I wanted to stay in the Chorsu area this time but I couldnt find anything decent at a good price. I am back at the place I stayed last time I was here. It is like coming home.
I spent a lot of the day on the metro (underground). The stations are amazing. Every station has a couple of cops at the stairway when you enter and they have metal detectors to check you. Sometimes they do most times they dont. To enter the station you have to buy a token for 500s (25c) and that allows you to travel anywhere, until you exit a station then you have to pay again to get back on. All the stations have up to 6 cops and 6 or 8 Svetlana's to look after them and check noone is doing anything wrong. Usually they are just standing around getting fatter. The stations were built to double as nuclear shelters. I dont know how that works cos they dont appear to have blast doors or nuclear fallout doors and they are not that far underground. Theoretically this makes them a military facility and taking photos is illegal. (if you get caught) That is why the photo's are so bad. I had to turn the camera on in my pocket then slip the camera out , take the pic and put it away without a Svetlana seeing me. What you got was the best I could do without getting into any more trouble.
I also went to Chorsu Bazaar, you know, THE bazaar in Tashkent. Well I wasnt thinking again and Monday is a very slow day and lots of places are closed. I will have to go back tomorrow. So many tacky T shirts so little time. Walking around the place was great. The smell of the spices, the bread cooking and the ***** baking. MMMMM Im working on a tea set.
Something I forgot to tell you.
The funniest thing I have seen on this trip.
About a week ago there were these three muslin women getting their photo taken. All over the place, if there is something as a background, there is some one to take your photo for a price. Well these three old women were adjusting their head scarves so there was just a slit for their eyes. I suppose they smiled but mot much point really you could only see slits for eyes. I can imagine later when they were showing the pic to friends.."thats Thel in the green scarfe, and Betty in the usual red scarfe and of course me in the gold scarfe." Hahaha
Got a full day shopping tomorrow and gotta pack then flight to K.L.. on wed. I leave here at about 10.30 local time and arrive in K.L. about 9pm local.
Ash I will email you in a couple of days when I get myself sorted. At this stage I think I fly from K.L. at about midnite on Sat and arrive home at about 5 or 5.30 AM.....Early morning.