Tousle in Tashkent

Well, I can’t say I necessarily recommend flying to Tashkent at 3:30am but surprise! There’s literally no other way to do it. But let me tell you, the entire ordeal of waiting in Sheremetyevo for 8 hours until the the last group of Aeroflot planes - those bound for the southern former colonial possessions of the Russian Turkestan - is quite an experience that I have literally no interest in recounting or reliving.  What I remember about this particular time is that beer and basic food were expensive and everyone huddled around the massive vacuum smoking zones.  Pretty run of the mill, really.  

But what a primer for getting my emotions ready to deal with Uzbek border services and the lack of organization yet oppressive protocol-based order that President Islam Karimov had imposed.  After deplaning I waited at the visa desk for someone to appear, which took about an hour or so because - okay, stay with me here and try to appreciate that I honestly want to offer constructive criticism - they decided it wasn’t necessary to have the visa desk open during the hours that international planes were arriving from major hubs, presumably full of passengers requiring visas on arrival.  I want to be sympathetic towards it being 3:30am and all, but I feel like there is literally nothing that an Excel spreadsheet cannot solve, and I really think one of the Karimovs needs to simply ask me to help out with airport personnel scheduling and in exchange I would accept payment in not having to pay $70 for a Letter of Invitation and a further $80 or so for the visa to the country.  As the man looked over my application - “look over” being a fairly ambiguous and all-encompassing verb to really explain that he looked at it and saw it was a piece of paper and then proceeded to print out my visa, stick it in my passport and probably laugh to himself about how stupid I was to pay this much money to visit. 

Once through the visa desk I was stamped in to the country and I proceeded to the security gates, where I put all my luggage through a scanner.  The line I had chosen was under the firm grip of a young woman who was absolutely powerless in the face of my broken Russian, blond curls, and exotic charm.  She asked why I was visiting and told me all the good places to go and what to eat.  Then she sent me on my way to fend for myself as the usual flock of rabid and bloodthirsty taxi drivers descended on people leaving the airport.  If you’ve ever seen the Lion King when Scar gets swarmed by those hyenas, then you’ll agree the analogy is appropriate. 

I just know that this guy is about to hang up so he can piss me off. 

I fought my way through the taxi drivers and decided to walk away from the airport, partly because I was feeling claustrophobic, needed fresh air, and was not interested in getting into a fight with a taxi driver.  They, on the other hand, were very interested in getting into a fight with me, and several of them followed me down the road hollering at me out the window of my taxi asking me where I was headed.  Or they did that drive-by star where they hold out their hands and sort of shake then like they are holding a pair of large dice or horse testicles* in their hands and slowly shaking them open-palm and look at me like I’m an idiot for walking.  As it was 7am and I hadn’t slept at all and had been in transit for the past 15 hours, I was in no mood, so I just kept walking and ignoring them.  One followed me for such a long time that I very cathartically yelled at him to leave me the F alone which he begrudgingly did.  I then proceeded to walk in the direction I believed my hostel to me, which took a very, very long time, and I was wearing jeans and it all became very apparent that it was going to be a hot and uncomfortable day.  

*Don’t even wince, you know exactly what I mean.