Suzyp2p

Wednesday 29^th September

Another early start but the time control was at the other hotel. Rachel had two more army ration packs to pick up courtesy of George and they were enormous so we gave a few out to other drivers and made ourselves very popular! Then drove to the Uzbekistan border where we were surrounded by eager boys wanting to change money and take photos and marry us off to their friend who had a full set of gold teeth! Quite exhausting but we drove off with bricks of Uzbek money the largest note is 1000 Sum which is worth 30p! Of course the border control men took their lunch break so it took us a mere 3 hours to get through this time. Then on to Tashkent by which we were rather impressed with beautifully laid out streets and parks and all very clean. This region has had so many earthquakes over the years that they keep having to rebuild. On our way into the hotel a tiny car zoomed up on our left and caught his bumper on ours. We stopped but he carried on driving and tore the plastic thing off!! He then stopped, didn’t say anything but made a phone call. There was no damage to our car so we drove off! However later in the hotel he came to visit us. Luckily we were sitting with Erdol, one of the Turkish drivers who launched into a diatribe against this guy in Turkish and Uzbek- they are very similar apparently, and he was given short shrift-phew!