Uzbekistan

Published on May 8 2014

Have actually not written much yet on Uzbeistan....I am following the ancient silk route, read guide books for the history of it, i can't do it better...;-)

I have a lot of time in the country for the route I have in mind, may be too much considering the temperatures...up to 38C here as well, which is not so pleasant in the truck during the day, nights are ok if it was not for all sorts of bugs in the desert that force you to close windows and hatches... not all of them are biting bugs but I found my self with 100 + swarming ants in bed...no fun...

My route is Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and then i have to see which border is open to Tadschikistan...

oad experiencesR

It is extremely difficult to get any fuel here as they have transformed all cars to gas so stations are generally for Methane, Propane or Butane, gasoline and diesel come from the black market and plastic bottles

Khiva

Very nice, old part of town

Just don't be here on a Sunday when busloads of school kids are flocking the place

Just don't be here on a Sunday when busloads of school kids are flocking the place

An old fort near Bost'on

Planned to stay at a lake in the North and go swimming...same fate as the Aral sea...nothing left but desert

The desertification is actually not surprising at all.... for millennia the huge Amu Darya floodplain has been agriculturally used and the waters have been diverted in enormous channel systems... Not only due to the well known cotton plantations introduced during the Soviet times this abuse now lead to this environmental disaster...

A quite paradoxical situation has been created.... with all these channels and the irrigation systems in place the local groundwater levels have risen, which leads to evaporation of the groundwater at the soil surface and formation of salt crusts if the ground is not continuously irrigated and worked. To wash away the salt more water is needed again...

The difference between worked and unworked fields is astonishing.