Story from Polly

I'm not even completely sure how we ended up in Uzbekistan. I was bored, that was the root of it. Bored at work, bored at home, hadn't travelled anywhere for ages and looking for a new adventure. Somewhere a little bit unusual, with plenty of heritage and more than a hint of the exotic. I wanted to explore somewhere I'd never been, to see things unlike anywhere else I'd travelled and the more I looked, the more Uzbekistan seemed to fit the bill. So I convinced a friend to come with me and we left Heathrow on a satisfyingly dreary, wintry day.Changing flights in Istanbul, we had plenty of time to browse the airport souvenir shops and to have extraordinarily good orange juice and baklava. Yes, it was around 2am. Who cares? Plenty of time to look for a charm bracelet. Plenty of time to …..oh ****, our flight's just been called …. Have you ever been to Istanbul airport? It's approximately the size of a small town. Hell, it's probably bigger than the town I live in. And our gate was on the opposite side of the airport. Saturday morning Parkrun has NOTHING on this; this was Ninja-warrior style obstacle course, dodging people with ankle-grabbing suitcases, throwing ourselves down escalators, elbowing slower travellers out of the way (as politely as possible, obviously, never forgetting we're British!). Arriving, panting, at the gate, we thrust boarding passes and passports at the officials, the very last passengers to turn up. After an interminable wait - “You're not on this flight” “What?” “Not this flight. Good morning”.An abrupt turn, and the rope barrier pulled across the now-closed gate. As I began to hatch a plan, to stay in Istanbul for a day or two, perhaps see if we could re-book, my friend did the sensible thing and double, triple checked the tickets. The official was right. We weren't on this flight. This was the wrong airline. Turns out there are two flights to Tashkent in the early hours of the morning, operated by two different airlines. Who'd have thought it? When we finally arrived (thankfully uneventfully!), Uzbekistan was everything I wanted. The heritage is mind-blowing; blue shimmering tiles, domed roofs; mosques and minarets, madarassahs and mausoleums. The intricacy and craftwork and the sheer staggering beauty of the cities took my breath away, and the sense of history was palpable, all-encompassing. This is part of the Silk Road, trodden by camel trains and traders over centuries. Silk and spices have travelled through these lands, moving along with ideas and knowledge, people and cultures. We stayed in restored caravanserai, drank tea with home-made jam (it's better than it sounds) and greedily stuffed ourselves with the best watermelon I have ever tasted. We explored the massive bazaar at Chorsu, where you can buy anything you want; from a pair of shoes to a silk robe, from a plastic jug to an ornate tea service. Trinkets and hand-painted souvenirs jostled for space with lighters, Biros and wallets but once you pass through the outer rim you enter the food halls. These are piled with spices and fruits, bread and cheese. I bought raisins, the very thought of which still make my mouth water, and a green-decorated plate, and coriander seeds and cumin, in twisted newspaper cones. It smelt like heaven.We followed in the footsteps of Flecker's classic poem (if you haven't read it, you really should) and took the Golden Road to Samarkand. It is a city which defies description. It's beating heart is the Registan, a triptych of madrassahs dating between 1417 and 1660, which overlook a square courtyard. During the day you can explore the buildings, marvelling at the decoration which beats against your eyes every time you turn a corner. Gold and blue and blue and gold . . . eventually you become dazzled. Gold-blind, if there's such a thing. By night, a rather cheesy light and music show changes the ambience. Honestly, I should hate it. The buildings lit up in lurid pinks and greens, lights dancing to amplified music. But somehow it worked, and we loved it. Despite everything though, despite all the superlatives which could (and should) be heaped on Samarkand, it felt a little – unreal? A little like a holiday city? I had a nagging, slight discontent that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And then, one day, we got lost. I don't mean a little bit turned around. I mean full-on, back streets, wandering aimlessly, beginning to get concerned, lost. We had long since left the tourist areas and were in the bits of town our mothers probably wouldn't want to know about. There were still mausoleums and mosques to look at but they were unrestored, tiles cracking, roofs peeling. More people praying and fewer gawping. Men smoking in doorways, women gathering in courtyards, the odd child riding a rickety bicycle. Cables hanging from crooked poles, buildings at crazy angles, trying to escape from one another. We decided to stop at the next cafe we could find, to rest and re-group, and to try and work out where we were. And so we found ourselves sitting on shabby plastic chairs in the scrubby shade of a small tree. Just – on the road. The occasional car had to go round us, but no-one seemed perturbed by this. The cafe owner was stoking the fire in a large, conical clay oven which belched woodsmoke into the air. He laid circular loaves of bread onto a rack made from part of an oil drum, and fed it into the mouth of the oven. His wife brought us tea and made the universal hand-to-mouth gesture to ask if we wanted food. In for a penny, in for a pound. Whyever not? Food came. A beef stew, and potatoes, and vegetables. And fresh bread, pulled out of the oven in front of us. This doesn't do it justice. The stew was unspeakably delicious; lightly spiced and fragrant, the meat tender. Occasional bursts of pomegranate seeds, and the sweetness of dried fruit lifted a mundane beef stew into the sublime. And the bread! What can I say about the bread? Fresh, steaming, round loaves. Slightly flattened, with patterns stamped into the crusts, adorned with poppy seeds and grains of salt. We ate, and then we had more. And then we had more tea. And then the cafe owner, and his wife, came and sat with us. We talked, in broken English and staggering, halting French. They didn't see tourists in this area and were as curious about us as we were about them. We learned (and promptly forgot) the Uzbek for words like “fork” and “teaspoon”, and found out that the cafe owner didn't speak Uzbek, only Russian, as he had grown up under the Communist regime. Then we had to learn the Russian words for “fork” and “teaspoon” too. We tasted the plov he was making for the evening (look it up, it's an Uzbek national dish and it's super-tasty) Eventually, we reluctantly prised ourselves from our seats and paid our bill. It was about £3. Pointed in the right direction, we found our way back to the “better” part of the city, replete and deeply satisfied. Satisfied both physically and mentally. Despite the grandeur of the monuments, and the beauty of the many experiences we had in Uzbekistan, these back-street moments are the memories I cherish most. The unexpected turn down a side-road actually took us in the right direction. Turns out that getting hopelessly lost and ending up the in the “wrong” part of town was the best thing we did on our trip.