#11 From Steppe Into Desert
May 22, 2023
The last notable town, which I wouldn’t really call a town, was Beyneu in Kazakhstan. It’s been five hundred kilometers between Beyneu and Khodzheli in Uzbekistan, which is a suburb of Nukus. There is nothing to visit or see here. My arrival at the hotel presented quite a spectacle for the neighborhood and it is obvious that this place is far from any tourist trail.
I spent the day anywhere but inside my hotel room, which doesn’t look far from a correctional facility in Yemen. A miserable pig latrine. Picture this: a four beds-room with sheets in floral motifs where the beddings cannot be changed, a weather-worn velvet sofa which God knows what it has seen in its life, a 90’s tv set placed on a wrinkled piece of furniture, two windows facing a courtyard full of waste, one of the window glass covered in an unexplainable blue tinted sheet with a hole in it and a carpet placed on top of a chipped parquet. Not to mention the bathroom… arghh, the bathroom breaks all records: a powdery-surface sink, a standing tub that does not have a quick drain and looks like a rusted Titanic on the bottom, a portable purse mirror somehow stuck to the wall, an abominable smell of sewage, a toilet with a mosaic of dried feces… and all kinds of hand and footprints all over the walls. Some of them you wonder how they got so high. Having seen all of this, I remember it could always be worse. I’ve definitely seen worse, plus the booze bar is across the street, at a two minutes walking distance.
Location: Khodzheli, Uzbekistan
May 23, 2023
I am still here and I am having a good time. Khodzheli is the Times Square of crowded places compared to the last nine days of nothingness. The waitress does not understand why I give her free money. A gesture of prostitution probably? I fire up the translation app explaining that in my culture it means a reward for services rendered. I did give her a little too much to be honest; 45% is a bit excessive for a six dollar bill. Anywhere I eat, drink or shop, no matter what I buy or consume, the bill does not exceed a few dollars. Life is cheap here. This is my land. The guys from the tool shop helped me repair the tent. Look, you need this and that… no pay, free… just to see me happy. I bought them a big bottle of coca cola.
Where are you from? is the most frequent question. California is the most appropriate answer. Everyone knows what California is. I am not lying because I am a semi-pathological liar but why would I complicate things with York in Pennsylvania? Who gives a shit about Penna? I tried Penna couple of times and the disappointment on their faces was unbearable. I say California – San Francisco – Arnold Schwarzenegger – boom, boom boom… imitating as if firing a machine gun. They love it! Where are you going? another important question. Towards China, making a sign with my hand towards distant lands. I never say that my goal is to reach Timor Leste Islands. Not even my very educated brother knows where Timor Leste is. Well, now he knows after a prolonged search on Google maps.
I am well fed, showered, I have the tent fixed, the bike cleaned and oiled… I cover myself with the non washable blanket, ready for tomorrow’s last leg of the desert.
Nite!
Location: Khodzheli, Uzbekistan
May 24, 2023
I leave the hotel knowing that 500 km of desert await me. Nukus is the end of a strip of oasis that follows the Amu Darya River through the desert on all sides; to the north is Uzbek nothingness, followed by hundreds of miles of Kazakh nothingness; to the south this strip of green marks the border with Turkmenistan, after which the desert continues; to the west too, the desert continues into the Kazakh steppe. The Green Belt used to run past Nukus to the Aral Sea and its forest of greenery, but it all turned to salty dust now because of Soviet irrigation projects.
As soon as I exit Nukus, the desert engulfs me once again. It is more undulating than the desert I’d been through so far and has more traffic, but it’s still a desert; luckily there are many precious little shade areas. The scenery is a bit more interesting though with mountains in the distance and as the noon sun beats down on me, I approach a rather out of place mound a few kilometers away. It turns out to be Chilpyk Kala Fortress, a first century fire worshiping site which was used for many centuries afterwards by the Arabs and Khorezm people until the tenth century.
The heat doesn’t worry me. I am a heat resistant animal. In fact, to brag a bit, at home in the summer regardless of the temperature, I run with a hat and gloves. Makes me feel special. I am the weirdo of the neighborhood. I am fifty but I treat my body as if I were twenty.
There are not many roads in Uzbekistan and the road I ride on is Uzbekistan’s I-95, which connects the country from west to east and further north-east to the country’s capital.
