We expected this visa application process to be hell, but we surprisingly received the visa the same day we applied in Baku, Azerbaijan. The friendly, English-speaking Uzbek Consul there acted as if he hadn’t seen a tourist in ages and seemed to be happy to have something to do. Without the LOI, the process would have taken us 3-5 business days and would likely have been peppered with perfunctory paranoia.

We heard horror stories from people who applied for visas to Uzbekistan from other countries. “That woman is evil!” is a direct quote from a tourist describing the woman at the Uzbek Embassy in Bishkek. Some people we know gave up and crossed Uzbekistan off their itinerary altogether in order to avoid another trip to the embassy there.

When in Uzbekistan, the game of collecting registration cards from hotels and guest houses begins. We were never asked by the police or border guards to see these chits, but it’s better to err on the side of caution regarding bureaucratic issues in Uzbekistan.

Cost:
Uzbekistan Letter of Invitation: $30 per person through Stantours.
Uzbekistan Visa: $100/person for a 30-day visa, payment at the International Bank of Azerbaijan in Baku. Two trips to the embassy (in the middle of nowhere) are required: one to apply and/or leave your Letter of Invitation and another to bring your bank receipt and collect your visa.

Possibly Related Articles:

• Kazakhstan Visas and Letters of Invitation (LOI)
• Turkmenistan Visas and Letters of Invitation (LOI)
• Sex and the Central Asian Visa
• Tajikistan Visas and GBAO Permits
• Kyrgyzstan Visas

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | No comment

I don’t know why my country, he likes to cheat everyone.

– Aziza, an Uzbek woman, rhetorically pondering why many of her Uzbek countrymen enjoy ripping off tourists so much.

Shaft us once, shame on you. Shaft us twice, shame on us. Try and shaft us repeatedly and charge our friends $1.00 for a few teaspoons of sugar, and we write a blog post about you. [Yes, one of our travel mates was repeatedly charged for sugar – and outrageous sums, no less.]

Apologies to all of our recently acquired Uzbek friends, but rip-offs in Uzbekistan – particularly along the touristy parts of the Silk Road – seem endemic.

Living in Pakistan with her husband, Aziza returns often to visit her family in Tashkent. As an experiment to see what foreigners are charged for services, she occasionally pretends to be an English-speaking tourist when she returns. After receiving a “foreigner price” of five to ten times the normal rate, she then berates the taxi driver (or other service provider) in fluent Uzbek. As if still questioning the perpetrators of all those attempted rip-offs, Aziza continued, “Why you make me a fool?”

In order to demonstrate, we offer a few representative anecdotes from our experiences, from banking to dining:

1) National Bank, Urgench. It probably goes without saying, but count your money. Always. And the more official the institution in Uzbekistan, the more suspicious you should be. We learned the hard way. Every money exchange transaction involved missing bills that had to be coaxed from the money-changer.

Our worst experience of all occurred at the hands of the National Bank of Uzbekistan branch at Urgench. After exhausting us and our two friends for 90 minutes in a simple U.S. dollars to Uzbek som transaction, the agents pretended to forget to give us our money. When they finally forked it over, we didn’t count it, somehow satisfied with the official looking paper bands wrapped around each stack of 50 bills. Only later did we discover that two of our officially-banded stacks were short a few bills. Although we only lost a few dollars in the transaction, the bank’s audacity was infuriating.

By the way, if anyone in Uzbekistan finds eight extra bills in their stacks of Uzbekistani som from the National Bank in Urgench, please drop us a line. Maybe it really was an honest mistake

2) You’ll rarely find menus at restaurants. “Why?” we asked Aziza. “Oh, they have menus. They don’t give you the menu because it’s easier to cheat you that way.” Three examples (of many) come to mind:

a. Farrukh Restaurant, Khiva. Its comfy tables and brightly colored suzani (embroidered wall hangings) cater to a tourist crowd. Waitresses are polite and well-dressed. There’s even a slight air of formality. But no menus, strangely enough.

Our friends asked the price of the main dishes before ordering to ensure the place was still within everyone’s budget. However, upon receiving our bill, we were all shocked by the amount which was a bottom line figure without any detail and several times higher than we had calculated.

