Im only going here for the trip through the mountains. I will be in and out the next day, then back to Tashkent and start heading home.
The cab driver in Shakhrisabz said 'Termiz'. I said 'Termiz not Qarshi' and he said 'Yes' for '5000 sum' I said 'you gonna take me all the way to Termiz (300km) for 5000s' he said 'yes' We arrived at Guzor, a dump of a town and he fed us to the sharks. I was surrounded by taxi drivers wanting to take me to Termiz for 50000 sum. I bartered them down and gave the first driver what for. ALL taxi drivers are lying, cheating, thieving scumbags, and they ALL stink.
The trip was nothing like I expected and the mountains were more like rolling hills. There was some pretty cool bits and some of the rock formations were pretty cool. it was very green which is a change cos all the paddocks have been ploughed ready for planting when the rain comes.
The Lonely planet has a write up about the researcher being hauled in by the KGB cos he was in a dodgy hotel and his OVIR wasnt quite right. I picked a good hotel. I paid $30 and got a nice soft bed, plenty of hot water (after 6.30) a big screen TV and views over the houses to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. After I checked in I went for a walk around town, not much to look at. I had a great idea to try to get an Afghan stamp in my passport. I got a cab to the border, which is a bridge. The cabbie didnt quite understand that I wanted to go there and back cos most people would only go one way. I thought I would go and ask if they would stamp my passport. Well it is Uzbek on one side and Afghan on the other side so I walked up to the border post and said "engliski" A guy who claimed to speak english came over, asked for my passport, and I told him I wanted to go and get an Afghan stamp. He said "OK" I couldnt believe it was so easy. he indicated for me to go this way, through a metal detector. Take everything out of pockets, etc etc. Front at a counter and the guy said "passport" I figured they were going to exit me from Uzbek. I cant do that cos I only have single entry visa and no Afghan visa. Had they checked me out I would have had to spend the rest of my life on the bridge in no mans land. I went back and tried to explain to the bozo again and he said "no worries" and again pointed to the metal detector. I thought I was getting no where so I gave in and went back to town. By the time I got back it was after 5 and everything was closed. I couldnt find anything decent open for dinner so I just went back to the hotel. I watched TV for a while, had a shower and went to bed early.
I Im back in Samarkand cos they deleted the photos on my camera and stole a disk with all the ones from here so I got out of the taxi here and have replaced a lot of them. They also relieved me of $200us, thankfully, cos they were getting really heavy.
Im going to Tashkent tomorrow on the sharq, a high speed train.