The final hurdle before leaving Uzbekistan was ahead of us; The Border.
We had no idea how our exit was going to go. We entered the border compound & pulled up in front of a building. We walked into the hall & in front of us was a long desk & ahead was passport control. An official told us to complete the declaration forms. After finding an example in English I started to complete John’s & mine. After not completing it correctly on entry I decided I had better list everything, including all the currency in notes form for all the countries we had been through. I had no idea if information was shared between official departments & I didn’t want to take the chance. Alas this was wrong as we had not re-done our forms from entry so they were wrong, even though the entry forms were incorrect (down a GoPro).
John had taken his exit declaration form & other paperwork out to Minty so customs could check her & the contents she held. He shortly came back telling me the form was wrong & I had to re-do it. I already had as I’d been grumbled at by the official in the office for the same thing. He also needed the car insurance we had been given but not charged for in the chaos when we entered Uzbekistan.
As soon as I completed the exit declaration form I handed both the entry & exit form to the officer. I then had to pass over the slips of paper we had been given for each night we stayed in Uzbekistan. John & I were missing one from the night we slept at the truck stop. All I could do was hope it wouldn’t cause us any more trouble. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice & I was sent to the passport control booth. Frank had little trouble as his journey through Uzbekistan was fairly trouble free, just a bit longer than he expected.
Frank & I were soon stamped out of Uzbekistan but John was stuck with Minty & more border officials/customs staff. What could have happened now? We were in no-mans land & had no way to get back in to help or hinder the situation.
It seemed they were unsure of a couple of items in the car. John had to explain we were giving a lift to Frank & one bag was his. We obviously had too many camera’s for 3 people. Here we go again, were we to ever get out of this country. Eventually they gave up but then they lost the car insurance document. John found himself arguing that they had put it somewhere. Between going to different offices they must have got bored as John wasn’t relenting. They stamped his passport & he too was free from Uzbekistan & soon sat in no-mans land with Frank & I.
Sitting on a small log we vowed at that point to never go back to Uzbekistan. For us it was one of the most stressful parts of the journey so far. We were both shocked at how reclusive the country is. We had been warned about Turkmenistan but in comparison I would say Uzbekistan is far worse.
As said once by Winston Churchill “If you are going through hell, keep going”. And that’s what we did.
