Again, I intended to leave relatively early to cross the border before lunchtime, but again, I snoozed far too many times (no surprise, many of you might say.. ;-)), took too much time for breakfast (well, that's new as I usually do not have breakfast at all..) and I left the hotel just after 11... Found a shared taxi immediately as this time I was the last of the 4 passengers. The 1h15 drive from Fergana to Andijon was quite pleasant as the driver put on some great music. After weeks of all kind of traditional music or ethno-pop (which I enjoyed, don't get me wrong...), this 70ies and 80ies revival was very welcome. I had to control myself really hard not to sing along... ;-) I just love to sing while driving in a car, but mainly if it is my own car... Starting with Boney M.'s "Rasputin", then Toto Cotugno's "Italiano vero" (lasciatemi cantare...), Desireless' "voyage voyage", Boney M. again with "daddy cool", several songs of Modern Talking (which I enjoyed less, I hated them already then...) etc... While I very much enjoyed this, my co-passengers did not seem to be too impressed about this and quickly started to either sleep or grab their smart phones (almost everyone has one and many do have iPhones as well...) and started playing or phoning through their address book ;-) The music was in sharp contrast to the rural landscapes passing by: the spectacular still snow-covered high mountains of the Pamir in close-by Tajikistan, the wheat harvest and the people works in the fields, fruit plantations (with mainly apricots, cherries and small apples, all already ready to be harvested...), mountains of melons on the side of the road, waiting to be bought by the people in the many passing cars, stands with fresh bread (which - as you might have seen on previous pictures - is not only bread but also local art, a little different in each region....).
In Andijon, I asked the driver to drop me off where the collective taxis leave to the border village of Dustlyk, but he just dropped me off the city's main taxi hub, where nobody else would hire a taxi and everyone pretended that it was right here that the shared taxis would leave but that due to the midday heat, nobody was leaving right now... But I knew that they leave somewhere from more north of the centre, but nobody wanted to take me there.. :-( and in combination wanted too high prices for a private taxi. I eventually managed to negotiate the price down to half and we left, but the driver afterwards accepted other passengers, which usually is not the case for a private taxi. But later on, he did not agree to reduce the price accordingly, but smiled when I drew his attention to this inconsistency... Anyway... It did not make me bankrupt and he was actually quite nice, especially when we arrived at a first checkpoint some kilometres from the border where I had to have my luggage already screened in order to actually drive on to the border. He helped carrying my stuff to the little shed with the screening machine. The policeman saw something "suspicious" on his screen and asked for an explanation, which I could not give as I did. I did not recognise the suspicious object myself, but - of course - it was right in the middle of my backpack, which opens from the top and bottom. I pulled out a lot of things, explained, we screened the backpack again and the "thing" was still there... He then insisted hat I unpack everything... Quite a hassle and it was incredibly hot in that shed!!! He did not find anything suspicious and it was finally not clear what that "thing" was... When i packed my stuff again, of course, not everything fitted in as I was trying to pack quickly so I had to start again. By the time I finished, I was literally soaked! We drove off to the actual border, where a long queue of lorries (or "trucks" as my American friends would say ;-), the person in question who always teases me about this will recognise himself.. ;-) , was waiting and the taxi driver could not drive past, so he dropped me off and I had to walk about half a kilometre to the border post. No waiting time there, for once, but my stupid indication on the customs declaration of "drugs for personal use" arose some suspicion here (how stupid can you be to put "drugs" and not "medicine" or something alike...!!!) I started explaining, but nothing to do. I had to pull the stuff out, yet again (oups... I realise I have not yet posted that chapter of when I entered Uzbekistan... It's getting complicated and confused.. Sorry for that ..;-)) I explained that "drugs" does not mean "heroine or cocaine" but is a word for "medicine". The guy looked at all the stuff very carefully, but what attracted his attention most was a small pocket-mirror, which was in my emergency kit. He pulled it out and started looking, very calmly, at his face, from all angles, started plucking some of his eyebrows, inspected some "skin-irregularities", and this in front of about 5 other people who were waiting for his stamp on their customs declaration. Unfortunately, taking pictures at the border is not allowed... ;-)
The only other thing they wanted to check was my photos... Again, they went through all my photos on the iPad (and there are many now after two months of travelling) and when I asked what he was actually looking for, it was all about "pornographic material" (which is prohibited) and not about any political stuff or government buildings (of ahi chinned some pics on here and I was getting a bit nervous therefore..) as I had no pornographic material, he let me go! ;-)
