Today we bid farewell to our lovely guide Meerim. We drove to the Dostuk border right after breakfast. Dostuk means friendship, but the border is anything BUT friendly.
Firstly there was a long queue of people, the men and women were separated, and everyone was under the bright hot morning sun.
In the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan daytime summer temperature reaches the mid forties and winters down to sub zero deg Celsius. One could only sympathize with the children and infants forced to wait under the sun.
But this was just the Uzbekistan side of things. The Kyrgyz have proven to be a modern, liberal society and freedom was abound.
Similarly, the Kyrgyz border entrance and exit was pleasantly easy compared with their Uzbeks counterpart. Nobody knew what to do and nobody dared to make a decision. As a result, we waited for 8hours before we managed to get through. This was after our lovely guide, Meerim pleaded to let us tourist through.
For the locals and the babies, the sun offered no mercy. This is as close to insanity as it could get.
So much for Dostuk for us.
So we finally got across and started driving towards Tashkent.
Had our first Uzbek dinner at a local open air restaurant serving authentic Uzbek food in Kokand. After dinner, it took us another 3hours drive to Tashkent before we arrived at our hotel around 2330hrs.
Our day ended with sign of relief from everyone in the team. Though we had some hiccups and unpleasant experience during our entrance into this country, we still believe Uzbekistan will offer one of the best experience we will ever have on our journey along the Silk Road.
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