Uzbekistan part 2: Samarkand and plov

See here for Part 1 of my Uzbekistan trip

The Sunday after we arrived in Uzbekistan was what I had been looking forward to the most; a trip to Samarkand, a city along the former silk road which had been ruled by the Greeks (Alexander the Great), Persians (Jake Gyllenhaal), Turks (Gobble Gobble), and Mongols (Genghis Khan) over the past 2500 years.  With that "who's who" list of visitors, I figured I had to add my name.  The guys in the office arranged the train tickets and guide in Samarkand for us - all we had to do was go downstairs in the hotel and get in the taxi to the train station.  After a 2 hour train ride, our guide, Sukhrob picked us up and took us around the city.

Suhrob is a native Tajik (from Tajikistan, which is a country, duh), but also speaks Russian, Uzbek, Italian and English. It must come in handy for a guide to speak multiple languages, especially in this part of the world where many tourists don't speak English.  He said we could call him Sebastian...not because it's the Uzbek or Tajik version of his name, but simply because he likes it.  He didn't expect us to be able to pronounce Sukhrob.  I insisted on calling him by his name, because that's his name.  I don't really ask people to call me Voltron, even though I like the name.  Maybe I should start.  Anyway, Sebastian...oops, I mean Sukhrob is Muslim, like most of the country, but a relaxed one.  Since Uzbekistan was in the USSR, and the Soviet Union basically squashed their religious practices, people became much more relaxed in their practice of religion.  They consider themselves Muslim, but don't follow all of the rules.  For example, he eats bacon and drinks alcohol, two of life's most important indulgences, and his kids look forward to receiving gifts from Santa Claus every year.

I wonder if Donald Trump and his followers think a bacon-eating, beer-drinking, Santa-celebrating Muslim from Uzbekistan is a threat to US national security.

Sukhrob teaching me how to count money.  Trump would like it. 

One of the main industries of Uzbekistan is cotton.  In fact, they export the second largest amount of cotton of any country in the world.  Sukhrob and other locals told us about how they used to have "cotton picking camps" during harvesting periods when they were in school. The industry needed all the hands it could get, so the government "strongly encouraged" them to participate, allowing them to miss school.  At first I thought this was pretty cool and would be a lot of fun, and it would teach the kids how to appreciate this important industry.  But the idea of forced child labor is another story...imagine if we forced kids to skip school and go work in the tobacco fields or coal mines during peak season?  Oh wait...

During the day he took us to several fascinating sites around the city, which we wouldn't have managed without his help.  You definitely need a car and a guide in this city:

Registan - humongous buildings (Islam schools from the 1400s) in a humongouser square

Amir Temur Mausoleum, where their 14th century ruler (aka Tamerlane) is buried

The necropolis where the cousin of THE Muhammed in buried (he brought Islam to Uzbekistan in the 7th century)

Ulugh Beg observatory museum, the site of a 15th century astronomical observatory, which was destroyed by religious fanatics and re-discovered over 400 years later. 

We noticed that at every site there was a guy standing in the parking lot collecting money from every car.  I thought these were official parking lot attendants, but Sukhrob said that the guys just claim a lot and collect the money for themselves, in exchange for "looking after" your car.  If you pay them, they won't mess with your stuff.  The average amount he gave them was about 30 cents, so I guess it's a small price to pay...but still annoying when random dudes insist you give them money.

The most important thing that Sukhrob introduced me to was plov.  Plov is pilaf, or rice.  The food itself is pretty good: rice, lamb and sliced carrots, but you can also get deluxe versions with a boiled egg and a slice of horse sausage.  It's a pretty heavy dish, going back several hundred years, originally feeding the hungry soldiers in the cold winters. These days it's more of an institution, not just a meal.  Surely every family has their own recipe and tradition, and the neighboring countries also do something similar.

