Tag Archives: resting
royally afraid
Remember how excited I was to find out that Tajikistan was apparently dominated not by Coca-Cola and not by Pepsi, but by Royal Crown Cola? I’m of course a Dr. Pepper guy, but I always appreciate the struggle of the underdog, so I was happy to see that RC is apparently launching a campaign into […]
under mud
The Caboose seemed to be in good shape, which meant that no repairs were necessary, which in turn meant that I had the day off. I decided to check out the 8th/9th century Samanid Mausoleum, one of the oldest monuments in Central Asia: It had allegedly survived the Mongol invasion because it had been buried […]
farewell to all
Sometimes it feels as if I’m traveling through all these places just to say good-bye to them. So I bid farewell to Tashkent today: I left it on a train in the evening. It was a good train, one of the new Afrosiob bullet trains that I had first been on several months ago. The […]
the oldest door and the fire
I had an interview today with a charming local journalist called Olesya: We met for lunch, so I suggested we go to the place that made the best lagman in town. But of course this happened: It was closed. Of course it was closed. Abandoning the idea of having the best lagman in town, we […]
sizes of things
When I woke up, the train was still rumbling along: The kids had been quiet for most of the night, so that was good. The hostel I usually stayed at in Tashkent didn’t have any rooms, so I did what I had been wanting to do since I came to Tashkent for the first time […]
funny looks
Had a burger today: A bearded dude in a chic restaurant having a fancy burger. Hipster status achieved? Then I went to the train station: I was going to board the night train to Tashkent (the one that I had taken in the other direction two months earlier), but when I got there, a group […]
some nerdy stuff about maps
I went to a food court today: The above picture looks more fancy than it really is. The food is simple and cheap. This is what I got: Then I did something I had been wanting to do for a long time – I updated the Google Earth file: It’s strange to think that this […]
popcorn and lollipops
Walked around town and tried to buy a train ticket to Tashkent today. It took a while until I found the right ticket bureau. I’d tell you which one it was, but I forgot. Ha! Anyway, Almaty was nice in late summer: Once I had my ticket I went to a large shopping mall and […]
fear smothered in cake
I wasn’t going to fly to Tashkent if I could avoid it. You might remember how I suddenly came to the realization that flying was bad for the environment a while ago. But I hated buses. So I decided to go to Almaty and take a train to Tashkent from there. Only first I went […]
misogynist beats racist
When I went and had breakfast this morning, I was surprised to see that the Mayweather-McGregor fight was on. Wasn’t it supposed to be a PPV thing? Well, here it was apparently on regular-ass tv. A couple of dudes were watching the fight: Later, some more dudes appeared, and we all found out that the […]
the v needs pickles
It was the weekend, so I decided to take it easy and walk around town for a while. Bishkek, like many other places, seemed to look best in late summer, when it could show off its parks: It reminded me a lot of that time I had been here three years earlier, in the summer […]
out the door
So I packed all my stuff together: Well, not all of it. I left some things in the room: a large towel, an inflatable mattress, a candle, a box of wash powder, a box of matches, the melon ball, a plastic cup, a 5-liter container of water. And then I was out the door: Into […]
Bye Issyk-Kul
What a hangover… I was hardly able to move until late in the afternoon. Then I went out to say good-bye to the lake. I knew I was going to miss this place: I decided that eating was a good remedy against a hangover. So I went to the usual place and ordered the usual: […]
more work
I still hadn’t finished correcting the Chinese manuscript of my book “Neuschweinstein”, and the deadline was getting closer. So while she was outside doing all kinds of fun stuff, I sat on my bed and stared at my computer screen all day: This was work that I wasn’t going to get paid for. In fact, […]
the ten thousand
If you like food, Tashkent is the best place in Uzbekistan. Sure, other areas have their own specialties, but only the big city offers such a large variety of different flavors to choose from, including Korean, Georgian, and Vietnamese. So we ate and we ate. Sometimes we had exotic foods, sometimes we tried local stuff: […]
next pahlava in Baku?
Today was good. There was only a tiny hint of sadness, because I found out that the Azeri food joint where I would get my dosage of pahlava until just a few months ago had been closed and demolished: This was something typical of cities in this part of the world (China included) – everything […]
darker than… her
Today was Bukhara’s big day: The Silk And Spice Festival. It seemed as though the whole town had shown up. Plus a bunch of student volunteers in white shirts and white caps. There was a music show going on, and some people in the audience were dancing as well: Eugene was there, too: He’s a […]
fest prep
Woke up in Bukhara, aching. Went outside once, because there was some sort of noise that I could not quite identify: It was the final rehearsal for the Silk And Spice Festival parade. The real deal was going to take place the next day. To my untrained eyes and ears, it seemed as though everyone […]
forget about fast wifi
Uzbekistan, albeit being a very nice place to visit, didn’t have very good access to the internet. Actually, in most places it was pretty painful. Yet there is one thing I don’t think I ever told you: Jizzakh, somewhere between Tashkent and Samarkand, had excellent internet. And I mean excellent. Bukhara, well, not so much. […]
breakfast
Every morning when I went down to the breakfast hall, I would have two hard-boiled eggs and four little bread thingies: I’d wash it all down with some fruit juice, then ask for some hot water for my thermos. I don’t like being without tea. Then I would sit down and work on the translation […]