The Kyrgyz entry was very quick: no customs form, no visa, no questions. A quick look at the passport, at the picture, at me, an entry stamp and off I went. In total not even 2 minutes!! From the border, again no shared taxis... Nobody wanted to go to in the same direction, even if my destination, the city of Osh, is only a few km away. Again, the wrong price info in the Lonely Planet provoked some excitement in the price negotiation, but we settled after a while.. ;-) I will become a negotiation professional during this trip! Perhaps I could get part of my trip recognised as post as professional training, instead of here endless negotiation courses? What do you think, Bodil (our training specialist at work... Hi there!! ;-))
No photos from this day :-(
In Andijon, I asked the driver to drop me off where the collective taxis leave to the border village of Dustlyk, but he just dropped me off the city's main taxi hub, where nobody else would hire a taxi and everyone pretended that it was right here that the shared taxis would leave but that due to the midday heat, nobody was leaving right now... But I knew that they leave somewhere from more north of the centre, but nobody wanted to take me there.. :-( and in combination wanted too high prices for a private taxi. I eventually managed to negotiate the price down to half and we left, but the driver afterwards accepted other passengers, which usually is not the case for a private taxi. But later on, he did not agree to reduce the price accordingly, but smiled when I drew his attention to this inconsistency... Anyway... It did not make me bankrupt and he was actually quite nice, especially when we arrived at a first checkpoint some kilometres from the border where I had to have my luggage already screened in order to actually drive on to the border. He helped carrying my stuff to the little shed with the screening machine. The policeman saw something "suspicious" on his screen and asked for an explanation, which I could not give as I did. I did not recognise the suspicious object myself, but - of course - it was right in the middle of my backpack, which opens from the top and bottom. I pulled out a lot of things, explained, we screened the backpack again and the "thing" was still there... He then insisted hat I unpack everything... Quite a hassle and it was incredibly hot in that shed!!! He did not find anything suspicious and it was finally not clear what that "thing" was... When i packed my stuff again, of course, not everything fitted in as I was trying to pack quickly so I had to start again. By the time I finished, I was literally soaked! We drove off to the actual border, where a long queue of lorries (or "trucks" as my American friends would say ;-), the person in question who always teases me about this will recognise himself.. ;-) , was waiting and the taxi driver could not drive past, so he dropped me off and I had to walk about half a kilometre to the border post. No waiting time there, for once, but my stupid indication on the customs declaration of "drugs for personal use" arose some suspicion here (how stupid can you be to put "drugs" and not "medicine" or something alike...!!!) I started explaining, but nothing to do. I had to pull the stuff out, yet again (oups... I realise I have not yet posted that chapter of when I entered Uzbekistan... It's getting complicated and confused.. Sorry for that ..;-)) I explained that "drugs" does not mean "heroine or cocaine" but is a word for "medicine". The guy looked at all the stuff very carefully, but what attracted his attention most was a small pocket-mirror, which was in my emergency kit. He pulled it out and started looking, very calmly, at his face, from all angles, started plucking some of his eyebrows, inspected some "skin-irregularities", and this in front of about 5 other people who were waiting for his stamp on their customs declaration. Unfortunately, taking pictures at the border is not allowed... ;-)
The only other thing they wanted to check was my photos... Again, they went through all my photos on the iPad (and there are many now after two months of travelling) and when I asked what he was actually looking for, it was all about "pornographic material" (which is prohibited) and not about any political stuff or government buildings (of ahi chinned some pics on here and I was getting a bit nervous therefore..) as I had no pornographic material, he let me go! ;-)
The Kyrgyz entry was very quick: no customs form, no visa, no questions. A quick look at the passport, at the picture, at me, an entry stamp and off I went. In total not even 2 minutes!! From the border, again no shared taxis... Nobody wanted to go to in the same direction, even if my destination, the city of Osh, is only a few km away. Again, the wrong price info in the Lonely Planet provoked some excitement in the price negotiation, but we settled after a while.. ;-) I will become a negotiation professional during this trip! Perhaps I could get part of my trip recognised as post as professional training, instead of here endless negotiation courses? What do you think, Bodil (our training specialist at work... Hi there!! ;-))
No photos from this day :-(
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