My first plov - so beautiful

It seems that every city has a Plov Center.  A Plov Center is not really a restaurant.  It's more like a canteen.  There is no menu. It's simply a place to eat plov, and only plov.  You go in and tell them how much plov you want, and if you want it with the extra garnishes.  There are huge cauldrons cooking tons of plov, sometimes in the open so the customers can see what their $2 will buy them.  It would be like if we had Mac and Cheese Centers around the US, which only served macaroni and cheese from huge vats.  I could go to the downtown Seattle "MaCC" (that's a catchy name, I should trademark it), and order a mac and cheese with a boiled egg and hot dog on the side.  That would be pretty awesome if I wasn't lactose intolerant.  At the plov center, they also give each table a large loaf of fresh bread, which was really tasty, despite the fact that everyone touches the loaf with their bare hands, including the waiter.  Someone at the table will instinctively tear the bread into pieces so everyone can share.  It reminded me of when I was a kid and we used to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  I used to tear up the bread for my parents (ok, that's a lie...I was just tearing it up so I could eat it), and they'd yell at me for touching it with dirty hands.  And if I haven't said it already, plov is delicious.  You know it's authentic and a source of national pride when the locals actually eat it, and there's even a bit of a ceremony around it.  Let's be honest, nobody would eat at a Mac and Cheese Center.

Plov Center in Tashkent

You can take it to go

The deluxe version

You can buy bread on the side of the road, pre-touched by dirty hands

Plov is also prevalent in the big events in people's lives: the birth of a child, a wedding, or even a death.  Every new groom will host a plov party on the morning of their wedding, to invite their family and friends, including many who aren't invited to the actual wedding.  People come to enjoy a hearty meal (which will make them full for a week), say hello, then go about their day.  Sometimes plov parties can have 1500 people and start at 5am(!), though supposedly "they" are trying to encourage people to start after 7am, because, you know, that's more reasonable (I don't know who "they" are, but maybe there's some Plov Police, or maybe this is a topic that the local government actually discusses).  I just want to repeat: 1500 people eating plov at 5am!?!?

These guys enjoy their plov.  The just don't always show it. 

After an action packed weekend, we had to actually work.  Even the earthquake in Tajikstan which we felt in the office on Monday morning couldn't stop us. The guys in the office were super friendly and helpful.  They insisted on taking us to lunch and dinner every day. These guys have families at home, but they insisted on being the best possible hosts.  They'd take us on what they called a "quick lunch", but it required a 15 minute drive across town, a proper sit down meal, then a drive back, maybe including a stop at the market or bazaar.  If a "quick lunch" is 2 hours, a long lunch probably takes the whole week.  Then there was a short 2 or 3 hour dinner, when we were still full from lunch (especially after plov).  In short, it was amazing.  Basically we spent every waking hour with them, to the point that I really missed them during the next week when I was back in Warsaw.  Everyone spoke perfect English with me, or Russian with Inna, and Uzbek with each other.  They were warm, friendly, and treated us like long time friends. Plus they had a cool elevator in the office.  You could un-do a floor selection by pressing the button again!  What?!  How innovative! Ok, so that's not such a big deal, but really, I've never seen it before.  It's so simple, I wonder why it's not more common. With all of the wonderful experiences and people that we met in Uzbekistan, there's only one thing that they don't have: the joy of pressing all of the buttons in an elevator and running out giggling (don't pretend you've never done that before).

This isn't gonna end well...

Uzbekistan part 1: Money, money, money

December 4, 2015

When I first got to the hotel in Tashkent, I noticed two things: the ATM didn't have any money in it (because nobody uses it), and there was an exchange office in the hotel lobby.  As is usually the case when I travel abroad, I wanted to use the ATM rather than an exchange office, because I've been ripped off by several exchange offices because of their terrible rates or commission.  It seems like ATMs generally are safer bets.  But since the ATM didn't have any money in it, I had no choice. The exchange office had two employees, though I never saw anyone exchange money there...another sign that the rate would be bad, otherwise how could they pay the two employees?  I checked the online exchange rate and to my surprise, the rate offered by the exchange office was basically the same as the "market" rate, so I felt more comfortable with it.  I gave them $60 and they gave me two full stacks of 1000 som bills with a rubber band around them.  It was the first time I ever carried money in a rubber band!  I couldn't even figure out how to carry this money because it wouldn't fit in my pockets, let alone my wallet.  I tried stuffing them in my front pockets, but they stuck out like I was Richie Rich.  I felt like a 6 year old boy who just got his first allowance.  I wanted to take a picture with my bank roll, and then to immediately spend it because it was so fun to show off.  Little did I know that this "market" rate I got in the hotel was actually half the rate that you can get from the street. I assumed the ATM would be a better rate, but I was wrong.

I'm so rich!

