Osh by gosh

Up at 5am and straight out of the Hotel to head North to Tashkent.
Police everywhere. We get stopped once but waved past most of the time. The journey is fairly uneventful apart from atrocious roads so progress is slow.

There was never any intention to stay in Tashkent so, after getting completely lost on the motorway system, a friendly local shows us the way to motorway due East. Again, more bad roads but by 5pm, we get to (to be entered) and are nearly out of petrol. We have very little Som left and need to get supplies.

We pull up at a hotel and one of the staff take me to nearby corner to exchange on the Black Market.

I am approached by a gut with a carrier bag full of pre-sorted 500 Som notes.  No-one bats an eyelid.

Back to the hotel where we meet an American Harvard graduate studying the area and its languages - very help ful.

We drive around looking for petrol but there is none.

Alex is willing to risk the 45km to the Kyrgyz border - I am not.

I arrange some black market petrol which is delivered at astronimical price and we head for the border.

At the border its the usual welcome. It is a bit more troublesome leaving Uzbekistan but we get a friendly welcome from the Kyrgystan side - as well as a smattering of Kalashnikovs - standard border fare in this part of the world.

After parting with 50 or so lollipops, we head to Osh.

We drive around for an hour nefore finding a hotel - and what a hotel.

The bathroom is a tribute to soviet engineering. External pipes (way out of any proportion to what they perform)  It is filthy with cracked and loose tiles everywhere.

We drink beer and talk to locals until 3am.