Tashkent & Chimgan Mountains

10.11

It was late in the afternoon in the wondrous city of Samarkand. Us two adventurers took the bus to the Samarkand train station in the company of an Italian traveller. He was on his way to Bukhara, so he was going basically the opposite way that we were. Our train was on time and was similar to the one we took to Samarkand (meaning we had seats instead of beds). But in contrast to our previous train journeys through the lands of central Asia this transportation vessel had no hot water!! This disastrous twist of events forced us to rethink our dinner of noodles for the 3.5 h journey. Yet the conductor went around and offered a free leaf potion. So limited in our resources we just used this concoction to prepare festival-worthy food. As we couldn't aquire more of this energising potion we could only make one portion of noodles. This together with some leftover bread was an ok dinner. Arriving in Tashkent we strolled through the night to the hostel which was close by. It was a modern hostel, full of really cool drawings and included (unexpectedly) breakfast.

11.11

The next day we broke our fast with fellow travellers, which was not only included in the price it was also really good. There was leave potion, porridge, eggs, bread, fruits and vegetables, so overall a great start to the day. After breakfast, we sent a couple of digital owls to River and Jefris to organise our trip to Chimgan together and decided to delay it to have another day to explore the mysteries of Tashkent. With more time on our hands, we used the morning to get some to-dos out of the way before exploring the city. Tashkent is overall more futuristic than any of the other Uzbek cities we have explored so far. To be fair the other cities were not what one would call modern, Khiva probably look the same for the past 400 years. To our delight there is also a wider range of culinary sights to experience, so we had some cheap falafel for lunch at a street market. Afterwards, we went to see some government buildings which were really impressive, though we took no pictures of them because we were told by another traveller that he got arrested twice because he did that. However, we took pictures of the Independence Square and the memorial park, which were equally impressive. In the memorial park there was a World war two memorial with an eternal flame and galleries with some sort of metal books full of the names of fallen soldiers. After three hours of walking and a stop in a surprisingly big supermarket, we were ready for a break. We ended up in a manti shop, where we had one pumpkin and one spinach manti which were both amazing. For the rest of the evening, we had really cool plans: we wanted to go see live music with River and Jefris at an Irish pub. But this turned out to be a bit of a fail. Before going to the pub we wanted to get some cheap dinner, however we failed finding anything cheap in the area so we ended up having “German Doner” for dinner (which tasted good but didn’t taste at all like German doner). It turned out that the Irish pub was full and instead of live music there was a football screening. In the end we got a wifi at a supermarket and took a Yandex back to the hostel because it was cold and rainy. There we still had a chat with an Uzbeki and a quite drunk Korean which was fun and gave the evening a positive ending.

12.11

Next morning we took some time to get some more planning done. We are always struggling a bit to organise everything because we often only have internet in the hostel. At noon we left with Shamil (Uzbeki we’ve met the night before), River and Jefris (they moved into our hostel that day in preparation for our trip the next day) to get Plov at the main plov centre in Tashkent. We went there by Metro which was quite an experience as Tashkent has quite interesting and modern Metro stations. The centre was huge and the cooks prepared the plov in gigantic pans and baked bread in enormous ovens. We bet the houselves at Hogwarts also have this size cooking equipment. We ate our 6th plov that week below the Tashkent TV tower. Shamil our local expert advised us to add pickles and tomatoes to the plov, which made it even better. After lunch, we strolled back in the direction of our hostel with Shamil (River and Jefris took the metro). This walk turned out to be an incredibly interesting lesson about the Uzbek culture, mentality and politics for we possibly took the opportunity to talk to an English-speaking local to bombard him with questions. Eventually, Shamil left for the bus station to head to Bishkek and we went to get some groceries for dinner and for our mountain quest the next day. There our hobbit genes kicked in: we not only got quite a lot of food for the way, we also couldn’t resist buying a second still warm, fresh from the oven bread to snack on the way back to the hostel. Our way back led us past a fair that was illuminated beautifully at night. The day ended with a self-made dinner and a couple of games of codenames over cups of tea with River and Jefris.

13.11.

