Day 107: Border disorder

To save a little effort parts of this this are based on posts I made to the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree site.

At the West Bus Station in Bishkek the marshrutka driver intially asked for KGS 1000 to Tash-Komur, but dropped it to KGS 900 when I counter-offered. I could probably have forced him down to KGS 800 with a little more effort. However, even though Tash-Komur is only 2/3 the distance to Osh, he only had five passengers in his (8-seater van) so I figured if I negotiated too hard he might hang around waiting for another passenger or two to turn up.


Tash-Komur

Long-distance marshrutkas bound for Jalalabad and Osh seemingly don't go into the town, even if they have a passenger to drop off. Instead there's now a de facto transport hub by a bridge on the main highway a couple of kilometres north of town and on the wrong side of the river. The local taxis (official and unofficial) will charge you a cool KGS 200 to run you to the centre of town or to a guesthouse.

The blue-tiled guesthouse mentioned in the last LP still exists, but if you plan to stay there it's probably best to ring ahead so they know you're coming. I arrived on the doorstep to find the place locked. Some locals tooled up in a car and the one who spoke a little English explained that if there's nobody staying the night, they close the place. Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me!

However, the amiable sister of a local policeman runs a private boarding house (KGS 250 per night) a stone's throw from the guesthouse so all was not lost.

To the border

Local marshrutkas and shared taxis still run from the old bus station. Here's where the funny thing happened. The locals were sure there was a marshrutka to Uch-Kurgan in Uzbekistan. Just as I reached the stand, a marshrutka was pulling away. "Uch-Kurgan?" I asked. The driver gestured me aboard. But in fact it was not bound for the Uzbek town of Uch-Kurgan, but the Kyrgyz town of Kurgon, a fact that only slowly dawned on me.

We ran south a bit then crossed a dam to get to the main road. After a while we turned off for Samaldy-Say. Hearteningly, the signpost also said "Uch-Kurgan". This is where I should have got off and chartered a taxi to run me to the border post. Instead, expecting the marshrutka to take me there, I stayed aboard as it turned back onto the main road and continued south.

By the time it became obvious that it was never going to turn for the border, it was too late. So I just continued to its destination and took a shared taxi from there to Jalalabad ("Jalabad" to the locals) then another to Osh. But I was the last pessenger as we approached Osh so I paid a little extra to be dropped directly at Dostyk instead.

Dostyk

Eerily deserted, except for a lot of bored, gun-toting, bribe-seeking soldiers. I was the only person trying to get through. Even so it took me over two hours, including a search of my luggage on the Uzbek side. I was asked for bribes three times - 5 dollars was the going rate - but managed get through without actually paying anyone off. If I had paid, I would probably have got through faster. Instead I wore my best amiable-but-dumb-foreigner expression and smilingly complied with every request.

At the far side, a Daewoo van with a couple of guys in it was waiting. I didn't like their smirks, nor the fact that they wouldn't name a fare in Uzbek Som but wanted USD 3 to run me into Andijon. The amount asked was actually reasonable considering the distance, but it was obvious from their attitude and their refusal to accept coin of the realm that I was being gamed, so I dropped negotiations and walked away, leaving them to make their way back to town without any fare-paying passengers. Instead I flagged down a taxi and paid USD 10 to be dropped on the doorstep of Hotel Andijon.  (Well, it made sense to me!)

Andijon

There were riots in Andijon, five years ago.  The story got into all the guidebooks and every would-be traveller now seems convinced that Andijon is somehow an edgy, dangerous place.  It's not.  It's a big placid city.  I stayed overnight, was tempted to stay another, but after listening to the same bonking popular Central Asian tune more than a dozen times, echoing over from the all-night cheap eats stand, I was unwilling to subject myself to a second sleepless night.  Time for Tashkent.

Tashkent

Big. Boring.  Full of nosy cops.  A place to avoid - except that I needed visas for Afghanistan and China.  I eventually dropped the notion of going to Afghanistan via Turkmenistan after being reminded by Uzbekistan how much I dislike police states.

Pickpockets in the Tashkent Metro

While waiting for my train to depart Tashkent I felt peckish so I headed across the road to a Cafe. While I was walking up some steps out of the subway, a guy shoved in front of me then suddenly slowed down, forcing me to slow down as well. I suddenly realised there was a guy right behind me, too. We were the only people around. The situation felt "wrong" so I got out from between them and placed myself where I could see them both. They headed off in the opposite direction.

It wasn't till later that I noticed that one zipper of my day pack's side pocket was open. Normally I keep it padlocked when moving, but I had taken something out earlier and although I zipped it up again I didn't relock it. Since I definitely zipped it up and there was no way one side of the zip could come undone on its own in this way, it's obvious that the guy behind me had opened it with the intention of rifling my pack while the guy in front of me distracted me.

Nothing was taken - I had not felt him open the zip but my "something's wrong" warning had obviously kicked in just as he did so but before he could get a hand in to take anything.

Poor guy - there were 350,000 Sum in that side pocket, overflow from other caches, thanks to Uzbekistan's pathetic 1000 Sum maximum banknote value. Just a few more seconds and he would have been wealthy ...