little dudes and eggs and soap
Juma having no hotel and Uzbekistan having a rule that foreigners had to stay in hotels in order to register could mean only one thing: I had parked the Caboose overnight, hopped in a car back to Samarkand, slept there and then taken a taxi back to Juma in the morning. It was all very […]
green again
Loaded up the Caboose in the morning, and she was ready to go: I had added some reflective tape for extra visibility in the dark: And then we were on our way. Finally. After more than three months! Samarkand was looking her finest: We walked past traffic: And more traffic: One time there was an […]
wrap it up
Feeling that my work was done, I sat down in the warm morning sun and read some Eco: All was well in Samarkand. But when I went to check on the Caboose, I discovered something terrible: The paint was no good. Fuck, I thought. Fuggidifuckfuckfuck. I went and bought a scraper: Samarkand was looking extra […]
second coat
The paint had basically dried overnight, so I went and took the Caboose home to the place where I was staying, upon which I decided that she needed an additional coat of paint. It was a beautiful day out: I walked around under the blue sky and bought some more of the paint we had […]
flat matt
When morning dawned, it was time to look the truth in the eye: I had failed. The Caboose was still very rusty. I was told to get diesel oil to get rid of the rust, so I ventured outside with a glass jar, trying to find diesel oil: In the end a taxi driver knew […]
red hair in a black box
So the Caboose was still healthy: But she was dirty: And she was rusty: So I figured I had to clean her: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube I’d gotten two sponges and a bottle of fanta: When I was done I didn’t exactly feel […]
…and my chair
I arrived in Samarkand early in the morning, and the first thing I did was check on the Caboose: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Then I went to sleep in a calm and dark room of the hostel where I was staying: And then, […]
honeycomb of expectations
I have to be honest: I was a bit scared of Samarkand before I came here. Not scared as in scared of the police or scared of a bear. But scared of my own expectations. I had been dreaming about Samarkand for almost a decade by now. Would the city let me down? Short answer: […]
Samarkand
When we woke up, we came up with a plan. Ruben was going to stay in the city and take care of some things for us there. Book train tickets. Check out some local souvenirs. That sort of thing. I took a cab back to Bulungur and met up with the family who had stored […]
welcome to yolo
When we woke up, we were still alive. The stove was still burning. The gas hadn’t killed us. So we left the place and got on the road. Bought some bread on the way: Gallaorol looked a bit better in the sun, but only a bit: I got a bit upset at this stretch of […]
gas
When we got up in the morning, the fog was gone. So we started walking: The city was alright to walk: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube After a while, Jizzakh disappeared behind us, and we were on a country road: We knew from the […]
wealth of fog
We were still staying in, innocently celebrating our newfound affluence: When we went out for dinner, a thick fog was covering Jizzakh: Anyway, we managed to find the place we usually went to. It was called Smile: So we sat down and ordered a bunch of fast food: When we were done, the fog was […]
broke/unbroke
We were broke. So we took a cab to some obscure place: And then we weren’t broke anymore. We decided to celebrate with pizza for lunch: And burgers for dinner: Oh, and we watched a lot of Simpsons, too.
frozen vacation
We knew today was going to be tough, because we had seen the whole distance. The thing about walking is this: it seems much harder from a vehicle or an airplane, because then you are able to see large distances at a time. But once you are out there walking on your own two feet, […]
ride ahead
In the morning, we said good-bye to Tatyana, the friendly lady who was in charge of our hotel in Yangiyer: Then we took a cab back to Ulyanovo and went to Ikram’s house. The Caboose was there. And so was his family. It was Sunday. “Come in for tea!” they said. So we went in […]
7-0-0-0
When we got up, we packed the Caboose and took her outside, upon which we immediately set her down again… …for this was our place to dance: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube We had come up with a plan to dedicate this historical 7000km […]
almost a dance
When we finally left Gulistan, we got terribly lost in its bazaar: See the gate in the back of the picture? That wasn’t the way out. Well, we walked past Christmas decorations… …and past a sign that said SAMARQAND: This was the first time that I had ever seen the name Samarqand outside in the […]
smashing subaquatic soup
More unwellness meant more staying in the hotel. Well, we left our room once to go to a restaurant nearby. It had a sort of underwater theme, and the music was really fucking loud: We were not sure if we liked this or not (we kinda did: check out the soundtrack of the day), but […]
I like pink
We stayed in today. Watched some Simpsons. Read a little. Ruben was feeling unwell, so he wasn’t up to much. I had an interview scheduled, but since the internet in this place was so slow, we had to resort to sending voice messages back and forth via messaging app. It took a while. Enough time […]
half day of frost
We couldn’t leave right away. First we had to ride a car for forty minutes: When we arrived in Yangiyul, we waited for two hours in front of the courthouse: Then I was finally handed my documents. But we couldn’t go back just yet. First we had to register our stay at the hotel in […]