The situation with the money is one of many fascinating experiences I had on my trip to Tashkent, Uzbekistan (ask me if you want to know more about how to exchange money there).  Not only did I learn how to quickly count my large stacks of money (and that they actually bring money in a bag when making large purchases), but I also learned more about the Central Asian history, and fell in love with the traditions surrounding their national food, plov.

When you have so much money, it's hard to count it #99problems

My journey to Tashkent went through Moscow, where I met up with Inna, my co-worker that was assigned to the project in Tashkent with me.  We had never met, but spent some time on the phone preparing for the site visit.  We agreed to spend the weekend in Tashkent in order to see some of the sights.  It was good for me to have her company because to tour around Uzbekistan generally requires someone who speaks Russian.

Like any flight to an "exotic" place, the etiquette on the plane wasn't exactly what I'm used to.  The guy next to me seemed friendly, and even overly so.  He kept touching my iPad screen while I was watching a movie.  I think he was trying to tell me that he enjoyed "Foxcather", but he didn't need to keep touching it.  Especially since his fingernails were filled with brown gunk.  The moment the plane landed (while still taxiing at a decent speed), half of the plane stood up to get their bags from the overhead bins.  I was too tired to worry, but noticed that either the flight attendants didn't care, or the passengers didn't care that the flight attendants told them to remain seated.  It was really late, clearing customs around 3am.  But the PwC driver still picked us up....can someone please nominate him for employee of the month?

Looks like Irish to me

A few years ago I met a guy from work who lived in Tashkent.  He doesn't live there anymore, but he introduced us virtually to one of his friends, Diyora.  Diyora was awesome and offered to take us around the city on our first day there.  She spoke perfect English, Russian and Uzbek, and was the perfect guide.  We visited the various markets and monuments, she showed us how to take a taxi from the street where you just wave down a car (old fashioned Uber), and introduced us to our first Uzbek meal - norin.  Norin is a salty noodle dish with horse meat.  It was actually pretty good, except after a while, it became too salty for me.  Or maybe too horsey. I laughed when I typed it in my phone and it auto-corrected as "boring".  It certainly was not boring.

I loved walking around the meat market

Norin, both salty and horsey

I don't want to know what this is

After Diyora left us to go to a wedding, we realized we were pretty worthless.  It almost seemed as if a higher power was trying to show us how to be terrible tourists.  The wifi in our hotel stopped working so we couldn't check things on the internet, so we decided to use a paper map to try to get around.  When we got to the TV Tower, it started raining and was super foggy, which would make going up the tower a waste of time, so we asked the driver to take us somewhere else.  He suggested a museum, but when we got there it was closed.  We drove in several circles while deciding what to do next, changing our mind a couple times and forcing him to make several U-turns.  I'm sure he loved that.  He drove us to yet another museum, which looked open, but was being guarded by police.  We ran through the rain to the door, but it was also closed.  Apparently the president was going there in the evening so it was closed to the public.  I wanted a picture of the site where the president would be in a short while, then was promptly yelled at by the police for taking one.  We ran through the rain again to find a metro entrance (the taxi left us), but didn't know where to go.  My phone wasn't connecting to 3G, so we couldn't look anything up. We got into the underground and had an idea but needed to call someone to figure out exactly how to get there.  But in order to use the phone, I needed to go outside of the metro station again.  Of course this meant I'd have to pay for another ride to go out and re-enter.  As we contemplated our next move, I took another picture of the metro platform, but got yelled at again by the security, and they forced me to delete it.  They take security very seriously because apparently there were a couple terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists in the early 2000s (seriously).  We noticed later at the airport and on the long distance trains they have security checks outside, inside and before boarding.  It's a bit of a hassle, but it was quick and was nice for both safety and if you needed assistance with anything.

You can buy anything at the open air markets

We finally got off the subway, at a big shopping center; the only thing we could think of that was both open and indoors. When we got out of the metro we saw that we were right back where we started: at the TV Tower. After an hour of bowling and air hockey (the only success we had without Diyora), we tried to get to a restaurant that a friend recommended.  But of course, the taxi drove past it 5 times without seeing it, until a security guard told us it was permanently closed.  So we ended up at another restaurant where we ate greasy, fatty soup and kebab.  Not a very satisfying end to the evening. To top it all off, the taxi driver who took us home didn't know how to get to our hotel, so we got lost.  We agreed then not go to anywhere in Uzbekistan without a local.

The metro token is plastic...it reminded me of Plinko!

Next up, Samarkand and plov. With locals.