In Tashkent

Hello! This is a very quick post to say that I'm in Uzbekistan. The border control to get here was hell,  probably the worst two hours I've ever spent doing anything. I'll tell you something: I care about my carbon footprint and I will always choose a twelve hour bus journey over a one hour flight, but if I need to cross the 134km between Shymkent and Tashkent again, I will fly.

Tashkent is good. I like it so far. It's not like Almaty though, where people leave you alone and let you get on with things. This is a pestering city. Everyone wants to say hello or help you find your way, and everyone official wants to see your passport. I presented mine to six different people before noon today. Three of them photocopied it.

Money is hilarious here. The first thing I did when I arrived was change $20 into 46000 Uzbek som. The official rate is much worse than that, but everyone changes money on the black market. You find a dude in the market with a bin bag full of money, and they give you a bundle of cash. It's the unofficially official way to do it, so they're mostly honest too.

The other weird thing: the biggest note is 1000 som ($0.43). I haven't even seen one of those yet, it's all been 500 som notes. $20 becomes 96 bits of paper. It takes two pockets to hold it all.

Tashkent has a metro with stations that are absolutely beautiful, but you're not allowed photograph them.
 
In other news, I've uploaded pictures of kokpar. Look, I'm not making it up!

http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Kazakhstan/Kokpar/ (Millions of pictures, sorry, but I've got six minutes left online and don't have time to cull them.)