A new day, another sunshine, a new adventure to a new part of the country and world! We were doing an organised tour with Get your Guide to the mountains outside of Tashkent in Chimgan (Amirsoy Mountains). Our guide picked us up in his littler car with his driver - I wasn't expecting this I was expecting a group big whole bus. This was going to be much better because who wants to wait around for ransomers all day anyhow.

Our guide was a funny round man that looked part Chinese/Mongolian/Uzbekistani and had an arabic name (the ottomans spread their wings very far and wide).
He was friendly enough, our driver didn't really speak english but was friendly. So we are racing up this road out of town past an olympic park being built by the Chinese, apparently they are having a huge influence here (where aren't they) and helping to build an olympic park as Uzbekistan want to apply to host summer olympics. We got to the bottom of why there was a mixed bag of people and looks here and why some buildings were very old and some fairly new. They had a huge earthquake here in the 1961 and demolished almost everything, the Russians and various other eastern europeans came to help rebuild along with their various architectures that settled here with their families whilst they rebuilt and whilst they had different views politically what was going on in their countries they decided to stay.

Another fun fact, this country borders many other countries including being very close to Afghanistan and whilst most countries were ottoman empire, the Taliban in fact originate from this place and often come back across the border to shop and see family in Tashkent, you know they are about because they walk in their turbans and dresser with their falcons on their shoulders. Lovely… Annie instantly feels unease haha.

First stop was the cable car in the mountains, this place was beautiful but COLD! we were going up to the top of the mountain our friendly round guide was coming with us, he got in the car with us and headed to the top he told us whilst we were there that he runs this tourism business and he found out not so long ago that his long lost grandfather is in fact a Saudi billionaire. HaHa. We got to the top of the mountain snow still very visible and in big large parts. I had to have a snowball fight and make snow angels! He also played us his little bamboo flute haha very good on it but a little weird. He reminded me of toot Sweet song in the sweet factory on chitty chitty bang bang, only d*** van dyke was much more handsome! He was a good photographer though I will say!
He let us roam around and we had a hot chocolate in the freezing cold but sunny weather overlooking the mountains at the top. He had another tour running with philipinos on it and they hadn't paid or had issues with the itinerary or something so he had to sort it out when they reached the top of the mountain. So we decided to head back down and sit in the bar at the bottom, overlooking the cable car.

We were there a littler while, managed to find a waiter that spoke little english, managed to get him to understand we wanted a double baileys each, sat outside in the cold but in the sun overlooking the mountains just down from the cable car entrance. After a little while and whilst we were about to order number 2, we heard a whistle. It was our tour guide trying to get our attention to say I am back down from the mountain now lets go. Well we didn't see him but he did catch us red handed on videos having a baileys, the muslim man probably wasnt understanding or empathetic that we wanted to chill for a little while as alcohol was being drunk. After he sort of stood around trying to make us hurry a little (it didn't work) it was his time to wait for us. Lovely guy, great photographer, I was absolutely soaked from doing snow angels in the snow, but we did make it onto his front photo page for his tour business on Get Your Guide! He was a good photographer and took some cracking photos for us.

We ate lunch down from the mountain, himself and the driver came in with us to eat, a little awkward we thought but made it work, there seemed to be a set lunch menu or he just ordered loads of plates. We tried all the Uzbekistan traditional foods, very tasty some spicy, soups and meats. They love a meat skewer in this country!

After the long lunch but delicious one, we went to the big lake in a little village further up into the mountains. It was huge! Lots of locals enjoying the sunshine and the water, we could horse ride if we wanted to around there but even though the horses were lovely and he got his friend to bring his horse down I noticed there were no helmets and I dont have travel insurance so i did the grown up sensible thing and said no thank you, that was the last thing I needed falling off a damn horse and cracking my head on a rock or breaking a bone! He didn't seem annoyed but also not pleased, he rode the horse himself anyways. After a walk around the top of the lake and a purchase of the little white milk sweets with nuts in them (we had them for breakfast in Samarkand) we hit the road and headed back to the city, a little bit of longer journey as we were coming from further out into the mountains this time around. Stopped for petrol, the driver didn't say much so just sat in silence as I wondered why he hadn't pulled up to the pump whilst there were no one in the petrol station. It was because he was waiting for us to get out as they are not allowed passengers in the forecourt apparently? Weird! But anyways all a laugh and giggle and headed back into town, gave an awkward tip, hate given those things! And then we got dropped off and headed out for a drink to finish up the night and chill out. Went to the irish bar, had a manners and got stung on price (for Uzbekistan) a little annoyed because others we would have been completely under budget but now we are on budget maybe a little bit over. Nevermind its the weekend and still had more fun and spent less here than if we had gone to Dubai Rugby Sevens!

Back to Dubai tomorrow, lets hope the air is as fresh as it is here.