Silk Road - 3rd October (Tuesday)

We left the Mosque Baland hotel at around 9am. The airport was a short 20 minutes ride away. It was a no fuss check-in we had. There were no designated seats printed on our boarding pass. While waiting to board, I checked with Lucy and Valentina on the prices of cabs in Tashkent for Ross and myself to the airport. The plane was newer and even had enclosed overhead compartments. It was a small plane though with a low ceiling. It was a 40 minutes ride or so.

Upon reaching Tashkent, we alighted the plane to take the bus to waiting area for our bags. Literally, we were dropped off into a room where the whole group waited for our luggage. The luggage came in a short conveyor belt (or just a belt with rollers since the rollers didn't move automatically) within the room. It was a short wait.

Valentina had helpfully negotiated with some cab drivers for us, we quickly got into the cab. It was a short goodbye to the group who were boarding the plane (Uzbekistan Airways) for London later today. The ones who were not on the plane were both of us, Phillippa, Ros and Lucy.

Our taxi driver was very friendly. He helped to put our luggage onto his small car and since there wasn’t enough space in the boot, he insisted on putting my back pack in the back seat though I had a feeble attempt to put it in the front seat. I sat behind, next to my back pack while Ross sat in front. When Ross tried to clip on his seat belt, the cab driver kept shaking his head and physically removed Ross’s hand from the seat belt. So Ross left his seat belt off. On the way to the hotel, he was very chatting and kept asking many questions as well as telling us about himself. He spoke limited English but we managed to get a good conversation going. He said “Tashkent good, Sydney good and Singapore good”. He told us too that he boxes and has three sons. He wears a black square skull cap. Every now and then, he loves to turn his head to Ross, waving his arms to convey what he was trying to say.

We stayed in Hotel InterContinental in Tashkent. Hopefully Ross would get a good rest here as he hadn't been sleeping well. We had a very nice room. We had lunch in the hotel restaurant, thinking that we would have local food today after the opera. On checking our email at the hotel, we were surprised to learn that our carpet had arrived in Sydney!


As planned, we met Phillippa and Ros outside the Opera House. We were watching an Italian classic, Pagliacci (Clowns). I thought it was going to be in Italian but turned out to be in Russian. The interior of the Opera House was more impressive than the beautiful exterior. There was also a live orchestra playing. It was all very nice though Ros and Ross (sitting next to me) initially had some problems keeping awake. Our expectations weren't too high anyway so we had fun.

We looked for a restaurant around the Opera House. But it seemed to be the heart of town with lots of fancy restaurants so we couldn't find any local food. We settled for New World Pizza again. We ordered two servings of salad and one 12 inch pizza. They were watching their remaining Som and Phillippa even said she wouldn't be eating but she had some food in the end. We didn't mind anyway since we could help to cover the bill. We got to know more about Phillippa and Ros during the meal.

Phillippa and Ros (both from Auckland, New Zealand) had known each other for 30 odd years while teaching in the same school. They kind of lost touch in the between but did a lot of traveling together when they caught up. Phillippa has been out of teaching for 12 years now and switched to working in a nursing home. Ros has also switched to a more administrative role instead of teaching in a classroom. The trip has also been costly for them due to the falling NZ dollar. They said that they checked with Shirley and found out that the difference could be equivalent to US$1,000.

After the meal, we wanted to visit the supermarket and they were keen to get back to the hotel anyway. We brought them to a place to get taxis and went to one of the up market supermarket, MIR Superstore.

When I was in the cab on the way back to Intercontinental, I realised that I had somehow mis-placed my jumper. I was quite upset about it since it was one of my favorite pieces but hope that at least in Uzbekistan, it will be picked up by someone more needy.

So at the end of the trip, we had come to know a bit about everyone in the group. There was Christine, Claire, two Chris's, Shirley, Bill, Sandra, Philippa, Ros, Pauline, Keith, Wenda, Annie, Kevin, Diana, Joanna, Carol, Dave and Lucy. We don't know all of their last names, only that Kevin's was Pringle. As you can guess most were from England, but there were 3 Canadians (Pauline - originally from England, Keith and Annie – originally from Ireland), 2 New Zealanders (Ros and Phillippa), 1 Australian and 1 Singaporean. There were five couples in the group (Pauline and Keith, Carol and Dave, Bill and Sandra, Diana and Kevin, and ourselves). Everyone had been very nice.