“Can you explain to us how much everything cost?” we asked our waitress. She pulled away from the table and returned with something resembling an itemized bill. The food was still reasonably priced, but the beers were five times what we had paid in a similar restaurant just down the street. We questioned the price and our waitress offered matter-of-factly, “This is good price. The Intercontinental Hotel in Tashkent, twice as much.” Not only was the bill bad, but so was her attitude.

b. Market in Samarkand. We decided (as we often do) to grab a bite off-trail by ducking into an alley-side restaurant stall on the edge of Samarkand’s main food market. In the middle of our meal, a man sidled up to us and engaged us with some usual chit-chat in Russian. At the end of the meal, he tried to “help” us by inserting himself into the bill payment process. What he didn’t know was that we had already asked for the price of absolutely every last bit on our table, having previously learned our lesson. Not only were his prices incorrect, but his math was conveniently off in the northerly direction by 50-100%. We ignored him and amidst the lunchtime chaos, we found the woman who ran the place and paid her what we knew we owed.

c. Art Café Dervish, Tashkent. One evening in Tashkent, we decided to pop into Art Café Dervish, just down the street from the Hotel Orzu where we were staying. Dervish had a menu, thankfully. The prices were relatively high compared to other local joints, but there was no service charge indicated on the menu. (Uzbek service is by no means world class, but you’ll find service charges occasionally indicated in menus and often appearing on your bill, running upwards of 20 percent.

After finishing our meal and watching the British group at the next table suffer through a painfully slow and error-filled eating experience where most of their food never arrived and half the party left hungry and frustrated, our bill arrived with an unmarked 20% service charge tacked on. We engaged the waiter. In Russian, he indicated, “This is normal.” We said, “Not normal. Not on the menu,” and asked for the manager. Someone posing as a manager appeared. “This is normal. Standard,” he said with a tone that implied “…you idiot.” When we continued to press him, he explained that the restaurant was using the “old menus with old prices.” Their new menus had the service charge marked, but the prices were higher. According to him, we were getting a discount and shouldn’t complain.

Follow that impenetrable logic? Neither did we. We calculated a 10% service charge (which was also excessive), paid our bill and walked out. Avoid this place. The food is mediocre, the service is horrible and dishonest, and the guy who posed as the manager is condescending. Not the right equation when you’re looking for a pleasant meal.

If money is precious and you don’t enjoy getting ripped off, be aware when you are following the tourist trail in Uzbekistan. An attitude prevails, and is even sometimes voiced, that says “Why are you here if you don’t have a lot of money?” It’s not so much the amount of money that is at stake in these transactions, but the principle of it all.

If getting ripped off is no issue for you, let it ride. That said, diligently asking the price of everything in advance and maintaining a sense of humor will keep you sane and vendors honest. If you happen to be traveling for business, you likely won’t feel any of this. Nor will you care. You’ve got business to take care of and someone else is probably footing the bill.

A Bright Star
Not everyone is in the game, however. While in Bukhara, we met Star, a young 20-something Tajik-Uzbek woman with a sharp business sense and a remarkable ability to acquire languages.

Star spotted Audrey struggling to tie her Turkmen silk scarf under the beating August Uzbek sun and offered her a sure scarf-tying hand.

The next day, Audrey was scarf-less as we passed by Star’s ceramics stand. Star noticed, and later that day she beckoned us over, presented Audrey with a new scarf and invited us to talk with her. We were apprehensive from our recent interactions with vendors where money seemed the sole objective. Star called us on our mistrust and joked that she wasn’t going to try and sell us anything. We laughed through the awkward moment and sat with her for the next hour, watching her speak five different languages as she sold ceramic bowls and tea sets. In the down time, we talked about life in Bukhara and politics in Uzbekistan, and asked her what tourists are like from her perspective as a vendor.

We enjoyed one of our most enlightening discussions in Uzbekistan in the least likely of places – a ceramics stand in the most touristy area of Bukhara.

More photos here and here.

Possibly Related Articles:

• Images from Uzbekistan
• Uzbekistan Visas and Letters of Invitation (LOI)
• A Real Peek at Uzbekistan’s Silk Road: A Scavenger Hunt
• Battle at the Border
• Sex and the Central Asian Visa

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 17 comments

This scavenger hunt is intended to help you get under the surface of Uzbekistan’s polished Silk Road tourist veneer which you’ll find in Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand. We’ve also thrown in Nukus and Tashkent as a bonus. The list below includes some serious suggestions, as well as a few head-scratchers.

1. Nukus: The large Russian woman at the bar of the Hotel Nukus who protects female tourists from the unwanted kisses of drunken Uzbek senators.
Of course, watch out first for the (supposed) Uzbek senator who flashes his ID card and gives his room number to and makes passes at female tourists. Our Russian protectress had to virtually beat this guy away with a broom.