A panic attack is a serious mental health event and one you should seek professional counseling for… and I’m having one right now. In the blink of an eye, the tarmac changed from a perfect Champ Elysee Boulevard to a dirt road that needs to be plowed. These are the times when the existential thoughts rush over me like an avalanche: what in the name of Saint Jacob pushes me to do this thing? Why don’t I stay home with the woman I love and eat with a fork? I am stupidly nervous and seemingly without a major cause at least. That’s what gets me. It’s just a bad road. I’m tempted to scream, to beat someone up, break an official’s arm, to mutilate a government employee…. I feel my heart tightened by invisible claws. A real panic is setting in, I suffer terribly… I do, and when I look for the cause, I can’t find it. It’s just a bad road. I keep saying to myself… IT IS JUST A BAD ROAD CORNEL… Shut up and pedal.
Cornel bows his head down and pedals 105 km on the agricultural road.
Location: 81-Kilometr, Uzbekistan
May 25, 2023
My brother was murdered last week. On his last day of life, Limonta woke up early. At 6:45 he got out of the apartment on the second floor where he lived with his wife and minor daughter, on the west side of Cluj-Napoca city. He spent the whole day at work, in the yellow taxi, taking and bringing passengers from the airport where he was stationed. He was discovered lifeless in a very affluent neighborhood. People called the police in reference to a car parked on their street for a long time. The doors were locked, but what is curious is that the trunk was open only enough to make someone believe that it was closed. When the police discovered his body it was already dark. The policemen went around the car with flashing beams thinking he was just sleeping. After a few knocks with no answer coming from inside, one of the cops broke the passenger window. When they finally opened the driver’s door, Limonta fell on the ground. He was tied with twisted wire behind his ankles and wrists. On the floor there was a long knife, like those used to slaughter pigs. At first, the police thought he was still alive, believing that he had just lost consciousness, but then a beam of light from a flashlight showed that Limonta had been brutally stabbed in the abdomen many times. His beautiful manly features were gone forever leaving instead a pale and bloody corp. Along with the body on the ground, the intestines flowed out through a massive hole. Apparently it wasn’t just a random stabbing, rather a ritual stabbing. The cut of the knife stretched from the sternum to the pelvic bone, and sideways and seemed as a fairly fresh cut, blood still sipping out creating a puddle on the floor of the car. The only thing missing from the murder scene was the accordion which he used to store in the back of the trunk. He was a skilled accordionist. In his free time he used to play at weddings…
Cycling through the desert can sometimes make your mind go bazuka. My brother was not murdered. My brother is not a skilled musician and my brother is not a taxi driver. Cornel is cycling through a 40 degrees hell. The drivers passing by look at the frantically pedaling cyclist, which by the draft he is creating is reaching a sustainable ambience of survival. If he stops, then in a few moments it becomes Dante’s inferno.
Location: 10km past Miskin, Uzbekistan
May, 26, 2023
My sister was discovered unconscious with an hypodermic syringe stuck into her arm. No, no, no… I am not going this way…
Still pedaling through the Kyzylkum desert.
Location: Desert, Uzbekistan
May 27, 2023
I’ve been experiencing pain in my hips and neck muscle. Not to mention my sacrum, which I want to rip out and give to the stray dogs… a general fatigue is also present. My stomach feels wobbly, my memory is failing and my eyesight seems to be failing too. I am becoming increasingly irritable and angry. Gazing at myself in the phone’s screen I realize I really do look tired, and my torso – arghhh, my torso that I was so proud of – is weakling. I’m growing man boobs. I’ve turned the corner already? Am I really starting to age? I don’t want to get old. Ah, if I could get some rest and some company that would be nice, but I am not brave enough to accept company. I pay dearly. The price of freedom is loneliness.
When I get home I will have to hide this diary, find a room where I can remove a plank from the floor. I will keep it there in the space under the floor. Why? Well, I became too honest in my writing. It is not prudent to leave it in plain sight for an eternity. Praise the Lord that I have this journal. I have no one to talk to.
Still pedaling through the Kyzylkum desert.
Location: wild camp on highway, Uzbekistan
May, 28, 2023
Last night I stopped just 50 km short of Bukhara. I pushed hard to get there before lunch… and when I got there it felt like I entered the Las Vegas of Islam. It’s the first time in Central Asia that I’ve popped up in a ‘tourist’ spot. Bukhara is the holiest city in the region and has no end of mosques, big and small, as well as a notable Jewish population. It is littered with madrassas, most of which have a mosque attached to them, but many of them are so much bigger than what I saw anywhere else. Their huge facades are covered in beautiful tiles, pieced together as we piece together stained glass in church windows. However, instead of portraying stories by using pictures as Christians do, they have geometric patterns and colors with some Arabic writing as well, since Islam forbids portrayals of animated objects.
