We headed out of the narrow streets of Bukhara towards Tashkent. Somehow, John thought we would make it to Tashkent late at night if we just kept driving. I wasn’t so convinced. With my poor navigation skills & Minty’s poor headlights it was a recipe for a long day/night.

The route wasn’t too bad, we spotted several check points but we were waved through all but one. At this one I got out & handed over our passports & Minty’s registration document. All was good & 15 minutes later we were on our way driving through the stunning scenery. The roads in Uzbekistan were a bit of a surprise after Turkmenistan. We had got used to dodging pot holes, ruts & all things unexpected & now we were driving along on fairly smooth tarmac.

The day on the whole was fairly smooth going. We bypassed Samarkand & headed slightly North to Tashkent. I was still gutted to not be going to Tajikistan. Had we still been on our original route we would have turned right. I knew it was the right decision & we can’t always do what we want but Tajikistan was a country at the top of the to go to list we had. Oh well, as they say, always leave something for another day. Tajikistan is now on the list for our next venture in Central Asia & we now had to go & find Frank from team Mischief & Mayhem somewhere in Tashkent.

After several hours on the road we decided we should try & find somewhere for dinner. As the sun was setting we found a truck stop & ventured in for something to eat. Outside the car park was full of trucks carrying melons, inside the stereo was playing some local music & the locals were busy enjoying their evening meal. They appeared to be bemused by our arrival but were keen to welcome us. The girl who showed us our table tried to ask us what we would like. There was no menu so the option of pointing to pictures was not going to work. We asked for some chai & tried to find a way to communicate what we wanted. The waitress, excited that she was serving people from the west asked me to follow her. With no idea where I was going she took me on a tour of the restaurant showing me all the kitchen areas whilst trying to explain in Turkic what each kitchen was for & the different dishes they cooked. In one of the kitchens they were cooking a dish with rice so I opted for this. We had eaten a lot of shish kebabs so it was nice to find something different. We had both heard of a dish called Plov before leaving & I was secretly hoping this is what I had ordered. We were in luck, a short while later a huge dish full of rice, lamb, carrots, onions, garlic & chilli with traditional flat breads on the side. Hooray, another authentic dish from our travels across Central Asia checked off.

To make us feel more welcome, the owners decided to change the music to some unrecognizable rap music. They turned the volume up as loud as it could go & nearly everyone turned to look at us. We were so embarrassed. The locals were smiling & laughing, we were hiding our heads in shame but couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. We already stood out & we were definitely the center of attention now. They must have thought this was what all people from the west listened to. With the music blaring we tried to eat our Plov between laughing; the locals weren’t giving up. I wanted to get the ipod from the car as an alternative but John wouldn’t let me. Eventually they did & the music switched back to something more traditional & we were able to drift into obscurity. Out waitress was keen to know we were okay & kept popping over to see if we had everything we needed. The Plov was really good but it was beating us. We couldn’t eat it all & had to give up. It was time to head out so we asked for the bill. I headed over to the counter to pay. The bill was just over 36,000 UZS, about $8, but it took me nearly 5 minutes to count out the cash. The largest note I had was 5,000 UZS but most were in the hundreds & I ended up handing over a wad of cash about an inch thick. The lady behind the counter counted the notes & thought I had underpaid. She was asking for more but after waving my hands about a bit she counted again & it was correct. Phew, I didn’t want to re-count what I handed over & then re-count what we had to pay more. Counting notes for such large sums is completely alien to me & I certainly couldn’t count fast enough.

John had disappeared to Minty by this time & I headed out of the restaurant to join him. It was about 8pm & it was now dark. Our time in the spotlight had ended for another day. We had just under 200 kilometers to Tashkent to go & Frank was messaging us to find out where we were. No pressure then. We thought we would make it to the city by midnight but Minty’s headlights were not allowing us to make up any time.  The roads were not any quieter at night, trucks with trailers heading in all directions as they no longer had straight chasis’s, cars which were being pushed well above their means but somehow kept going. We were getting low on fuel but hoped we would make it to Tashkent before needing any, determined to try & avoid putting in as little as possible of the low grade petrol into Minty.

Tiredness was starting to kick in so we pulled over at another truck stop. This one however appeared to be one that the drivers actually stopped at overnight. A guy came over & told us if we wanted to stay put we had to pay 5000UZS. We needed a coffee break if we had any chance of making it to Tashkent so we paid him & went about making our coffee. We sat in Minty chatting about leaving Uzbekistan & meeting up with Frank. Using the co-ordinates the delorme delivers as part of the message, Frank was messaging us wondering how long it would take us. He was now on his own at the hostel as the team he arrived with had left earlier that day for Kazakhstan. He had also managed to secure a room for us at the same hostel. We hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer but somehow we both fell asleep. The next thing we knew was the guy who we had paid to park was knocking on our window telling us it was time to leave. It was 6am & the car park was a hive of activity. About 50 trucks were trying to leave & one little polo was stuck in the middle of them all.

By the time the sun rose we were on the road again. We messaged Frank to say we were on our way. The last one we had received was around midnight when we were asleep & he had given up waiting for us. Oops.