so far! The bad internet connections combined with Iran`s government strict blocking system was even too much for our VPNs (at one point we had 3 different ones on our PC). Often we thought we could upload – only to find out afterwards that something again was not working and some more hours had been wasted. Now we have almost left Iran – we will cross the border into Turkey in about 2-3 days… and we have lots of pictures and articles waiting for you! Enjoy!

After Uzbekistan, we were extremely down hearted by the ultimatum that presented itself: the only way to get to Iran was to fly. And so we book  – 12 hours before departure and 36 hours before our visa is to run out – a flight from Tashkent (Uzbekistan) to Tehran.

Our pride was injured, but Iran had a little of its own medicine to help us recover. We had been told that Iran was beautiful, but we didn’t expect just how stunning it would be and the sights in the first few days have enthralled us into a strong recovery.

From Tehran we travel north, take a look at a grey, uninspiring Caspian Sea and visit the ‘Castle of the Assassins’ in Alamut Valley where ancient, stoned, hit-men once plied their trade. In need of a warmer climate we headed to Esfahan, a beautifully preserved, cradle of civilization.

Esfahan is often described as “half of the world” (according to a famous half-rhyme of the 16^th century), a masterpiece of the Islamic world and the jewel of Persia. Especially in the late 10^th century (during the Buyid Period) some of the most stunning sights were constructed.

Here the large amount of walking we undertake is rewarded by some of, if not the most beautiful mosques in the world.  Two of them (Sheik Lotfollah Mosque and Imam Mosque) contained in Naqsh-E-Jahan-Square (Imam Square), the second largest public square in the world. Breath-taking palaces, rumbling bazaars, relaxing tea houses and fine bridges along the Zayandeh river can easily fill out several days in this city.

A day trip to Abayneh, a traditional village famous for its red mud brick houses takes us through an amazing rain storm in the desert and allows us to take in yet another breath-taking Mosque in the mountains.

Another surprise is waiting for us back in Esfahan: not only Sina`s parents – Sigrid and Bernhard – made it to the Islamic Republic, but although her sister Janne (one part of our travel4more Team joined us once more!). Thank you so much for a wonderful week in Iran – it was too short!

Have a look at beautiful Iran – perhaps not the pictures you have in mind when thinking about this breath-taking country…

We already left beautiful Bukhara two weeks ago, heading back to Tashkent in order to participate in a four way (Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and us) Visa ‘war’. We will remember Bukhara as one of the most beautiful and relaxed cities along the Silk Road… Due to internet blocking and slow connections we haven’t been able post anything during the last few days…but we are hopefully back on (Iranian VPN yipiie!).

Bukhara had been a Persian capital since around the 6^th century. It was a historic Persian centre of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion and was the intellectual centre of the Islamic world.

It was incredibly wealthy thanks to trade, evidence of this is provided by the find of the largest gold coin ever minted (169 grams!). It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site with good reason. Take a minute to enjoy antiquity at its best…

Samarkand is the first stop on our cultural tour of Uzbekistan. Founded in the 5th century it has held a title of one of the great cities of Central Asia for centuries due to its position at the crossroads of India, China and Persia. It served as a major stop on the silk road from the 6th to the 13th centuries before Chinggis Khan arrived in 1220 and destroyed it.

Alexander the Great conquered the city in 329 B.C. and was quoted as saying, “Everything I have heard about Marakanda is true, except that it is more beautiful that I ever imagined.” We agree.

Come and have a look around in 1001 nights…

Stuck on the pass

We start from Kashgar early in the morning with a shared taxi in order to shorten the drive to the pass the following day. The ghost town of Ulumgi has little to offer (a fabricated government city waiting for inhabitants), but its long queue of trucks makes life easier as we manage to convince a driver to take us to Irekshtam, Kyrgyzstan the next day. After a long trucking negotiation we hitch to our intended hotel who promptly calls the police. We are bundled into the back of an ancient blue and white Passat and driven across town to an identical hotel which costs less, the police have so little to do that they seemingly have a side-line interest in offering better deals on local hotels. After a complementary, hour long form filling service (including obligatory cigarette break) the policeman departed.

