A quick stopover in Tashkent (Part 2)

View of Tashkent from our hotel room prior to departure.
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We leave Samarkand by bus after a late lunch today to head back to Tashkent for the flight home. The group splits into two, as those that fly out at midnight tomorrow are able to spend another half day in Samarkand, while those with morning flights need to be back in Tashkent tonight.

Shortly after we leave Samarkand, it begins to rain in Central Asia. Our guide tells us that they only get an average 120mm of rain in this area in any one year. By the time we have been on the road for a couple of hours, it has turned into a downpour, and I would guess they are getting a substantial part of their yearly average in this one day.

It gets dark early - our driver estimates that it will take about 5-6 hours to drive the 250 km, and he proves to be right on the money with this estimate.

The conversation turns to a reprise of a previous discussion - not unlike the scene from "Life of Brian" where they pose the question "What have the Romans ever done for us?".

In this case, the subject is "What have the Soviets ever done for us?" - is it positive or negative, and a lot of the issues are the same: "Law and order - we're a difficult lot to keep under control - remember Genghis Khan?" .. and from there to infrastructure, education, and so on.

It's easy to draw the parallel with Afghanistan - most of Central Asia was tin-pot despotic fiefdoms under the control of warlords (not unlike Afghanistan today), before the Soviets (not unlike Genhis Khan in his day) swept all that away. Colin Thubron in his book "Shadow of the Silk Road" makes the comment that the Soviets broke the link with the past in Central Asia, with the result that as they suddenly gained independence from the Soviets, they have become secular states, rather than theocracies like some of their near neighbours.

By the time we get to Tashkent, the downpour has let up, but there is surface water all over the road - the drainage systems here don't seem to be geared up to handle this much runoff. The bus runs through several of these small lakes and throws up waves of spray in the process.

When the luggage is pulled out of the bowels of the bus, it is all soaking wet. When we get to the room, we find that the water has soaked into the bottom of the cases as well. We leave it for the time being and go down to get our set meal before the restaurant closes.

In the restaurant, there is a team of Australian soccer players that have just arrived in the hotel for the U17 World Cup. We have a quick chat with them, and wish them luck before heading back to the room to spend an exciting last night in Central Asia drying out all our wet clothes using a hotel hair dryer.