Unfortunately, with a touristic site comes the whites in shorts with decayed toenails in sandals, the asians with long lenses and children running away from parents. Still, it is nice to walk around Bukhara taking in the sights and in a way, the intermingling of the old city and new city brought about something unique in itself. I love Bukhara.
Location: Bukhara, Uzbekistan
May 29, 2023
I can’t convince myself that I have nothing to do, just to visit and be happy that I got rid of the desert. While I was walking aimlessly through the city, I saw a gathering of old people, about 50 the majority, preparing a large cauldron of rice with meat. There is a certain way to attract attention; you look long but still indifferent, you smile and make it clear that you would like to join them but not uninvited. The magic worked. “Come back in an hour” said the one stirring the rice in the pot. In an hour the food is ready… and back I was after an hour, carrying fruits, coca-cola and a tray of pastries. I didn’t want to show up at the party empty handed… and I was soon being fed with the usual plate of tasty rice with meat, salads, and bread. We went through three bottles of vodka like it was water. I ask how far is the liquor shop to which one of them replies that it’s two minutes by scooter. The twelve year old boy jumped on the scooter and back he was with more booz faster than Usain Bolt used to finish a hundred dash. I skipped the booz line a couple of times, as I need to make it to the hostel afterwards. Finally, after an hour and a half of eating, drinking and talking I stood up ready to walk back home… knees wobbling. The only thing missing was some hash with the old fashion toilet paper roll and tin foil pipe. I don’t know what kind of religion these guys follow, but I really like their approach to life.
I love Bukhara, I really do.
Location: Bukhara, Uzbekistan
May, 30, 2023
Another rest day in Bukhara. More of the same. How wonderful it is to have money! I am a made man – I love to spend money on intangible things. I hate tangible things with vengeance. For Christmas I got an expensive watch from my 18 year old son. $200. A lot of money for a student. I said “That’s the best present ever”. He knows me. He knows me well. He knows I lied. The watch is still boxed and probably never to be worn.
Location: Bukhara, Uzbekistan
May 31, 2023
Back on the road. I have a cute idea in mind. To surprise my girlfriend at the airport in Romania, where she will land on June 4th for a summer vacation. Usually I’m not a fan of surprises in relationships, you know, in case they go wrong… but in this case it cannot be a surprise gone bad, as her family will be there. I want to see her, I want to see her desperately, to empty wine bottles, to let her know that I would crawl around the Equator on my knees to show love for her. If I could lay my hands on her right now…
Oh, and I also have an appointment on June 12 with the Chinese embassy for the visa that can only be obtained from the country of the passport. I chose to go through Asia with a Romanian passport because the chances of beheading are lower.
I don’t know which side roads I took because I found myself on the north-east side leaving Bukhara. This section is more desert type than the main road that leads to Samarkand and I find myself in the position of the amateur adventurer: without water. I stop at a brick factory where they offer me water from a bucket. It’s hellishly hot and these people probably work for a few cents an hour near diabolical furnaces. Shoot me in the brains instead of making me work here.
The lady at the hotel almost didn’t accommodate me because I didn’t have proof of where I slept the previous night. When traveling through Uzbekistan, you need to be registered by hotels or other licensed places to stay, or need to register yourself in some online system. Not long ago, people would occasionally get arrested and deported for not having enough registration slips from licensed accommodation providers.. With the new president elected in 2018 things relaxed and police and border guards became very friendly. Practically, tourists do not need those slips anymore and the registration system was set to disappear in 2020. Theoretically, it seems that remnants of Bolshevik thinking are still infiltrated in the system. So, who the fuck knows what is the current law? My lady at the reception wears an Islamic scarf on her head, a long skirt and no skin in sight. She seems very determined not to accept my money; in addition to that, she looks very frustrated that I allowed myself to sleep in her dear country without registering, and I’m equally frustrated; why the hell are you interested in which hotel I crapped in the last time? She makes a long phone call during which I almost lost my patience and was ready to burst out the reception – the short attention span of humans is 2.8 seconds, mine is under a second. Somehow I got the room key…
Speaking of humans, I get bored quickly and despise people. I think the ideal number of people on this planet should be seven. One for each continent. People say strange things, bore you to death with useless information. Perhaps the most excruciating thing is a phone shoved in front of you by force. A child immortalised in thirty-five pictures blowing out candles. Swipe quickly to get to the last picture. With an average of five pictures per second, you manage to escape relatively quickly. The problem is the two-minute video – with the same child, the same candles. At about the fortieth second you think of an effective method of suicide. I need friends, I need these people, they invite me to their parties, I also get out of loneliness and frozen pizza… but is the ordeal with the pictures worth it?
