Mixing messages as an art form

Anyone who's ever read one of the weekly women's gossip magazines would at some point have marvelled at the double standards on regular display.  As an example, on the front page might be a picture of a rail thin minor celeb, all gauntness and concentration camp-chic with a suitably critical 'shock horror' banner headline.  Yet, if you flick over a few pages you'll find photos of other girls who, heaven forbid, might have a shape vaguely reminiscent of an emaciated woman, and there'll be editorial remarks about how overweight that person is 'porky' seems to be the favourite comment.  Mixed messages.  Meanwhile back in the Sandpit, the business of sending mixed messages has become almost an art form. This week's example is the headline on Arabian Business reporting that Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai has proclaimed "We are back...".  He continues, “All the projects that were there are going ahead,” although some may be delayed for six months to a year.  Which doesn't seem to correlate with what's directly below, another headline stating that a bond prospectus posted on the London Stock Exchange website on Monday stated that Dubai has cancelled almost half of the real estate projects planned in the emirate due to weak demand following the global financial crisis. 
And all the while, back in the real world, the construction industry in Dubai is moribund, jobs are still being lost and so many people I talk to are 'just hanging on'.  Reality doesn't seem to fit with the mixed messages.

Folkloric dance from Uzbekistan

Filmed last week in Bukhara at Nadir Divanbegi Madraasa.

On the Silk Road: Uzbekistan Day 8 Tashkent-Dubai

Leaving Tashkent

Up at 4:30am and driven through the quiet pre-dawn streets of Tashkent. At the airport the entrance road was blocked by concrete barriers so we walked up the entrance. We had to show our tickets to get into the terminal building and once inside we had to put all our bags through an x-ray. The check in was painless once we'd found the right desk then we started running the gauntlet to exit Uzbekistan. First another x-ray then into the queue to explain where our money had gone, the correct answer was rewarded with a stamp in the passport then along a corridor and into another queue to wait for another stamp. I was standing behind some guys who must have been on the vodka most of the night as they were utterly tanked. One apologised to me for pushing in and the vodka fumes when he spoke nearly overwhelmed everyone within a 5 yard radius. Next another x-ray where everyone had to take off their shoes first and once that was negotiated we were directed to gate B3. There's a B1 and a B2 but no B3, so we just had to lurk around listening intently to all the announcements to hear if the word 'Dubai' was mentioned. After about 45 minutes we heard the magic word 'Dubai' and made a best guess where Gate B3 might be. It turned out the plane to Kiev was leaving from the same gate at the same time as the flight to Dubai so there was quite some confusion as passengers for both flights gathered at the door, which was one person wide, questioning each other. Eventually the passengers sorted themselves out and we boarded the A310 for Dubai. It seemed odd that after all the security checks and x-rays, while I was sitting on the plane on the runway I watched as two locals, one on a pushbike and the other on foot, used the runway as a road and stopped on one of the taxiways to have a chat. 

Take off was about 30 minutes late but we made up time and arrived back in Dubai almost on time.

Hayr Uzbekistan!

On the Silk Road: Uzbekistan Day 7 Bukhara-Tashkent

The Ark, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

The morning started with a visit to the shrine of Sufi saint Baha al-Din al-Naqshbandi then on to Chor Bakr a necropolis developed around the graves of Khodja Abu Bakr and Imam Abu Bakr Ahmed. After lunch of bread, Uzbek salami and two-tone cheese we walked through a maze of small alleyways and lane to see the Hoha Zaynaddin mosque and its surprisingly large pool, then over to see the Ark which is monstrous and imposing from the outside but unfortunately thanks to the bombing by the Red Army in 1920 is mostly in ruins inside. Restoration is underway and the Coronation Hall will be magnificent once work is complete, that's as long as they can control the vendors who have set up business in there. In front of the Ark is a huge public square called the Registan which was a popular site for executions including those of two British Army officers in June 1842.
We had dinner at the hotel and then it was time to head out to the airport for our Uzbekistan Airways flight to Tashkent. Thank goodness UA has stopped using the old ex-Aeroflot Yaks and Antonovs and the flight, which lasted less than an hour, was in the comfort of an Avro RJ85. After landing we walked across the tarmac in the dark to the luggage shed. Despite the luggage being carried from the plane to the luggage area in a truck that I last saw in an episode of 'The Beverly Hillbillies' the system worked really well. Three guys then haul the bags off the back of the truck and threw them through a window of the luggage shed. There is a luggage ramp that runs from the window to the floor but its only a couple of feet long so if you don't grab your bag in mid air or shortly afterwards it just ends up in a big pile at the foot of the ramp. Despite all this and a crowd of army guys who each had a fold-up bed in the luggage pile, we got our bags in record time and within 10 minutes we were on the bus and heading back to the hotel for the night.