2. Nukus: Bathroom reading.
Take note that rooms at the Hotel Nukus come outfitted with toilet paper whose texture and finish matches that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Mildly elastic and crimped like crepe paper, this dual-purpose recycled toilet paper allows you to catch up on yesterday’s news while in the loo. If you are a bathroom reader, this stuff is for you.

3. Nukus: The Savitsky Museum, where early 20th century Soviet Avant-Garde art meets Uzbek and Karakalpak ethnography.
Donations and care have turned this place into a remarkable – and because of its somewhat remote location, under-appreciated – museum. Although names like Etcheistov, Lyssenko, Oufimtsev, Volkov, and Mazel may not jump off the page, their “Lost Period” Soviet art is worthy of consideration and makes this museum a worthwhile visit. As a bonus, the museum’s ethnography section offers a useful visual primer into Karakalpakstan and life on the Silk Road.

4. Mizdakhan: A necropolis megalopolis

This mesmerizing, sprawling cemetery appears out of the middle of nowhere just after the Turkmen-Uzbek border about 15 km away from Nukus. Although it looks like a city, no one lives here. Catch the cemetery in the late afternoon sun. Be sure to hail the taxi driver who is able to read his Koran while driving at full speed.

5. Khiva: A bank with money. Unfortunately, Uzbekistan persistently sits on the cutting edge of financial innovation by way of its vast network of banks that feature absolutely no money. Maybe you are asking yourself, “where can I find one of these fine institutions?” The answer: just about everywhere, particularly outside of Tashkent. You’ll know you are in one of them if you look around and notice that all the lights are out and a dozen or more underemployed people skulk around bleakly under an invisible blanket of control.

6. Khiva: Authenticity.
Release yourself from the confines of Khiva’s old city walls and venture outside for a refreshing moment. We did in search of a bank (see #5) and found a hope-affirming experience instead. In a grand “random act of kindness” moment, a sweet 8-months pregnant Uzbek woman running an ice cream stand and her lunch partner abandoned their table and insisted that we and our friend Dave take their place and finish their plov. They even sought out some salad and bread to round out our meal. Then, they insisted that we not pay for any of it, explaining that we were their guests.

7. Bukhara: A train ticket that looks like a paper doll cut-out.
The cashier literally cuts around the numbers in order to create the receipt, which in our case amounted to 6950 som ($5.50).

In bouts of creativity, ticket officials throw in additional “insurance fees” and other random fees ensuring that no two people will pay the same price for the exact same ticket. From our informal survey, Germans paid the least, Russians paid the most and the Americans were somewhere in the middle. Try forming your international relations dissertation around this one.

To be fair, Uzbek trains are pleasant (at least the express ones are) and represent good value for the money. As a bonus, on-board video screen entertainment includes Bollywood films, Russian pop tune videos and – bizarrely – 12-year old Russian-Uzbek belly dancers.

8. Samarkand: Mongol Rally drivers.

Sometimes it’s not about the place, but instead about the people you meet when you are there. If you find yourself in Samarkand in the heat of August, take a look for cars lined up for the Mongol Rally (hint: they will be near Bahodir’s B&B). Enjoy their stories of border crossings, police stops, bribe techniques and how to weld a car back together in the middle of the desert. Good company.

9. Shakhrisabz: A wedding.

Based on our experience and the stories of others, Shakhrisabz seems to be the place to go to catch an Uzbek wedding. You might find yourself in the midst of the wedding party, having your photo taken with the bride and groom.

Though the sites in Shakhrisabz are not breathtaking by any means, if you have an extra day, the trip from Samarkand to Shakhrisabz offers some fine mountain scenery (distinctly different than hard pan desert).

10. Tashkent: Russian-speaking Koreans.
We were surprised to hear ethnic Koreans speaking Russian to one another. Thanks to Tashkent’s local Korean population, markets have at least one aisle devoted to pickled vegetables and salads. But the real joys are the reasonably-priced Korean restaurants, where you can down bibimbap to your heart’s delight.

The Korean back-story: Stalin deported approximately 200,000 Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia in 1937 on the grounds that they might be spies or traitors. There are an estimated 450,000 Koreans throughout Central Asia today.

11. Tashkent: A woman whose mini-skirt is longer than her high heels.
From a male perspective, Tashkent is surprisingly and refreshingly “cosmopolitan.” If you visit in the summertime, note that its female Russian population dresses on the scanty side.