I go to sleep engulfed in my own hatred, in Mrs. Islamic hotel.
Location: Navoi, Uzbekistan
June 1, 2023
When I woke up, Mrs. Islamic was not at the reception. I asked for my registration slip from an uncovered lady, diametrically opposed. She was smiling, speaking quickly and vivaciously, warm and compassionate, with the expression of a pious little girl. It was a sign of genuine humour she had displayed and I found it attractive. I had a strange feeling of non-sexual moment. Apparently I like humans today.
The road between Bukhara and Samarkand is very green and for the first time since Georgia I see something miraculous. The trees! They are becoming more and more dense, with their green glow into the cosmos, their calming perfume, their oxygen enriched air. I take my lunch under one of these trees. At the risk of sounding melodramatic (and you looking weird) I ask the reader to go outside and hug a tree. Trees relax you and improve mental health – per Dr. David Scholey, an associate professor at the University of Surrey in England.
For about 20 kilometers I’m looking for a hotel. “xyz km” every man answers when I ask. I noticed that Central Asian people have no sense of distance. I get to the x kilometer mark and there is nothing. Are they messing with me? In the end I completely abandoned the idea of finding a hotel. I’m tired, sipping soup at a bodega, out of the sun, when one of the diners offers to accommodate me in his house. He simply locked me in the house and went with his family to a children’s party. It is International Children’s Day even in Uzbekistan.
Location: Karateri, Uzbekistan
June 2, 2023
I woke up excited to cover the 30 km that separate me from Samarkand. I bustled along the road, traffic gradually increasing, the heat rising as the day progressed and reached Samarkand around lunchtime. Samarkand is one of the places I have most wanted to visit on this journey. Historically, it has been one of the most crucial Silk Road cities, at the crossroads between paths diverging between Europe, China and India, nestled at the bottom of the mountains and before the desert, with abundant water and trade and people flowing through from all sides. I am hugely excited to be here.
The historical buildings in Samarkand are similar to those in Bukhara, except at a bigger scale. There is a beautiful central square, called Registan Plaza, where I sat for hours and watched the fascinating mix of people that were each going about their business. Old, white bearded local men sat on the benches chatting, local women in stunning, brightly colored dresses with headscarves and gold teeth sat in the park nearby the square, selling fresh bread or random, various food items. Amongst all of this, young western couples would occasionally walk by with big backpacks and every few minutes or so, a huge tour bus would arrive. Porters from the luxurious hotels would come running out to collect the suitcases of the mostly retired, western holiday makers, whom I was surprised to even see in Uzbekistan. I could have sat and read a book in that square for hours, soaking up the atmosphere and thinking back to how hard things had felt only a few days ago.
Location: Samarkand, Uzbekistan
4 thoughts on “#11 From Steppe Into Desert”
Always surprised at the generosity and friendliness of the people you meet along the way… These people have so little but give so much. Just something to think about.
Also I think the desert might be driving you clinically insane, lol.
Excited to hear more!
“ For Christmas I got an expensive watch from my 18 year old son. “.
Getting a watch from someone means they want to spend more time with you. I would say that is a priceless intangible from your son. 😊
Love reading about your trip.
Keep on pedaling!
Toate povestile tale is pline de ceva nou , inedit (mincari pe marginea drumului , camere de hotel de neuitat , oameni faini ,simplii si primitori , sosele dinainte de Hristos , capodopere de porti si de moschei), care in carapacele in care traim noi , cititorii si suporterii tai , n-avem cum sa experimentam daca nu riscam sa iesim din ele .
Probabil asa arata lumina de la capatul tunelului , o viata la fel ca asta , dar care nu o poti trai daca nu ai curaju sa te descotorosesti de confort .
Respect !
So glad your brother is well! :)) You caught me off guard with your introspection. Maybe this journal will become a book some day, so don’t hide it.