The next day we embarked on an adventure into the realm of dwarfs and yetis with River and Jefris. A small self-driving carriage came to pick up the four of us. However, despite being a “big Uzbek car” the carriage was not build to carry four adventurers with all their gear. First the coachman was convinced we needed to get another coach, but eventually we managed to squeeze everything in. The ride into the misty mountains was a joyous affair. Jefris started to ask the driver what beasts and beings were living in the area. After getting through the non-magical beings such as snakes, wolves and bears, River suggested Yetis, a term our driver was unfamiliar with… so naturally Jefris started to enthousiastically pantomime Yetis… while sitting in a car (please picture this in your mind, if you’re not laughing you have the wrong picture in your head). Maybe we have to add at this point that the whole conversation took place with google translate and sign language as we had no common language with the driver. Meanwhile, the road took us past snowy mountains and villages full with farmers with horses, sheep and donkeys. We arrived at our nice little guest house in a valley called Chimgan. The two of us departed moments later on a quest over the hills to find the habitat of the local kelpie. We crossed muddy hills and invented a new sport along the way: mudshoeing. It’s a mixture between iceskating, snowshoing and mud. Our lunch spot was also quite muddy but had a beautiful view over the mystical mountainous realm. We continued to follow the path that was suggested by our trusted friend maps.me, despite the fact that the path was not always clearly visible. In between we might have had to climb some bushes and a fence or two but otherwise that was definitely an official hiking path. At least the gate at the other side of the hotel grounds we found ourselves on was open. Eventually we found ourselves very close to the Kelpies habitat but there was another hotel in the way and the security guard at the entrance did not let us enter. So, in the end our two adventurers commenced the journey back to the guest house. A short break with a great view over the habitat revealed to us that it was artificially created by a dam. Consequently, the Kelpie has not live there for too long yet. After another hour or so of walking we arrived back in the village of Chimgan, where we had noodles for dinner. Considering we were in the middle of the realm of dwarfs, where human interference is still limited, we needed to go stargazing (because there is less artificial light). It was a cloudless, moonless sky, with thousands of stars. You could even see a hint of the milky way. We ended the night sharing our adventures over a couple of codenames with Jefris and Rivers. They also did not manage to finish their quest of the day: They wanted to climb Small Chimgan. However, as it got dark, they could not reach the top. Their climb down ended up to be a big struggle and really dangerous as they had to pass over a lot of rubble and of course mud.

Small note about our quest of the day: For all of you who are not familliar with the most common magical beasts (we highly recommend reading fantastic beasts and where to find them and paying closer attention in your care of magical creatures class) we are talking about a lake. We walked to a lake. Or at least tried to.

14.11.

After a good night’s sleep we had a nice breakfast with a beautiful view over Small Chimgan. Impressed by this view and in full on adventure mode, we decided that it would be a good idea to make our quest of the day to climb Small Chimgan (around 2.1 km high). We were convinced that Jefris and Rivers adventure was mainly so dangerous because it was dark when they made the descent. Furthermore, for a lack of a better option, we again followed the route suggested by maps.me (ok not true actually, we could just have asked the manager of the guest house but we did not think that far). So, our adventure began. We hiked to the foot of the mountain and started the ascent. It already started quite steep, but it just got steeper and steeper. Though full of our adventurous spirit, with an increasingly breathtaking view and with the help of power metal we continued. After around 2/3rds of the way the “path” changed from gras and rubble to rock … Obelix size rocks. Naturally, we just took this as the next challenge and started to do some rock climbing. Eventually, the areas between rocks were more rubble than grass/bushes and the whole affair became quite slippery (by the way according to maps.me we were dead on track). By this point, we realised that the adventurous part of Jefris and Rivers hike from the day before was probably not just the dark. Before we could take any decision on how to continue our quest, our inner hobbits called for food. From our chosen lunch spot the world of dwarfs, yetis and giant eagles stretched before us. It was absolutely stunning. At that point, we were around 2000 meters above sea level and 700 meters above the village Chimgan. However, the question of how to continue remained. After short evaluation, it became clear to us that taking the same way back as we came was about as safe as tickling a sleeping dragon. So, we had two alternatives: going up further with the hope that from there we could find some official way down or climb down next to a cliff where we had a similar ground as before but at least we had something to hold on to. With the time on our minds (our carriage back was supposed to leave at 5), we chose the latter option. Our next two hours involved a lot of climbing, high adrenaline levels and a lot of motivational speeches to each other. In the end, we felt like we had just climbed the Caradhras and we looked like that too. But, we made it in time for the carriage. For our night in Tashkent, River had found a very cheap Airbnb for four people. This turned out to be a guest house in a huge villa. We were only the fourth group of travellers the family welcomed there and they were incredibly lovely. They prepared tea and snacks in the evening and breakfast in the morning, both of which we did not expect. Unexpected free food always convinces hobbits like us, the beautiful interior of the house and the family’s general kindness made the four of us discuss to just never leave. That night, we still went for dinner at a pub and fell exhausted into bed.