Christine, 50 years old, is a lawyer from Gloucester, England and loves collecting and buying good souvenirs on the way. On this trip, she bought 2 nice bronze pieces in China, one of which was a camel with kids on its back. I really liked that one too. She bought it at one of the railway station at US$200. Back home, she puts all the pieces from her travels in her large bathroom. Her left eye seems to be a bit smaller than the right, I wonder whether it was due to any accident or sickness. Through sharing rooms and cabins with her, we realized that she wakes up very early and retires to bed early too.

Claire is an anesthetist in London. She is 38 years old. She studied in King's college. She is the only smoker in the group, gets on well with almost everyone and has a fun spirit. She has a brother who had worked in various places, including HK and Singapore. She is close to her only other sibling, her brother and loves visiting him. She has thirty odd days of leave in a year and therefore travels a lot. She drives to work everyday.

Ros and Phillippa are traveling together. They live in Auckland. They were persuaded to come on this tour by Carol and Dave who knew them through a previous trip to Jordan. They love New Zealand's cool weather and can't adapt very well to the warm weather we experienced in most parts of the journey. Throughout the trip, Ros liked to pass jokes about NZ and Australia.

Joanna is a Polish lady who was born in Kyrgyzstan. She was born in a town near Bishkek. She is married to an Englishman, has 2 sons and lives in Bath. She has lived in England now for over 30 years. We soon realised that she loves to talk on and on and lack social skills. She seemed to have little consideration for others. One of her son is a capable young man who studied in Japan's University, speaks Japanese fluently, worked in multiple places and married a Japanese. We realised too that some of the other people in the group also found her tiresome. She speaks with a strong Polish accent. I once asked her what she considered her first language and she admitted to me that her Polish is terrible while her English is not exactly fluent too. Her parents were divorced at a young age and her dad left Poland before she did.

Wenda initially came across as someone irritating with a shrill voice. But we soon learnt that she is actually very nice and has a big heart. She is very close to her daughters and also got on very well with Annie (Canadian). I also got to know that she cares about preservation of birds and concerned about current affairs in the places we visited (China, Kyrgyzstan). I got to know more about her during the last dinner. She has two daughters and she's very close to them. Her marriage hasn't been terrific. She had a shot gun marriage and had to beg her boyfriend then to marry her. Their honeymoon was at the movie-theater watching Taxi Driver
(Robert De Niro film). She had been recently divorced (although separated for about 10 years) even though love had long gone from her marriage. The reason that drove her to the divorce was that she found out she could get an extra 12 pounds a week from that status. Her daughters one 29 and the other 23. Lilly, the 29 year-old, had just came out of a different relationship. Her boyfriend of 12 years had passed away from alcohol abuse. Wenda kinds of blame herself for not helping him more. It was an intimate chat that we had and as it got too heavy, with Wenda tearing, we decided it was a good time to change the topic.

Shirley is married with 3 children who has all grown up, a son and two daughters. She is 73 years old. She is from Essex, but lived in Salisbury for about 30 years. She carries the smallest and lightest bag of the group. She worked in Sydney for 6 months before in 1960s. It seems that her pride is her son who is an investment banker for Macquarie Bank in London but previously worked for an Austrian bank in Vienna. He had started off as petroleum engineer working for Shell and then did an MBA in Insead. She talks about her son quite a bit. Her husband suffered from a brain tumor in his 40s and was soon made redundant after that. It had been a tough life for her but quoting her "we managed". Her elder daughter has been very good helping her out. We later got to know too, after asking her questions, that her younger daughter at the age of 19 was seeing a married art teacher with kids (older by 18 years). The daughter later married this talented man and has a family of their own. But it seemed that her son-in-law has problems getting along with her family from the very beginning.

Chris Gaule is 63. He has retired since 1999. He lives on the south coast of England. He was previously working as a Mathematician for the Department of Defence for submarines (mainly working on radars). He was first prompted into retirement by a mate who asked him to join him in a tour to western China for 6 months. He took it up, resigned, persuaded into taking leave instead and went back to work for a few days before deciding that retired life was for him. Since then, he had never really stopped traveling. He has 2 other brothers. He does a lot of volunteer work in India, goes back every year, teaching English to underprivileged children in a school (eg. children of prostitutes). Chris and Ross get on very well.

Chris Stolle is the only vegetarian amongst us. He comes from Manchester and worked in local government. He and Christine both have a sweet tooth. If there’s any chance for an ice-cream, he’s usually the first one seen with one.

Annie, I would guess has retired. She has a head of nice blond hair and has a cat called Ginger at home. She is a lovely person. She is Irish and has been in Canada for 35 years. Annie had come on this trip with Pauline and Keith. She had gotten to know them from joining a trip offered by their previous tour agency. Though she and Wenda were strangers before they met on this trip, they had gotten on very well and therefore usually ends up sharing a room with her.