On the Silk Road: Uzbekistan Day 6 Bukhara

Ismail Samony mausoleum,
Bukhara, Uzbekistan

We started the day's sightseeing in Bukhara with a visit to the Ismail Samony mausoleum, a surprisingly simply brick cube shaped building which is the oldest in Bukhara. Once the surprise at the building's squat cube shape passes, the visual attraction is the texture of the brick work which is a basket weave pattern with other geometrical shapes formed out of handmade bricks.  It has special resonance for one member of our group whose great (x 3) grandfather embraced Islam on a visit to this building in the 1820s. We moved on to Chasma Ayoub a mosque erected on the site where according the legend, the prophet Job hit the ground with his sick and caused a spring to flow. Next stop, Bolo Houz Mosque which features an iwan (porch), the brightly coloured ceiling of which is held up by 12 metre high wooden pillars. During Soviet times the mosque was used as a workers' club but now if has returned its original function as a place of religion.

Through the back streets to see Chor Minor, a madrassa gatehouse built in the early 1800s. Its 4 minarets (they aren't strictly minarets, just towers) make it unusual.  The towers have been restored and topped with turquoise tiles.  On two of the towers the year of restoration is clearly defined in red tiles.

From Chor Minor we headed back to Lyabi-Hauz where we watched groups of people having the photos taken with the large statue of a man on a donkey. This mythical figure is 'Hoji Nasruddin'.who in different guises appears in humorous stories and cautionary tales all over the Muslim world. We indulged in a spot of Uzbeki ice-cream then headed to Kukaldosh Madrassa which was at one time the largest in Central Asia and has interesting brickwork inside though the interior is now just a souvenir shop like the next building we visited the Nadir Divanbegi Khanagha. It was impossible to appreciate the dome as the shopkeepers have their wares all over the floor and you can't get near it.

Next stop, and one I'd been looking forward to, was the Iskander Puppet Workshop where the puppet master explained the method for making the paper mache puppets and the roles of the 17 people who contribute to the making of each puppet. Unfortunately we won't be able to fit in a visit to the nightly puppet performance, that'll have to wait for next time.  However, I bought my own Hoji Nasruddin puppet who'll be coming home with me.

We then visited the master knife maker in the bazaar and thanks to Colin I now own a personalised super-sharp titanium kitchen knife that has a lion engraved on one side of the blade and my name engraved on the other. Colin has treated himself to twin hunting knives engraved with his name.

In the evening we went back to Nadir Divanbegi Madrassa to watch the cultural dance performance, which was extremely slick and professional with the music supplied by a wonderful group of local musicians.  All the dancers are skilled former ballerinas, the costumes are glorious.  The manager of the place is possibly the grumpiest person in Uzbekistan but never mind, the show was great.

On the Silk Road: Uzbekistan Day 5 Samarkand-Bukhara

So here we are on the Sharq train from Samarkand to Bukhara (written Buxoro in Uzbek) passing through what seems to be endless fields of cotton. Uzbekistan is one of the world's major suppliers of cotton but since the breakup of the USSR it has suffered from having an economy based on a single crop.

Earlier in the morning we'd walked around the local area and witnessed an interesting sight at the local bank where a crowd of people were trying to get in while the security guards were pushing them back and only allowing one person in at a time. As the voices were being raised and the jostling on both sides started the scene seemed set for what is euphemistically called in the Western press “an incident” so we left them to it.

