Day 32, 01 July 2012 Tashkent

Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan is no instant charmer. But by the end of the day, hey, maybe it’s not all that bad after all.

The Arabs took it in AD751 and was given the name Toshkent (Tashkent, ‘City of Stone’ in Turkic) in about 11th century.

Our first visit in the morning was to the Mustaqilik maydoni (Independence Square) and Crying Mother Monument. Fronted by an eternal flame, it was constructed in 1999 to honour the 400,000 Uzbek soldiers who died in WWII.

Next we visited the Earthquake Memorial to remember the New Soviet men and women who rebuilt Tashkent after the 1966 earthquake.

Physically, Tashkent was changed forever on 25 April 1966, when a massive earthquake leveled vast areas of the town and left 200,000 people homeless.

Local kids taking a dip in the irrigation canal within old Uzbek town

We also visited the Hazroti Imom Friday mosque (Karasaray) and the 16th century mausoleum of Abu Bakr kaffal Shoshi, a famous and important Islamic scholar and poet of the Shaybanid period.

The most important attraction in Tashkent remains the Moyie Mubarek Library Museum which houses the 7th century Osman Quran (Uthman Quran), said to be the world’s oldest.

The deerskin Uthman Qur'an- one of the five original Qur'an

*pictures courtesy from our Uzbek guide because no photograph allow in the library

This copy of the Qur'an is attributed to the third caliph Uthman. In 651, 19 years after the death of Muhammad, Uthman commissioned a committee to produce a standard copy of the text of Qur'an.


Five of these original Qur'ans were sent to the major Muslim cities of the era, with Uthman keeping one for his own use in Medina.

Uthman was succeeded by Ali, who took the Uthman Qur'an to Kufa, now in Iraq. When Tamerlane destroyed the area, he took the Qur'an to his capital, Samarkand, as a treasure.

Coca Cola for 2500Som? 

Our dinner was simple over at a local fast food restaurant.

Day 31, 30 June 2012 Osh to Tashkent Uzbekistan

Today total distance traveled 400km

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.

  

Day 30, 29 June 2012 Chichkan to Osh

Today total distance traveled 234.8km

Osh is Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city and our gateway to Uzbekistan. Locals maintain that Osh is older than Rome. Osh have been a major hub on the Soilk Road from its earliest days.

The drive from Chichkan to Osh is a sequence of superlatives, taking us few highlands passes and through the Toktogul reservoir, down the deep Naryn River gorge and into the broad Fergana Valley.

We didn’t manage to visit any of the recommended sites in Osh especially the much anticipated “Solomon’s Throne” because our drive took us longer than expected.

Dinner was good at a local restaurant and we look forward for tomorrow challenging border crossing into Uzbekistan.