Travel, 50+, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan seems to have invested a fairly large amount of money into tourism and attempts to lure travelers in, in recent years. You may have witnessed advertisements of their exotic promises. You may have seen paid travel shows telling how great it is. You may have encountered influencers raving about how amazing everything is and how friendly the people are. The silky winds of history, still there to touch. The food, oh my goodness gracious, the food!! The PR is indeed very good, the hype is building up and you might expect these shielded and hand picked experiences as a sign suggesting: "Why not? After all, why shouldn't I go?"

From the calculated broad brush fantasy to somewhat of a Nordic noir reality is where I step in. The journey including everything was supposed to last around a not too shabby six hours or so. It lasted over thirteen. As our little entourage of curious souls was arriving, some of the locals got up in the plane while we were still landing. They opened the overhead compartments as soon as the tires hit the runway and started tossing bags around. The airline staff did nothing except for playing the "please remain seated"-recording in "all" languages. No harm, no foul (I guess.) The queues at the airport were surprisingly long, albeit not Japan long, and there were not too many foreign citizen border control points open. After obediently standing in line that seemed to move backwards for a while, a border guard ordered me and the entourage to a counter that was "Uzbekistan citizens only". Which then, as you might guess, ended up taking far longer than remaining in the queue we were in before would have taken.

The guy manning our booth was the most anal person in the whole universe, if not multiverse, alive. Very much ill-humored and instantly hostile, he looked at me and my passport. He proceeded to insult said passport and praise Russia in Russian, then explained in broken English that there are only two good passports in this world. The best is Russian, obviously, and the acceptable lesser alternative is the Uzbek one. Mine was shit, apparently. A classic sadistic bully's grin split the man's white face with pearly yellows as he awaited for my response. The brief, calculated utterance of wry wit, I delivered, did not receive much appreciation. It was difficult to tell how much the man understood, if at all. His response was none but a death of his grin at the hands of disappointment as he concluded that his trolling had failed.

The man checked the insides of the passport. First with naked eye, then with black light. Then with one of those loupes you might see in the hands of a jeweler, then, again, with the light and with another, bigger loupe. It took an eternity, but to his great disappointment, he found nothing wrong with the document. I was not the only one going through this. It was every foreigner unfortunate enough to end up at his booth, as far as I could tell.

After the anal probester 3000 max ultra, there was another passport check to make sure the booth had remembered to stamp it. Following that, the traveler is set free to battle the scammers. Definitely not suspicious at all guys canvassing the area, looking over their shoulder at the speed of one glance per second. Approaching you. Whispering "exchange, euro, dollar, pound". Another one whispering "taxi, good taxi". Spawning from the ground as you go, there seemed to be an endless supply of these guys. A professional slalom skier will struggle to avoid these obstacles. Yet, somehow, my entourage survived. We exchanged the local currency from the official place instead of Mr. I-have-banknotes-in-my-pocket and successfully drove off the zombie apocalypse of "good taxi" guys, who kept a little too close eye on the security detail at the airport. Our accommodation had advised to use Yandex Go as "it's a system where they cannot scam you". Narrator: But they could.

As any low IQ scam, the taxi guy's play ended up in him getting caught with his pants down. As any low level crook, he pulled the only card they seem to have: public outrage. Always the public outrage. He started yelling, underlining his innocence, blaming our entourage for everything under the sun, he jumped out of his vehicle and attempted to collect an audience... But it was very late, or early, in the morning part of the night and there was just one guy outside and he paced a lot faster as the outrage reached his ears. It was rather amusing, which could not be shown in the moment, of course. The driver, even, appealed to a couple of cars passing and then ran off inside the accommodation we were booked to stay at. The benefit was proper translation and we could quickly establish we had a way to prove who was owed what. Now, as the guy realized his little play was ruined and he was the one getting screwed, he angrily tossed banknotes at us and left. Stomping like a little child protesting a failure they cannot accept. Whew! Right? And, now, finally... it was time for some of that greatness, hospitality, friendliness and everything you see in the paid posts and advertisements. The Uzbekistan paradise experience!

While the receptionist at the accommodation was polite and all.. Well, the experience was not all that great we had hoped for based on the reviews of our particular accommodation. Exhausted and expecting to have a quick shower before collapsing on the bed and snoozing off till it was time to explore the wonders of Samarkand turned into something quite different. At first, we noticed there was rubbish everywhere. Partially empty bottles on the tables. Half eaten sandwiches in the closets. The room bin full of miscellaneous discard. An obvious case of a gorilla or some other hairy beast having shaved him- or herself on the bed. The toilet bowl was filled with urine samples from a sports team and someone had taken a good solid dump in the bin inside the bathroom. Amazing quality from a "10 for cleanliness". The receptionist was the only member of the staff available and he had to be handheld to each individual problem point separately for him to be able to solve them. It was suggested this was the only room available and they had only had like around 20 hours to clean it. In such a pinch, surely, the teeny tiny mishap is very understandable. Skipping the rest of the drama, I have to say... Uzbekistan? Would not recommend.

First impressions are important, they claim, but I have a habit of pushing through for more. Anyone can have a bad day, right? (Or an unusually good day, for that matter.) Even whole cities or countries. The arrival and overall experience of Samarkand was pretty bad. Cannot recommend it unless you have a healthy twisted sense of sick humor. The capital, however...

Everything was different. Better. The wet dream painted on the canvass of mental fantasy was coming true. The people were the nicest ever. The food was great. The sights were seen without unpleasantries. Shopping was fine. No harassment, no outrage, no trouble at all. Just traveling like a wannabe trailblazer on the virgin ups without the bitter spinster downs. Even without the industry preparation and guardrails, this is where you want to revisit. We even found cards, those cardboard igniters of envy, to send, which is not all that easy in Central Asia.

The funny, not ha-ha, thing is that we booked more days for the capital on accident that, out of laziness and compromise, were not changed when noticed. A happy little accident that made all the difference. The reason why I and we can honestly say Uzbekistan is alright. I'm guessing they thought we were alright, too. While it took "only" two security checks to get in, it took us four to get out. Almost like they wanted to keep us there. And why wouldn't they?

The Judgment:
Uzbekistan is full of young people. Especially the cities, where it's, let us say, more vibrant. The country side that we saw had people of approximately 50+ years of age and often more graves than people. There is a future that some other countries are desperately fighting to achieve (eg Japan, S.Korea) and you will hear of Uzbekistan in the future. There are some of those nasty ripples of globe-o-fobic Russian and Soviet propaganda that spoil the soil a bit, but it seems the more "free internet" acquainted people you meet, the more they accept you as just another person. Overall, the country was safe. Price-wise the place is affordable, although not amazingly cheap. The cities are quite modern. The location is the sort of a place where you can LARP an adventurer/explorer in a secure environment and it most definitely is safer than Middle East with somewhat of a similar flavor in exotic. It is still a bit wary of freedoms, though, and you can be pretty sure you are being observed to an extent. Were you to stay for longer, you will have to register your IMEI number with the government and bend over as far as you can. This is supposed to happen "after thirty days", but I'm not sure whether it is in a row or after the total over years. I have heard both cases in which after thirty days in the country your phone will no longer connect to network and you need the network to get it opened. So, now you know.

Would I go again? Yes. Just not via Samarkand. Just in case.