The fifty lorries were amassed outside the border gates when we stupidly arrived an hour before opening. In true Chinese style we were required to already stamp out of the country approximately 60 km before the actual border. Stamping out sounds like a quick process, the concept of a stamp suggests expediency, routine, swiftness. Not in China. Throughout the whole procedure six officials check our passports before we get the stamp. Three separate queues, each with the same uniform at the end thumbing through our passport pages, feigning a meticulous concentration upon an upside down Indonesia visa as if it’s Hegel.

One important person (the custom official no-less) in this well-oiled stamping process decides to catch up on a bit of sleep and arrives an hour late for work. No problem, we and another fifty people wait for an hour in the final queue to allow one more, extremely necessary flick through our passports again.

The queuing process is worsened by the cricket team of border guards standing idly on each flank of the queue, playing on their mobile phones. Upon enquiry these bystanders reveal they are from different agencies and departments, there to check on the checkers. In the meantime our arranged ride for the day is gone, along with two packs of smokes which we trustingly gave him. Instead we manage to get in a small, shared minibus with eight men from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The drive over the pass is violently bumpy and we lose a tyre to a pot-hole larger than some European swimming pools. The road climbs up to the Jiptik Pass on 4185 meters and winds through stunning snow-capped scenery.  Another 6 passport controls mark the way to the Kyrgyzstan border, but they pass without problem…into the next country.

Bribing in

Irekshtam is a strange makeshift town/truck stop in the mountains at the Kyrgyzstan border. Old train carriages heated with iron stoves look like they have been dropped from the sky, between them lorries plough a mud road in and out.

Our chance to catch another truck out of the eerie overnighter is struck a blow by our arrival time and we are stuck, no transport, nowhere to stay, nothing to eat… Enter a drunken Tajikistani truck driver with a hospitable bent…We didn’t know whether to trust him at first, he was wearing sunglasses and it was becoming dark, plus the vodka on his breath was almost noxious. But beggars can`t be choosers.

He led us to a train carriage with truck tyre steps and opened the door to some of the friendliest people we had met so far on the trip, a group of Tajikistan truck drivers and customs workers. Without hesitation they offered us food, a bed and of course vodka! We spent the next day with them, communicating through a child’s colouring book and watching 1,000 episodes of a Russian cop show.

Getting on a truck to make the final descent into Osh proved difficult and a tense day attempting to find a departure looked as though it was to finish unsuccessfully. We had settled back into our train carriage for another night when the door burst open and the trusty Tajiks gestured for us to come with triumphant smiles on their faces.

They piled us on a truck and we were off, in the dark through a very scary pass under a meter of snow. On route a tiny army base sat just off the road, our driver told us to hide as his door was pulled open. A camouflaged head pops round the seat and a stern finger tells Tom to get out. The hut has a tiny window through which a fat senior officers pokes his face, he doesn’t beat around the bush and simply shouts, “MONEY”. I hand over 100 Chinese Yuan (£10) to which he gestures a scissor motion with his fingers, I snatch the note back from him and hand over a 50 instead, “BYE –BYE” he laughs sarcastically. If only all border officials were this nice/innumerate!

Kyrgyzstan and Osh

Osh was a major Silk Road hub during the centuries of its roaring trade in textiles and everything else exportable. Although the Soviets made sure that not much was left over at least the old Jayma bazaar still exists. A kilometre away from the market the slayer of capitalism, Lenin, watches over the city from a huge platform.  A climb up Salomon`s Throne, a massive rock formation overlooking the city where the Prophet Mohammed supposedly once prayed, makes not only for a great viewing point, but is a sacred site for Muslims.

Osh is Kyrgyzstan`s second biggest city (behind Bishkek with just over 1 million) and is the administrative centre of the Fergana Valley, a famous cotton producing region. Around 30 km away lays the Uzbekistan border, one of the world’s most absurd international borders and a relic of Stalinism. Its intentional line through different indigenous peoples was designed to divide and rule, and is now the reason why Osh`s population consists of around 40% Uzbeks. The ethnic separation, a result of Stalin`s plan to conquer the region, brought unrest in 1990 and again in 2010, leaving large parts of Osh burned down, 200 people dead and 200,000 people displaced.

