My 101st country/territory

Today I leave Uzbekistan for Tajikistan by crossing the border  –  that’s the plan anyway and information has been a bit scant on the internet and on the ground here. 

With uncertainty on how the day might turn out, the huge buffet breakfast provided by the Sakura hostel in the Shirin restaurant downstairs was very welcome.  The huge buffet comprised of what I would consider breakfast and lunch/dinner food. I had an egg, chicken stew, beef stirfry and some cracked wheat (?).

I didn’t waste much time afterwards and left by foot for the junction where all the various taxi stands were located. The walk gets shorter each time I do it and even with my pack, it felt like only five minutes.

I expected the taxis to Besharik to be at the same place as the Kokand ones, since they are in the same direction. But asking around in front of the Istiqlol cakehouse, there was one available all the way to Besharik for UZS15000 shared (same as Kokand pricing despite about 30 minutes further).

I had my doubts as it was a yellow taxi and I’m not used to these doing intercity and the price was a bit too good even without bargaining. After several confirmations, I accepted but also asked if he could take me to Andarhan border. Yes, for sure, for another UZS10000 which was OK as it was another 15 minutes away.

It was a 15 minute wait before we filled all four seats up and left at 0930.  We deviated away from Kokand and took the back roads.  People were drying red chillis on the roadside; funny they do this without plastic sheeting and it must be a pain to bring them in.  Then others were drying hay on half the road, taking up the lanes in one direction!

With other passengers needing drop-offs in various locations, the ride to border took just less than 2h30 and I got to the border just before midday. It appeared deserted with no cars but looking carefully I could see people in the distance coming out of the immigration building.

The entire exit from Uzbekistan and entry into Tajikistan took about 25 minutes. On the Uzbek side, my customs/currency declaration was checked and stamped. They didn’t ask to see my money.

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Then they looked through my phone photos and glanced at the inside of my pack. They saw my camera but didn’t ask to look at photos in it. I seemed to have got away lightly as others had all their photos reviewed and were asked about any Uzbeks in the photos.

Next I went to the immigration counter to be stamped out of the country. At each station and with various guards in between, people wanted to know where I had been, what I had seen and whether I had liked it. But with limited Russian, I just said “harasho” (good).

With that all done, I walked across no man’s land into Tajikistan. The gate guard radioed ahead to the nearby building and I continued there. I was asked by what seemed like a unlicensed taxi driver for my passport. I was reluctant and pointed that I was going into the office. But then I thought maybe he was an un-uniformed officer, which he was. Lucky I wasn’t rude.

At the counter, all went smoothly but slowly. I got stamped in and there was no luggage inspection. Once done, I looked ahead and saw no mashrutkas. The un-uniformed man (who appears to be a senior immigration officer as he was helping the uniformed man behind the computer), offered me a ride to Kanibodom for USD3 or Khujand for USD11.

I opted for the full journey as I have a B&B with no accurate details and needed a phone call ahead. I think the price was maybe double the proper rate but I didn’t want to negotiate and offend the immigration officer.  I later found out the price wasn’t too bad; the real price was around USD8 apparently.

We stopped briefly in Kanibodom and a gentleman came up to my window. I changed USD30 of which a third was going for the ride, and got rid of my final Uzbek Soms (equivalent to about USD3).

The remainder of the ride took us through a thin corridor that belonged to Tajikistan. The driver told me that it was Uzbek on one side and Kyrgyzs on the other. In fact we went through an area that had Kyrgyzs flags galore even though it didn’t show on the Google Maps as an enclave.

The ride took about 1h30 and I got to Khujand around 1430. There was a bit of waiting and calling my apartment owner and I finally got to my home for the night at 1445, just shy of 6 hours after setting off. That was about 45 minutes later than I had expected because of the drop-offs for fellow passengers in Uzbekistan and just a plain longer ride in Kyrgyzstan.

The apartment wasn’t very nice; it looked like it was decorated by grandma. It was clean, big and well equipped with washing machine etc. The owners told me that the original apartment had a water supply issue for the night; hhmmm really?

I headed out briefly for a light lunch and returned as the owners were going to deliver me a wifi router. Once I had that, I went for a walk to the Citadel, the nearby gardens before heading in the opposite direction towards the markets. It was late so I didn’t make it all the way there. The walk through one of the city parks was pretty unreal with the overpowering chirping of the birds.

After a rest in the apartment, I needed a very light dinner. A few places were closed and another had run out of kebabs, burgers and only had hot dogs. While the city appeared to be relatively alive, food choices were limited to restaurants at this time. Then I stumbled on Country Chicken and had a good chicken wrap and a Coke Zero for USD1.90.

Tajikistan is my 101st country/territory (can vary depending on how you define this). The people are different from much of Central Asia. They’re Persian stuck in belt of largely Turkic people that stretch from Turkey to Mongolia and China. It’s really quite an anomaly as a result of the ancient migrations.