12. Tashkent: A tourist who is sick and therefore consulting the Bristol Stool Scale.
For some reason, it seemed that absolutely everyone we’d met on the tourist trail in Tashkent had come down with some sort of stomach ailment.

For the uninitiated, the Bristol scale can be politely described as a formal feces classification tool. One group of guys running the Mongol Rally could be overheard performing squat analyses like, “Yeah, yesterday I was a six, maybe seven. Today, I think I’m hovering around four.”

13. Tashkent: The taxi driver who watches music videos of obscure 1970s American hard rock bands on a VCD screen clipped to the passenger’s side sun visor. Beware, if he senses even a modicum of interest in American rock, he will talk your ear off and keep popping in more VCDs; you’ll never reach your destination.

Though you’d probably never do this at home (if you live somewhere in the western world), if you take advantage of Tashkent’s system of informal taxis, you’ll witness a fascinating and frugal feature of its transportation landscape. Just put your arm out, wait for a car to stop, negotiate a price and hop in. Prices vary based on your nationality, your ability to speak Russian, and your gender. In our experience, starting prices for Audrey (alone) were 50% of those for Dan.

14. Tashkent: A place where you can get a decent bowl of borscht (cabbage and beet soup) and take in some Russian pole dancing. Believe it or not, there’s a restaurant for those interested. After enjoying her borscht, Audrey dragged Dan out before the show began – to save on the additional “service fees,” of course. You’ll find it a few doors away from the Korean restaurant on Glinka Street.

15. Tashkent: Exceptional Soviet architecture.

We’re not joking. Because Tashkent was virtually razed to the ground during a 1966 earthquake, it was almost entirely rebuilt in the Soviet aesthetic. Although this eventually becomes tough on the eyes, look up, down and around for Soviet style government buildings, apartments, monuments, parks, and traffic dividers. The highlight: Tashkent’s subway stations. They are beautiful and feature designs ranging from Soviet Realist mosaic to Islamic tile. Don’t miss the famed Cosmonaut station.

More photos – Silk Road, Tashkent, and Mizdakhan

Practical Details

Where to stay:
Nukus: There are only two real options in town. Hotel Nukus is the better alternative. $10/person. Just watch out for drunk “senators” hanging outside in the evening.

Bukhara: Malikjon B&B, Sarafon Street #9. Tel: (998365)2245050 – Very close to Labi Havuz (main square). $10/person for a simple, but clean room with en suite bathroom.

Samarkand: Bahodir’s B&B, Mulokandov 132. Super-friendly hosts, good traveler environment. If you can, splurge for a room with a private bathroom ($16-$18 for a double). The shared squat toilet, besides being subject to hits and misses, turns into a sauna because of its proximity to the water heater.

Tashkent: Hotel Orzu, Ivleva Street #14 – Tel: 120 80 77/120 88 22. Friendly front desk, good breakfast, comfortable rooms and good location. $33/double (August 2007). Update, September 2008: the website says $60/double. That’s a considerable jump in price.

Where to eat:
Bukhara: Even if you’re not staying at Malikjon B&B, it’s worth a visit for dinner one evening as the hostess assembles impressive spreads. The first dinner we ate there was our best in Uzbekistan. Vegetarian options are available (ask for the eggplant salad). 5,000 som ($4) per person.

Tashkent: Across the street from Hotel Orzu, try Flamingo in a simple, pleasant outdoor garden setting. They make their “wedding” plov fresh every day. Probably the best plov we’d had and very cheap (around 1000-1500 som, depending on the size of the plate).

Tashkent has a surprisingly good network of wifi cafes. Our favorite place was Cafe Bourgeois on Shota Rustaveli Street. Not only can you get a real latte (a nice break from Nescafe) and a chicken burger here, but you’ll probably get smiles from the friendly wait-staff, too.

The best Italian food in Tashkent can be found at Bistro (Movarounnakhr 33). Grilled vegetables from a wood-fired oven offer a nice change of pace from the typical Uzbek fare and pizzas are done well. The wine isn’t bad either. The staff claim it’s Uzbek, but with a name like Classico, we’re thinking some odd Uzbek government regulation is at play. The stuff tastes rather Italian.

Good Korean food (wifi access, too) at Cocos, the Korean cafe at 13 Glinka Street (near the corner of Shota Rustaveli) and within walking distance from Hotel Orzu. Try the bibimbap, tasty and substantial enough to feed two people.