While the men wear Western style trousers and skirts the women wear brightly patterned tunics which reach almost to ankle level with matching trousers underneath, then comes the strange part, most wear wildly colourful socks, the sort imported from China, and plastic slip-on sandals.

The Bukhara train station is about 10ks out of town and first impression was a surprise at how many beggars there were, many of them children. As we drove into town we passed long lines of cars waiting for petrol and we were told that over the past 3 months there have been problems with petrol supply in most of the regional areas. One petrol station had high metal gates which were opened to allow individual cars into the bowsers, and we watched as a couple of men pushed their car up to the pumps, it having run out of petrol during what must have been a very long wait in the queue.

Kalon Mosque, Bukhara

Once we dropped our bags at the Caravan Hotel we headed out again to explore the old town area and to my surprise we found that our hotel is a couple of hundred metres from the Kalon Mosque, which is big enough to hold 10,000 people. Built in the 16th century its a glorious building filled with mosaics, intricate brickwork and vaulted spaces. As we left the mosque a martial art display was starting in the central square outside. We walked towards Lyabi-Hauz the centre of the old part of Bukhara, first passing a row of girls selling ceramic tea sets and men selling assorted Red Army hats, assorted army accessories and even a tank commander's helmet alongside fur hats made from fox pelts complete with the paws and eyes, We then walked through the old bazaar then out to Lyabi-Hauz which is a large stepped pool surrounded by tall trees, including a couple of mulberry trees dating from the 1400s, which provide leafy shelter to the many chaikhanas (tea houses) on the pool's edge. We stopped for coffee, possibly the worst I've ever had anywhere, then moved on quickly to have dinner at another place further along the pool's edge. After dinner we headed back to the hotel

On the Silk Road: Uzbekistan Day 4 Samarkand



Hijar Hizar mosque

Today was a full day seeing the sights around Samarkand starting with the Hijar Hizar mosque on a hill top with a view over to blue dome of Bibi Khanym mosque. The mosque was originally built in the 8th century but was burnt to the ground by Gengis Khan. It wasn't rebuilt until the 1850s. The painted ceiling of the aiwan (porch) is colourful and the red and cream minarets make for great photos.

We then drove out of the city a short distance to the Afrosiab archaeological site so see the ruins of early Samarkand. The small museum is worth a visit for a timeline of the work done on the site, but the ruins are very disappointing. They are indeed 'ruined' and while there seemed to outlines of houses and possibly roads, without any information being given or even names on signs, for untrained eyes its impossible to know what you're looking at.

Next stop was the tomb of Daniel. Legend has it that Tamerlane brought the body of Daniel (the one in the lions' den) back from Susa in Iran and interred it in Samarkand. The tomb is 18m long as, legend also has it, Daniel's body continues to grow at half an inch a year. The length of the tomb is covered in green velvet cloth embroidered with Koranic verses and it looks exactly like the long tomb in Salalah, Oman which is supposedly that of either the Virgin Mary's father, or one of the original pre-Islam inhabitants who were at least 20 feet tall – depends on who you ask. From Daniel's tomb we went back to the Registan and visited the Uzbekistan League of Artists' gallery then to a local chaihana (tea house), then back to the bazaar to chase down more bargains.

The evening was spent at a local restaurant where a birthday party was in full swing in the next room. Every type of music was played loudly, Uzbek, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and some local Tajik songs that had the crowd cheering. Babies were thrown into the air, some seemed to also come down again. Shisha is smoked here though not as frequently as in Middle Eastern countries. Meanwhile as Party Central raged next door, we were working our way through 4 courses including giant plates of shashlik (kebabs) chosen from a menu that included such dishes as “Hen in a Fur Coat”, “Mother in Law Language” (a type of salad apparently), another salad that the menu proclaimed included “carbonate”, there was “Herring on Peasant”(poor girl) and, dare I say it, “Luxurious Balls” for dessert. I bet Samia a whole 1000 sum to ask the waiter if he had luxurious balls, but, once she'd stopped laughing, she demurred.