I've sorted out my next visa, collected my next ticket, and handed off a load of laundry, and now there's nothing to do but sit in a cafe and read the paper. You could argue that Tashkent has attractions, buildings, statues, etc, that any worthwhile visitor would go look at, but after Bukhara and Samarkand I have monument fatigue. I have seen enough wonderful blue tiled buildings with beautiful domes, thank you. I'll just sit here with my coffee and cake.
Pictures are at http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Uzbekistan/ if you'd like monument fatigue too.
Tomorrow I'm going to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. From my brief reading about Azerbaijan, it seems that this is one of those places that have suffered horribly from finding oil and having sudden wealth: their environment's fouled up, their hotels cost a fortune, but somehow the average person is still broke. The Lonely Planet's suggested three day itinerary includes places that it later describes as "spirit crushing","mesmerising ugliness", "infamous pollution", "a nightmare vision of leaky small-scale oil detritus and rusting old boats". (I know at least two people reading this are buying plane tickets already).
I do enjoy horrific decay as much as the next person, but this, the book reckons, is the very best the country has to offer if you only have three days. If you visit for a whole week, who knows what kind of oily adventures you get to have. Poor Azerbaijan.
[Side note: six months ago, Tanya's knowledge of Azerbaijan was: 1) beside Armenia, right? 2) probably has a complicated relationship with Russia 3) um...? Since then, she has skimmed a pdf version of an out of date travel guide to the country. There is a reasonable possibility that she has no idea whatsoever what she's talking about. Azerbaijan might be perfectly charming. Also, Baku's old town has UNESCO world heritage status, so it does have some nice things and stop being mean.]
Anyway, I'm flying to Baku tomorrow afternoon. I've got nine days to get from there to Istanbul, so I won't be there long enough to see much of anything, nightmarish or otherwise.
Having to fly is disappointing, because I'd hoped to go by land, but without a Russian visa the options were
- wait three weeks for a Turkmenistan visa that's 50% likely to be rejected for no reason, or
- go back through the border crossing of doom, spend 84 hours on a train across Kazakhstan, then wait around until a cargo ship is crossing the Caspian sea. Since they'd like me to be back in the office at some point[1], Tashkent airport, here I come.
[1] Probably. It's likely that I've been automated by now.
Two friends of mine are working on a travelogue and photo book of a region on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
ReplyDeleteMy father visited Azerbaijan briefly some years ago (would have been the late 1990s, I think). Years later, we saw a documentary about an election held there that was almost certainly rigged, and he remarked that Baku looked much less rundown than it had been when he'd been there -- less poor, less ragged, less like it was about to crumble into nothing.
ReplyDeleteSee if you can find a bottle of Stalin brand vodka while you're there. We still have the bottle that Dad brought home (though the vodka has long since been drunk). It's got his picture on the label and everything!
> [1] Probably. It's likely that I've been automated by now.
ReplyDeleteIt's unlikely. Users find ways of fouling up systems in unexpected ways that automation doesn't deal well with at all, and more importantly, humour doesn't seem to automate very well.
Mark: that looks fantastic. I'm glad they got funded.
ReplyDeleteKatherine: I'll go look for that :-) Your dad's right: the city looks like Dublin's Docklands (if that makes sense as a standalone description). Lots of shiny.
Woz: Damn, we need better AI. Your team's not busy; can you get them to work on that?
Just saw you have a Canon S95. I like you better now.
ReplyDelete