The Soviets also left some environmental issues unsolved… Uranium, which was mined in Kyrgyzstan for the Soviet nuclear military machine still threatens to contaminate their water sources.

Kyrgyzstan gained independence from Russia in August 1991 (the first Central-Asian country to do so) with the Kyrgyz Communist Party as a clear winner in the first election. The then elected president Askar Akaev was overthrown in the so called Tulip Revolution in 2005 due to growing corruption and nepotism. The opposition leader and former Prime Minister Bakiev took over and soon faced the same criticism – corruption and abuse of power. Both, Akaev and Bakiev are in Russian exile.

The sour taste of corruption still lingers and is evident when speaking to our great host Prad, an Indian working in Osh, as well his American friends, all working in the development sector. Policemen are usually drunk, have a hunger for bribes and should be avoided!

It was interesting for us to learn that the U.S. is renting an airstrip from the Kyrgyz government, supplying both cargo and fuel for the war in Afghanistan. The lease expired in 2009 and was only renewed by a huge increase in the rent: 63 million USD (up from 17 million USD).

Kyrgyzstan is slightly larger than Austria and Hungary together, while 94% of the country is mountainous – so trekking should be on your list! But with average temperatures in winter of -24 C, make sure you visit in spring or summer, when temperatures are mild (spring) or hot (summer up to + 40 C).

Bribing out

Crossing from Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan is always going to be a challenging and interesting border crossing given a tension between the countries and the Kyrgyz affinity for bribes. Arriving at the border the entrance is obscured by an enormous huddle of people, members of the crowd seem to be chosen at random by the guards and push through the gate, which opens only every few minutes. The guards spot us and shout, “Tourists?!” to which we sheepishly confirm and proceed to push our way to the front of the scrum. Face to face with the wire fence we hand our passports over to the guard when a booming voice to our right explodes, “hey, welcome to Uzbekistan, these people are motherf***ers”.

We hopefully assume that he is referring to the guards rather than us and embarrassed, slip through the gate and almost out of Kyrgyzstan. We are led through to a desk where an officer awaits. With a critical eye of theatrical proportions he narrows in on our visas and shakes his head in the global language of ‘this is going to cost you’. He asks if we speak Russian.

-          “No Russian, we are sorry, we speak English.”

-          “Why no Russian?”

-          “Because we are not from Russia.”

-          “Mhhh, tu parles francais?”

-          “Qui, un peu.”

Nevertheless, he switches back to English, telling us that we overstayed our visa by a day. Our transit visa allows us five days in the country; crossing in on the 5^th and crossing out on the 9^th. However in the eyes of the border official the 9^th is simply another term for the 8^th and we have therefore overstayed.

It would have been a stroke of genius on behalf of the guard, if we would have remembered one flaw in his plan – we can read numbers, and by a complete strike of luck we can also count those numbers. Twenty minutes passes while the guard patiently waits for his bribe. However, being a guard of unusual cunning he attempts to trick us once more, on paper this time. He counts days twice in order to make his calculation work, but this time has given us a visual aid to enable a demonstration of how blatant he is. We ask to see his boss – not because we think that one will be easier, but to show him that we have time and are willing to discuss the matter, maybe learn some of this amazing mathematics.

The boss doesn’t answer his phone; and we make very clear that his method of counting is to say the least, unorthodox. We put aside the airs and graces usually afforded to men of such academic mastery and ask him straight if he expects us to pay a bribe? With the flexible wit of a man who carries a gun to work, he desperately shouts, “I don`t understand. No English. Where is your translator?” – WHERE IS YOUR TRANSLATOR?? – After speaking to us for 20 minutes in English. We make it very clear that it is not necessary to consult a translator and that we can stand here the whole day waiting for his boss. 30 seconds later we are stamped out and pushed to the next check point.

On the way we encounter a woman having an Asthma attack and stop to help, within seconds we are moved aside as real help arrives and in a manoeuvre straight out of the St Johns Ambulance Handbook they proceed to throw water in her face. One man stands beside us holding a small, dirty, plastic bag containing some ear cleaners, in case the urgent need arises for some wax removal.

We continue on through corridors of insanity into a large hall where the Uzbekistan authorities wait for their chance to get in on the craziness…