Diana and Kevin is one of the couples amongst us. Both of them are quite stout and Kevin sports a beard. We got to know them better after being on a carpet buying spree together. Kevin has a deep clear voice he is skilled at projecting. We got to know that he did a bit of stage performance but manages mainly backstage. Both of them seem to be a nice couple. Kevin used to be an accountant (I think for Deloitte) and even spent a few years in Indonesia in the 1970s. He is now a psychologist.

Bill and Sandra is the oldest couple in the group. Seeing them, I was romantising the idea of a loving couple growing old together and still very much in love. I got to know later though that it wasn't their first marriage. Bill has a son from his previous marriage. They used to run a market research company on the leisure market. Bill had previously worked for merchant banks including Morgan Grenfell (starting in late 1940s) such as in equity research.Though well in the retirement age, they are now still very much active with a book being published next month while Bill has just thought of 3 other projects he would like to embark on. They have always appeared very learned and always had some sort of reading material with them. They just moved to Cambridge and attend Farsi (language spoken in Iran) lessons there, sitting in amidst the students. Ross thinks that Sandra is much younger than Bill (maybe 10 years).

Pauline and Keith are Canadians and they used to run a tour agency (natural-outings.com). Keith has a beard and a bit of ruly and rugged way about him. This is both their second marriages. Keith used to be a tree-planter before running the tour agency. Pauline has a grandson who studied Chinese literature in China and now working in Henan, China. They will both be heading to Henan for a visit after this trip. Pauline is especially close to this grandson of hers since he is the only fair grandchild who takes after her colouring. Pauline has a bit of a princess air about her. She also has a very interesting way of clipping the sides of her hair below her back at the back.

Carol and Dave is a very sweet couple. Their last name is Horlick. They live in Bristol, where Dave is from, although Carol is originally from Wales. This is Dave's 3rd marriage and Carol's first. They have been together for 12 years now. He has 2 kids by a previous marriage. It seemed that the breakup was pretty bitter and he is still very much at odds with his previous wife. Dave was formerly in IT, but now works for the Health and Safety Department in Bristol and loves his job. Dave is 53 years-old while Carol is nine years younger. They got to know each other in a pub, at that time, Dave's youngest child was 3 and he was separated. He and Carol are very active in photography. Carol is a currently a part-time school teacher though she used to be a fulltime teacher. She has a manner about her, her calm, slow and patient way in talking to me reminded me very much of Clare Smith. I was wondering whether it comes from teaching younger children. She is a lovely person and mostly very optimistic. Both of them travel a lot for leisure. They just moved from Carol's Victorian house to a new place. They have barely been in the new place for barely a week before coming on this trip. Appearance wise, Dave looks slim (especially on his face) but has a surprising big paunch. Carol looks a bit like Camilia from certain angles. Carol was teaching French and German and special needs. Once on the train, she asked me the Chinese word for beef. I was surprised that she managed to remember it weeks later. They are argent photographers and both belong to a photography club. We later learnt that between the two of them, they have a total of over 7,000 photos from the trip.

Lucy has been getting on pretty well with the group. Some of the others think that she has been a great tour leader (the best they have come across) while I think that Catherine (Trans-Siberian from Exodus) did a much better job. But Lucy has her strengths and tells very good stories while we are on long rides. I think she is very pretty and that she has a very athletic swimmer's figure.

It had initially been tough for me as a Singapore Chinese. I was bothered about being perceived mostly as a Chinese from third world country. It was also tough to convey that Singapore (about which, most knew very little) is not a third world country but as modern or even more technologically advanced than Great Britain. It was especially tough when it came from well traveled people like Carol, Dave, Bill and Sandra. I doubt that anyone had ever been to Singapore before, except for Claire, Bill and Sandra briefly.

The trip and the sights we have seen were totally amazing. Just as when we thought we saw the highlights of the trip, we go to yet another place and get all dumb-founded again. The people on the trip are also very well-traveled. They have been to so many places that prompt me to want to do more globe traveling.

The food has also been fantastic. The Chinese food we have had on the trip were fantastic. The favorite dishes were sweet sour pork, shredded beef, hot plate beef and the various vegetables dishes we had, bak choy, egg plant and melon shreds. I was surprised how taken I was to the egg plant dishes, done in the variety of ways. Most of the dishes were pretty spicy too, which definitely suited my taste buds. The food in Central Asia has been good and inconsistent. We loved the shashliyk, fresh bread and sweet fruits. I found that most of the home cooked food weren't as good as the street cafes.