Cycling Day 8: Shymkent to Tashkent
I was up before dawn to put my stuff together. The ride to Tashkent is about 80 miles, but I was also wary of having to cross a border. I was hoping to arrive by noon. Fortunately, when I headed out around dawn, the weather was cool, even a little chilly.
I made some good progress over the first 25 miles or so, climbing some of the rolling hills and cruising down the backsides at 30mph. On top of one of the hills was a large boat, visible from all angles. I kept staring at it as I climbed the valley between the hill with the boat and the adjacent hill. Nur-Sultan had told me that I would see this boat and that they say it’s where Noah landed the ark after the biblical flood.
Noah’s Ark on top of a hill in Kazygurt, Kazakhstan
This seemed like quite a monument, and there was even a small road that ended in a parking lot around the back of the hill with a long staircase leading up to the top. There is no explanation about the boat itself, no plaques or signs, it is just simply there. They erected a large mast on the boat that now serves as a cell tower and there was a security guard sweeping stones off of the steps. Otherwise, it was just an incongruous boat on top of a hill in a landlocked country, with deeply implied biblical significance.
Noah’s Ark
I continued on a short way but got a flat tire around mile 40. Nothing to do but to change it. The rest of the ride was scenic, but rather uneventful.
View from the top of a hill riding south
There was quite a scene at the border, however. There must have been thousands of people crossing by car or on foot. Some with all of their personal belongings, some perhaps just going for the day. As is typical with these crossings, I usually get stopped about 8-10 times by random border guards who check my passport and send me on my way. I had to scan my bags twice - once on the Kazakh side and again on the Uzbek side. To get to the Uzbek side, I had to walk quite a ways past a lot of construction. It was a sort of maze with tin walls on either side, a little like chambers for channeling cattle through a feedlot.
Looking back after crossing into Uzbekistan
The Uzbek guard who took my passport and visa disappeared out of his booth. I waited there for about 15 minutes before he came back. However, he approached me from behind and tapped me on the shoulder. He asked if I was really from the USA, and I said yes, as evidenced by my passport, which he was still holding, and then he shook my hand and stamped my passport from outside the window. I’m guessing that there are not a lot of Americans with bicycles who take this border crossing by foot. After another 4 or so passport checks, I was on the other side.
The change of countries here was a little more disorienting than my arrival in Kyrgistan. Uzbek is written in Latin, and not Cyrillic so all of the signs looked very different. Furthermore, the advertisements showed brands that I had not been seeing in Kazakhstan, and even the people looked quite different.
One of the most remarkable things, as well, is that easily over 90% of cars on the road are Chevrolets. As I learned a little later, Uzbekistan is a brutal dictatorship, and there is a Chevrolet factory in the country. Therefore, the president decreed that people can buy any car they want, as long as it is a Chevrolet (or a Daewoo, which are mostly like small minivans). These restrictions have relaxed in the last couple of years but there is still an exorbitant tax placed on imported cars, which means that Chevrolets are still the only reasonably affordable car. There is a new factory by the Chinese car company BYD here as well, and I see some of those cars driving around, too.
I wasn’t able to get a Couchsurfing host for my stay here, although several reached out to show me around. I booked an Airbnb in the center of the city, went to the place, had lunch, showered and took a nap.
Uzbek independence monument
I woke up in the evening and met up with Durdona from Couchsurfing. She took me around to a bunch of the national monuments. Everything is brightly lit and large. We walked around the presidential residence, parliament and the seat of government in Tashkent. Everything is very clean and modern. The buildings are lit up with screens and lights, the streets are grand avenues with 3-4 lanes in each direction. And there are many people walking around these areas, admiring the monuments and sitting in restaurants and cafés.
We went to the rooftop bar at the Hilton hotel in a brand new area named Tashkent City. It’s a sprawling park with hotels, apartments and a huge shopping mall flanking it in each side. The park has a bunch of play areas for kids, food stands and green areas to sit. The view from the rooftop bar over Tashkent was excellent.
I returned to my apartment, nicely air conditioned and went to bed.
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