Our route through Uzbekistan can be found on the Google MyMaps below.

Possibly Related Articles:

• Images from Uzbekistan
• Uzbekistan? Overchargistan!
• Ashgabat, The City of Love: A Scavenger Hunt
• Tbilisi, Georgia: A Scavenger Hunt
• Staying Connected on the Road: The Caucasus and Central Asia

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | One comment

To our pleasant surprise, exiting Uzbekistan customs and passport control couldn’t have been easier. Then – our real test – the Kazakh side. The combined wisdom of Soviet and Asian queuing techniques conspired to produce large clouds of humanity everywhere, rendering it impossible to determine where things started and where they might end.

We joined the queue at the rear of an anxious mob – some carrying shoulder bags, many lugging sagging Chinese sacks of vegetables and melons, and others laden with all of their worldly possessions. The gate in front of this herd of hundreds was locked. As people escaped and climbed back to the Uzbek side (for what we’re not certain), the remaining crowd swelled and swayed. Those around us hung onto our backpacks and tried to maneuver where they could, even though there was nowhere to go. In amazement, Audrey asked a Russian-Uzbek woman who seemed to look comfortable in this setting. “Is this normal? Is it like this every day?” The woman smiled, and nodded “Yes. Don’t worry, a few more pushes and we’ll make it to the front.”

As the full force of Uzbek-Kazakh rush hour hit, what little space existed disappeared and the real crush began. What air remained became almost too hot to breathe. We could feel our lungs taking on the pressure and slowly collapsing under the weight of bodies around us. In one of our most physically challenging travel moments yet, fainting was a distinct possibility. Injury was certain.

We were worried. The scene was something like a mosh pit, minus the order, joy and human decency. This was humanity and human misery at its worst: everyone tries to get in and ahead and no one realizes that the system crushes everyone under its own weight. This is the worst Russified post-Soviet Central Asian madness and behavior that we could imagine.

We looked around into the eyes of the herd and we could see normal people transformed into mutants consumed by anger, their faces twisting in smiles of fatigue. And there was no reason for this madness – no war, no shortages, no violence. What was going on here? Pretty simple: this is what happens when poor organization and perfect corruption conspire to bring human misery where it simply doesn’t belong. If this represents the combined wisdom of the Uzbek and Kazakh governments, life can only get worse before it gets better.

In an effort to stay together, we locked arms. But the shifting human mass stripped us of our ability to move on our own and we eventually separated and drifted into the crowd. More people arriving from behind meant increased pressure, sandwiching the crowd more tightly forward towards the locked gate.

Dan struggled to move beyond an old man with an overflowing sack of watermelons and a group of Kazakh women built like linebackers. Women around us yelled, “Kazakhstan. It’s our Kazakhstan. I’m Kazakh, let me in. Kazakhstan is for us.” Angry Uzbek women replied that they were just as entitled to enter. Fortunately, no serious fights broke out, but everyone’s animal instincts were turned on full blast.

After three hours in this angry steam bath of humanity, Audrey made it to the front gate and caught the eye of a Kazakh border guard. Just moments earlier, he had allowed a group of Kazakh citizens to pass due to their conveniently money-stuffed passports. Armed with her American passport and a look of helplessness, she implored him to let her through. As he opened the gate he smiled ironically, “Welcome to Kazakhstan.” The teeming masses tried to follow. The guard barked at them hinting that his gun was handy and tried to slam the gate. He perched himself against a metal fence and tried to close it against the weight of the mob with the force of his legs.

The final challenge: to find and extract Dan. The guard was not up for this challenge. Dan was still several rows back in the angry crowd. Audrey tried with another guard, assuming the role of a distraught woman in search of her husband. Dan raised his hand to indicate where he was. The guard yelled and motioned to let him through. No one moved. Even if they could, would they? As a trickle escaped through the front gate, the crowd rocked back and forth in waves. Undeterred, the guard gave his best effort and reached in. In what little energy remained, Dan surged forward. His bags twisted in the crowd and he nearly went horizontal in an unintended crowd surf. He handed his passport to Audrey over the gate and reached to the outstretched hands of the guard, who helped to pull him – scratching and scraping just like the others – over and through the mob.

