Sleepy musings from Tashkent airport
When you get off the plane in Tashkent, the first thing that hits you is the smell of the desert. Its similar to the experience when you disembark in Alice Springs. A wall of dry, earthy air. A certain smell that you come to know in your hair and clothing.
It’s 4:05am and I’m on the red eye flight from Tokyo to Siberia via Tashkent. My travelling companions are a mixed bunch of Japanese tourists, cologne drenched Uzbeks, and a screaming baby who for hours has been trying to come to terms with ear compression. And then there’s the French tourists, a roly poly crew of “French” dressed gastronmi-philes. Their swollen feet swished into their iconic red and yellow reebok shoes. They were obviously all Japan souvenior-ed out. They slept like stones on the flight.
On the scale of horror aero-journies, this Uzbek airlines flight was painless. I sat next to a fastidious Japanese tour group leader. He spent the majority of the flight neurotically shifting a stack of airline tickets and catering objects around his grafitied tray table. As soon as we got off the plane, his little blue flag popped up and he started ushering his sleepy Japanese flock into the awaiting transit lounge buses. It was quite a sight, and an amusing reminder of my “group experiences” over the last 6 months in Tokyo.
Its nice to be back in Central Asia, even if it is only a transit lounge. My last foray in Uzbekistan had consisted of Dad and I exploring the ancient sites of Bukhara and Samarkhand together. As with most developing countries, tourists are a walking dollar sign and these places are no exception. One day, with our rucksacks secured, we said a stern farewell, turned our backs and walked across the road border to Tajikistan. On the other side, we celebrated with a jolly Tajiki customs official by sipping at a freshly made cuppa under a tree near his demountable.
OK, the Tashkent transit lounge is not Zurich. Its much more a scruffy soviet ballroom. Grand roman columns coated with fake marble wallpaper hold up a ceiling of fluros. In the centre is a grand staircase, where a red Turkmeni design carpet leads you to more chairs. The chairs are the only thing Zurich about the place. In one corner, saloon doors lead to a restaurant – a typical Central Asian affair, a room set up like a mess hall, at the end is a counter and behind it two sleeping dudes. Above them, a rickety shelf with beer, vodka, chocolates and nescafe bottles brightening the scene.
Venturing further, I realised I had completely blotted from my memory the toilet experience. In these parts, toilet paper is like mulched egg carton dried in the sun. The bin next to porcelain squat toilet, is where you put the toilet paper. Although a genius for sewerage, this bin full of stripped paper is a sight and smell to behold for westerners.
Strangely though, I missed this quirky world. Although Tokes has its major pluses, the Central Asian seeming chaos, moments teetering on catastrophe and the chintzy aesthetic has a place in my heart.
Dawn is breaking now and other institutional looking buildings outside the grand hall are starting to take form. I will be here enduring the bad Uzbek popmusic with my other Siber-bound companions till 11am, when we board a plane nose-bent for Novosirbirsk, Russia. Yes, its yet another cosmic solo adventure… this time to Southern Siberia to experience the August 1 solar eclipse with Russian friends at a remote meteorology station deep in the Altai mountains.
Tags: airport, altai, eclipse, japanese, novosibirsk, stopover, Tashkent, tourist, tourists, transit, Uzbekistan
