Location: Bukhara to Navoiy, Uzbekistan
Headed off early on our three day ride to Samarkand. In the afternoon, about 25 km outside of Navoiy, we stopped to take a break. A few moments later, a car pulled up and a friendly young couple got out to wash their car next to the irrigation channel beside the road. The lady spoke very good English and ended up inviting us to her apartment to be her guests tonight.
When we arrived at Dilorom's apartment we found a stern police officer in the stair well watching us haul our bikes and luggage up to her apartment. Recall from an earlier post that spending the night at a private home is illegal for foreigners and when found out could get both the guest and host into major trouble. Darn it! To top it all off we found out that he was our host's next door neighbour. At that moment we highly regretted having accepted Dilorom's invitation. We explained our concern to her and she repeatedly assured us that there will be no problem. She will talk to her neighbour and all will be fine. Eventually we just had to believe her and hope for the best.
We had a fantastic evening. Dilorom and her friend Leilo made a fresh load of Uzbekistan's traditional rice dish plov and her boyfriend provided the beer and vodka while we were treated like royalty. Dilorom explained that in Uzbekistan a guest has a higher hierarchical status than the patriarch of the household. Wow! We sure felt it :-)
THANK YOU DILOROM, LEILO AND DILOROM'S BOYFRIEND ( sorry I forgot your name) SO VERY MUCH FOR ALL THE FANTASTIC FOOD, YOUR WONDERFUL HOSPITALITY AND KINDNESS. IT WAS SO GREAT TO MEET YOU AND SPEND AN EVENING WITH YOU!
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