We were both covered in sweat, dehydrated and exhausted, but we still had one more hurdle to cross – getting our passports and immigration cards stamped by the Kazakh police. The corruption factory had apparently spawned another group of lowlife entrepreneurial women who collected money-loaded passports and handed them to the front of this queue, thereby expediting them to the colluding border guard at the window. Families huddled behind, unraveling wads of money (usually between $1-$3) to tuck into each passport. Having come this far without paying a bribe, we stuck to our principles and waited it out. When we arrived at the window, we were shown to a more civilized “foreigner’s line.”

Like all perfectly corrupt systems, there is an alternative to the experience above. Apparently, for around $8 (perhaps more for non-Kazakhs), middlemen touts have an arrangement with Kazakh border guards to allow people to enter through another gate, thereby fast-forwarding them to the front of the passport queue. We had considered this, but decided on principle not to contribute to the corruption; we subjected ourselves to the madness instead. By the time we’d figured this out, extracting ourselves was not an option anyhow. And in truth, we needed a really good story after enjoying so many uneventful days drinking lattes in Tashkent.

Next time, would we pay to avoid the crowd? Having woken up with our share of cuts and bruises, it’s hard to say. For those of you who have ever paid a bribe (either directly or through a company that acts as a bribe-paying middleman or fixer), you are aware how systems that embrace endemic corruption have a way of wearing down your principles.

Cuts, bruises, and reflection aside, we were very fortunate to be carrying American passports.

Otherwise, we might still be at the border.

Possibly Related Articles:

• Kazakhstan Visas and Letters of Invitation (LOI)
• O Brothel, Where Art Thou?
• From Ecuador to Turkmenistan: 10 Border Crossings We Have Known
• Uzbekistan? Overchargistan!
• Kazakhstan’s Postal Police

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 16 comments

Tashkent has been the most connected city in Central Asia thus far. Rather ironic considering Uzbekistan’s penchant for blocking internet sites and restricting printed material. Just one of the many contradictions here.

Next up, the journey continues with our search for Borat in Kazakhstan.

Uzbekistan’s Silk Road Stops

- Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand

Uzbek Food and Markets

Mizdakhan: Necropolis Megalopolis

Tashkent, Seen on the Street

Possibly Related Articles:

• A Real Peek at Uzbekistan’s Silk Road: A Scavenger Hunt
• Uzbekistan? Overchargistan!
• Video of the Central Asian Market Scene
• The Best of Central Asia in Photos
• Tajikistan: Images from the Roof of the World

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | No comment

In Uzbekistan, we’ve also come across small cars covered with stickers and driven by Westerners desperate for the next mechanic or gas station.

What’s all the fuss? Awareness, fundraising and rallies.

Driving Home Road Safety 2007

Phil Colley and Richard Meredith are driving an Aston Martin V8 Vantage sportscar from Tokyo to London to raise awareness for road safety and safe driving. We met them while staying in Ashgabat.

Richard was fined $100 for smoking in his own car (smoking in public places in Turkmenistan is prohibited). After almost three hours of negotiation, their guide managed to convince the police officer not to impound the car and take their passports for a few days. As a result, they managed not to overstay their visas and made it on schedule to the Caspian Sea ferry from Turkmenbashi to Baku. If they survived the roads in Georgia, they should be arriving in London any day now.

Royal Marsden and Future Hope Drive Home
Max and George are driving an Indian Ambassador from Calcutta to London to raise money and awareness for an orphanage in Calcutta called Future Hope. Future Hope was started by a British banker working in Calcutta who began taking in street kids from the train station. This developed into a proper orphanage and has now grown into a network of several.

London to Mongolia Rally
The Uzbek desert is littered with sticker-adorned compact cars (maximum engine is one liter) on their way to Mongolia. Just so happens that our route through Uzbekistan coincided with a few rally teams, including Rob Dewhurst and Phil Giblin of Team Tempus Fugit. We shared the same hotel as they set down in search of a good view of Bukhara and a good mechanic.

Although the drivers are racing through countries without much time for sightseeing, they are all gaining and learning from the experience. Rob and Phil shared stories with us of their drive across Iran where they were met with overwhelming hospitality and kindness. For example, they almost ran out of gas because of Iran’s current gas rationing regime. A local family came to their rescue and gave them almost seven days worth of gas (20 liters) and refused payment.

Possibly Related Articles:

• No Beards, No Spandex: Rules to Live By?
• Manana to Mania: Rules of the Georgian Road
• A Real Peek at Uzbekistan’s Silk Road: A Scavenger Hunt
• Turkmen Photos Up
• Central Asia Travel: A Beginner’s Guide

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | No comment