quick update

Hi everybody,

Quick update. We got our Chinese visa!!! Had a lovely time in beautiful Kyrgyzstan and have already spent two weeks in China. It's great. More details to follow.
Sorry for the out of date blog. It's just so much more interesting walking around the streets than typing blog posts. But I will catch up. I promise!

If you see multiple posts of this post it's because my app was acting up again.

Oct 16- Registan and other sights

Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Went for a walk over to the Registan with Desmond, from Ireland, and Estella, from Germany. Wow, these buildings with their detailed tile work are so beautiful!

Oct 21- Chinese visa application and Tagliatelle ragu

At the Chinese embassy we had to wait in line for almost 2 hours until it was our turn. The lady took a quick glance at our applications and just told us to come back on Friday afternoon, five days from now. Does that mean she already accepted our application? Will we get to go through China after all? I guess we wont know until Friday afternoon.

Eventhough we were no longer staying at there, we joined the others for a sightseeing walk back to the hostel because Laura and Giorgio had invited us all for Tagliatelle Ragu made from scratch. Tashkent is a beautiful city in the autumn. There are many big parks with many yellow trees. What struck us though was that these lovely parks were almost deserted aside from the police officers standing at every corner. Despite the manicured flora, the parks seemed lifeless. There was not a single person throwing a frisbee or reading a book on a blanket. That's because stepping on the grass on any park in Tashkent is illegal and punishable with a fine. Funding must have also been deliberately  cut short on park benches because there were hardly any. Sadly these beautiful parks are only designed to be walked through on paved paths and not to be sat and played in.

In the afternoon we closely watched Giorgio and Laura as they made Tagliatelle pasta and ragu Giorgio's Grandma's style. We worked up an appetite just by watching. It was so delicious!

THANK YOU GIORGIO AND LAURA FOR SHARING SUCH A TASTY POT OF ITALIAN TRADITION WITH US!!!

Oct 20- Tashkent bazaar continued

More bazaar pictures. Those round, white balls infront of the two ladies sat by the table are dried yogurt balls. They are usually savory with different spices and generally consumed alongside a beer.

We spent the afternoon back at the hostel getting our Chinese visa application ready. According to other travelers and a central asian travel website the Chinese government has been making it very difficult for foreigners to obtain visas in central asia. We assume the ongoing conflict between the Chinese and the Uygur people in western China is responsible for the visa complications.

Laura and Giorgio had submitted their applications a few days ago so Jeppe, James and I were following their instructions on what documents we needed to prepare. The plan was for all of us to go to the Chinese embassy tomorrow to submit our applications (Jeppe, James and I) and ask for an earlier visa pick up time so as to not overstay their Uzbek visa (Laura and Giorgio).

Oct 20- Tashkent bazaar

In the morning, the five of us went to check out the nearby bazaar. Bazaars are just so amazing. So lively and so much to see.

Oct 19- to Tashkent

Location:  Tashkent, Uzbekistan

James' cramps had subsided during the night and he felt much better in the morning. Thank God! The cramps had become painful muscle spasm. It was scary but this morning it all seemed to be over. We were so grateful!!! Thank you Lord that it was nothing serious.

Eventhough we had received the OK from a couchsurfer in Tashkent, we decided to check into Gulnara's hostel for one night because we had spent the last two nights without registration and a longer gap than 2 days in our registration record could get us into trouble. Fortunately we found out that Giorgio and Laura were staying here also and after a short while Jeppe arrived as well. A very happy reunion once again.

Our favorite part of the hostel were the five loaded persimon trees in the courtyard. They were still a bit hard but already super sweet and manager said we can eat as many as we want. So absolutely wonderfully delicious. (Yes, I love fruit!)

Somsas and tandor ovens

Somsas (also spelled Samsa or Comsa, depending on the area) are similar to the East Indian samosas and very much like a small version of the British pasty. Sometimes they are triangular but most of the time they are roundish pockets of dough filled with ground sheep meat (!!!yum!!!), onion and potato.
They are then baked in a tandor oven where they get stuck onto the hot clay oven wall. The round central asian bread loaves I have mentioned a few times are baked the same way. Cool, isn't it!

Oct. 18- Bit of a slow day

Location: somewhere between Jizzax and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

James woke up with strange cramps that kept getting worse over the course of the day. We have no idea what caused them. We both had eaten exactly the same food and drank the same water so it could not be food poisoning otherwise I would have felt ill too. Perhaps it was some sort of allergic reaction?
We did not get as far today as we had hoped but still within reach of Tashkent after one more day of riding.
A kind family let us camp in their courtyard. As expected, they invited us inside for dinner but we managed to explain that we were very tired and just wanted to sleep. They had a very nice dog and the outhouse was very pleasantly clean and tidy. This may have sounded like a strangely random remark but when traveling in central asia, clean outhouses are a real heart warming highlight. No poo hanging over the edge, no smelly puddles or dirty toilet paper on the floor!!! Great!

