gas

When we got up in the morning, the fog was gone.

So we started walking:

The city was alright to walk:

After a while, Jizzakh disappeared behind us, and we were on a country road:

We knew from the map that the road was going to lead through a mountain range, so we were not surprised at this:

It felt pretty nice actually:

Good, healthy walking. Not too many cars either.

One time we came to a resting area that had a guesthouse:

The lady who worked there was very friendly, and she told us to come back later in case we needed a place to stay.

We kept walking, and we came to this place:

Graffiti everywhere. I was reminded of Xingxingjia, a little village in the Gobi desert I had passed by almost a decade ago.

So we took some photos:

Then we saw a sign that announced the little town of Gallaorol, a place where we were supposed to find a hotel for the night:

But first we had to walk past more villages:

On more mountain roads:

It was right after this curve that we got checked by police. Two times. The first time was extremely thorough, the second time was a bit more relaxed. We were told that Gallaorol indeed had a hotel.

So we kept walking.

At some point the little town announced itself with apples next to the highway:

Then there was a bridge:

A bunch of people selling stuff and some cars:

And a tiny little lake, or rather, a pond:

And then we were there:

There was something strange about this little town – it didn’t seem to have any street lights. The hole place was dark and a bit eery.

We managed to ask around until we found the guesthouse:

It was hidden in a backyard.

The owner was a friendly old man. He gave us a room, turned on a stove for heat and told us where to get hot water for our feet.

So we decided to chill:

Even though that turned out to be a bit hard with the smell of the gas stove happily firing away:

But on the upside, we had hot water for our feet:

That night, I woke up once and stared at the stove:

There was a dog barking in the distance. I found myself wishing it would wake us up in case the damn stove went out.

The air was heavy (or light?) with gas.