We were picked up at 5.30pm to be taken to the Uzbekistan border and I think it was that early for the midnight crossing because we were a nuisance that needed to be sent away. It normally takes about an hour to the border but we got tangled up in a traffic jam and it took two and a half hours. The jam up was all to do with a completely woggish attitude to an intersection.
It was dark when we arrived, 8pm, and our man reckoned we had a chance of getting through the Uzbek formalities early. Yeah right. We walked along paths and various buildings for the Tajikistan farewell and then dragged our bags down the road for about 500m to the first check in Uzbekistan. This was a soldier who was supposed to be a dumb idiot, but he wasn’t and saw immediately we were trying to enter on the 14th when our visas were for the 15th. “Nyet” was his response and we were pointed back the way we had come. Not far from the Tajikistan side was a closed duty free shop with useful looking steps so we decided to sit there. I went back to see if we could use a table in the Tajikistan building, but more nyet. So we settled down, the temperature was fine, we ate our evening snack, Col found a nice pile of straw to put his sleeping bag on and I got on with Spyder Solitare. Then an unnamed person that wasn’t me decided to take a photo and as it was dark his flash went off. The response was as predictable as it was speedy, and a soldier came to discuss local security concerns and point us further down the road.
So we trundled to about the center of no mans land and found another good spot each, to wait out the hours until midnight. I had a strong street light to read by and a big cube of concrete to sit on. It got a bit chilly as the time dragged by and we both ended up in warm jackets and beanies. Col was lying on the verge of the road and occasionally remarking that it was great to go travelling with me.
At a quarter to twelve we started to walk as slowly as we could to the nyet soldier. After an initial hesitation and a radio discussion he let us continue. There were absolutely no other border crossing people about. We got to the foot of the steps to the Uzbek immigration building and were stopped and pointed to a seat because it was four minutes early. Eventually the four minutes passed and we were allowed in at midnight. The passport checking guy took about quarter of an hour to do his thing, and then we got to meet the customs man.
He was rude, arrogant, abusive and the very worst of any of that sort of official I have ever dealt with. He was probably bored and he probably decided we were gay and therefore in possession of graphically explicit pornography, or he was just the complete prick. He rummaged through all my stuff, throwing it on the table, and then he got into my laptop. Initially I couldn’t get it open and he made it clear I was an idiot and that I was trying to hide something. He hooked up my little speaker to see if it went but didn’t believe me when I tried to explain that my iPod had stopped working and he had a go at prising it open. By this time he had the laptop going and was searching through it, showing a particular interest in pictures. Then he found the little short videos that you mistakenly make when trying to take a picture. The first one was of orangutans in Borneo, but then he came up with something really interesting which I didn’t know was there. It was of the almost naked Vanuatu people dancing as the young guys do their version of a bungee jump. Very exciting for him and he thought he could see a topless woman. Next was all my pills and medicines which he tried to check with a Cyrillic check list. Eventually I was dismissed as some sort of deviant cretin and I packed up as he started on Colin.
I thought that if he found my medical stuff interesting he was in for a much bigger thrill. Col was being suitably calm even when escorted into a room along with another guy who he said was police. When Col held his arms out for the search he was told no, and the other guy was patted down. We cannot understand what that was about. He did all the same computer stuff and finally asked a question in one word plus hand movements which was “Sex ?”. I watched Col give him a long look and reply “I have a wife.” As Col was trying to pack up our friend turned the lights off twice, and then we walked out the door at 1.30am to find our car.
It was at least half a k to the end of a dark track where another soldier checked our passports and a sleepy driver emerged from a car. He had been there eleven hours. At 4am we reached our hotel in Termiz to find it surrounded by a smart wrought iron fence about 2.5m high with each gate securely padlocked. Our driver has a dicky leg. Col is really old. And I was very keen to get into bed so I climbed over, nearly getting stuck on the pointy bits on the top and hammered on the front door, which turned out to be open. People appeared, keys were handed over and we went to bed in Uzbekistan.
Categories