Tashkent

The view from my hotel room, with the lights from within the room reflected onto the window. That there tower is a communications tower, just like our KL Tower, I reckon....

Tengah2 bulan puasa ni kena pergi jalan pulak. Aduuuhhhh...... I ni am not the paling kuat punya orang when I puasa, so, traveling bulan puasa ni, ada sikit tak suka, tapi dah terpaksa. Anyways, yes, anyways, it is to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The old silk road pit stop. I have never been there but I have some friends there, so it should be OK.

I left for Tashkent last Wednesday night and we flew in just after 1 a.m. I was pleasantly surprised. Tashkent is nice. They actually have signboards that say welcome and you do feel that they mean it. I saw a customs or immigrations officer smoking at the airport. While waiting for our transport, I saw people smoking in the waiting area and the streets. Which means that the folks here are a bit freer to do things. I like this place already. During the drive through the city, I noticed another thing – their police have sidearms. Pistols. Sepitol. Guns. In holsters, but they have them. So the government here at least trust most of their policemen.


The view from the front of our regional office. The lanes are four-wide in each direction.....

Another view from the front of the office, a tad to the left of the photo above.

The next morning simply confirmed my initial thoughts. This place is nice. I feel envious of my friends here. To top it up, I got a call from a crony, E, a partner in many wild nights in many places all over – he’s in Tashkent too. If bad girls go everywhere, news about me goes there too. The roads here are wide, all over the city. Eight lanes of roads throughout the city. Trams. Subway. And oh, it was nicknamed Moscow of the East during the existence of the USSR. The people seemed friendlier. The hotel staff are at least a million times better than the ones from the land of the you-are-giving-me-work-to-do. The name of the girl who checked me in was Sitora Saidkhodjaeva. Drats, I should have taken her photo. I don’t even have to talk about the women here. They are gorgeous, that is all you are going to get from me. The first night there, I iftared at the restaurant in the hotel and the service was superb. I don’t know what the food was but it was sea food and it was good. Seafood? This here place is landlocked tighter than anything else. Well, maybe seafood from the Aral Sea, or what’s left of it. I can’t be choosy, I was hungry. The waiter was bringing me stuff I did not order, compliments of the chef, he kept saying, compliments of the chef. Good enough for me, keep them coming.

A view from the 13 th floor, where our offices are at. We are not superstitious, obviously.

Another one from the 13th floor. Superstitious? But two earthquakes in three weeks and three in a month with one measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale. Hmmm.....

A street view of Tashkent. Notice the tram and rail lines. The roads are a bit run down but this is due to the weather....


Daewoos all around. Most of the time, all the vehicles surrounding us are Daewoos.

One word describes the roads here, Daewoo!!!!! There are so many Daewoo cars and trucks, vans and buses here you’d think that you are in Daewooland. The main reason probably is that Daewoo has a factory here. Not sure if they only assemble or actually built them here. Maybe just put them together. Terror is being in a car going through the streets Tashkent at break neck speeds well after midnight over the bumpy roads, tram tracks and everything else in a tiny Daewoo the size of a stunted Kancil driven by a Korean Uzbek named Sasha Alexander.

“Sasha, you don’t look like a Sasha Alexander to me.”

“I know, but is OK, I Sasha Alexander. I no speak Korea but I speak good Russian and manoga Uzbek….”

Well, there are many Thomas Kings or Edward Henrys in Malaysia who do not look like your typical Thomas King or Edward Henry.

Ah well, in Tashkent, I found a new drug.

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