Oct. 17- Camping with construction workers

In the evening a group of road construction workers called us over to get their photos taken with us. People here like to get their photos taken with travelers. They invited us for dinner and a watermelon feast. They were a jolly bunch and welcomed us to camp behind their trailer.

THANKS GUYS FOR THE FUN EVENING AND ALL THE DELICIOUS FOOD.

Oct 17- Jizzax Avtosavdo

Location: Samarkand to near Jizzax, Uzbekistan.

Back on the road, Tashkent bound. Before leaving Samarkand we bought a beautiful Samarkand bread loaf for a snack later on. Samarkand loaves differ from the typical central asian round breads in that it is much more dense and the rim is much thicker.

Near Jizzax we stopped at a car dealership because two years ago the guys there had let James sleep in the managers office. So we wanted to see if any if them were still around. They were and asked us to come inside and have some somsas with them. They were the biggest and juiciest somsas I have had so far.

THANKS GUYS FOR THE WARM WELCOME!!!

Oct 16- Magic Balls

Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan

On the way back to the hostel we stopped by the bazaar and got lots of ingredients for a spaghetti-vegetable stirfry for at least four people plus whoever wants some.

Back at the hostel we found Jeppe, our room mate from Bukhara, in the court yard. Another happy reunion!
While Jeppe and James busied themselves with conversation, Estella and I embarked on what was to become a real dinner adventure. At one point, Jean-Pierre from France felt the need to point out this terribly traditional position we had put outselves into: guys talking, girls cooking. Well, Estella and I had so much fun in our "traditional position" in the kitchen that we would not have traded with anyone else in the hostel at that moment.
The hostel staff were busy cooking food also so the gas pressure at each stove burner was not sufficient to bring a pot of water to a boil in less than 45 min. O no! This could turn into a midnight meal.
About an hour into it, once the spaghetti water was close to boiling, Estella and I lost our patience and just put the spaghetti in the pot. We soon regretted that decision because instead of cooking, the thin, hollow spaghetti quickly soaked up water and turned into a giant ball of mushy dough. Meanwhile, the large pot of chopped vegetables was barely steaming. What a disaster! But it was so hillarious at the same time. Word quickly spread and other guests kept coming into the kitchen to see if we were making any progress and to provide moral support. THANKS GUYS.

We tried numerous ways to rescue our mashed spaghetti. We dumped the water and added oil to try and fry it. No luck. Just not enough heat. We tried to boil a small chunk of it in water but it just got mushier. By this point the vegetable pot had started to steam a bit, partially due to the fact that now not all burners were in use anymore so the gas pressure was just a tiny bit greater than when we first started. Finally we decided to make small balls out of the spaghetti dough and steam them on top of the vegetables, sort of like dumplings. After about 3 very entertaining hours in the kitchen dinner was finally ready. The final result was surprisingly tasty and everyone who tried it was pleasantly surprised, especially Estella and I. The fact that we were super hungry helped too.

ESTELLA, I WILL NEVER FORGET OUR FUN TIMES IN BAHODIR'S KITCHEN. IT WAS SO GREAT TO MEET YOU AND I HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOMEWHERE.

Oct 16- Shah-i Zinda

Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan

After our visit to the Registan, Estella, James and I strolled over to the Shah-i Zinda, a collection of beautifully decorated mausoleums. I found the tile work on them even more impressive than at the Registan.

Oct 16- Registan and other sights

Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Went for a walk over to the Registan with Desmond, from Ireland, and Estella, from Germany. Wow, these buildings with their detailed tile work are so beautiful!

Oct 15- Welcome to Samarkand

Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan

It was a nice ride to Samarkand. There were numerous large signs along the highway spaced every few kilometers with different quotes or sayings. Given Uzbekistan's communist history and its current unitary presidential government (basically a dictatorship) we assume these are propaganda quotes from the president.

On the way to the Bahodir B&B we made a quick first stop at the Registan, Samarkand's main attraction. There I realized how badly broken my camera lens is after it fell off the bike the other day. The aperture, the light meter and autofocus are completely destroyed with a few loose pieces rattling around inside leaving me with no other option than to shoot fully manual. Somehow the pictures still look okay as long as I have enough time to get the settings right. Yeah, I was quite upset when I heard the camera hit the ground but I am grateful it still works, sort of.

One thing we hungry cyclists really loved about Bahodir's B&B is that they serve you tea, melon and wafers upon arrival. Lucky for us, several of the other travelers were not hungry enough eat their full share so we got loads of leftover melon slices and wafers.

The courtyard is a great hangout area and while we sat there, Giorgio and Laura suddenly walked in. What a surprise. We had randomly met them in a park in Baku about a month ago. Angela, a very funny German lady who we first met at the hostel in Bukhara was also staying at Bahodir's so it was all a happy reunion.