Necklaces From Souvenirs

I think the fact that I associate summer with travel must have inspired me to make two necklaces out of souvenirs this summer.  The first one was one I had been planning for months.  It incorporates nine souvenir squashed pennies from places in North Carolina--a great thing to wear when I miss home!  These were all squashed pennies that either I collected myself or that my parents collected for me.  I had to wait until I was stateside from the summer to work on that necklace because I needed tools and space to punch holes, cut lengths of tube, and create tube rivets for each one.  That part was the time-consuming part.  The finished necklace makes a fun jangling noise when I wear it.

The second necklace features a large pendant I bought in Uzbekistan.  Actually, I think it has been used as both a pendant and a brooch in the past--there is a large safety pin attached to the back, and I've been trying to decide if it bothers me enough to remove it.  When we visited Uzbekistan, I decided I would buy a piece of jewelry if I found something I loved that looked very different from jewelry I had seen elsewhere.  This pendant definitely fit the bill.  To make a necklace for it, I stitched two beaded tubes for the sides of the necklace, and strung the pendant on a length of chain between them.

The pendant is sitting at an odd angle because of the safety pin on the back.

I'm happy with how both necklaces turned out, but I think what I like the best is that they both have personal significance to me, since they remind me of places I have visited.  I can wear them on days when not much seems to be going my way, and remember fun travels I've had.

Samarkand

**Warning:  This is the portion of the trip in which I broke my twelve year non-vomit streak.  I promise no pictures of that particular event, but read on at your own risk.**

After Bukhara, we traveled to Samarkand, by way of Shahrisabz, the birthplace of of Tamerlane.

I enjoyed seeing Tamerlane's palace there, but it did add quite a bit of time to our travel from Bukhara to Samarkand--time spent traveling on a hot day over bumpy roads in large sections.  By the time we rolled in to Samarkand, it was close to dinner time.

One of our friends was really craving pizza, so we decided to try for that for dinner.  It was...interesting.  It had the potential to be good, with a very nice crust and good cheese.  However, the sauce was sweet, and they used dill to season it.  Two of our friends on the trip absolutely loathe dill, and I think finding dill on pizza was a sort of low point of the trip for them, especially since we saw plenty of basil growing in the area.  After dinner, some of us took an evening walk.  Samarkand was a conspicuously larger city than Khiva or Bukhara.  Amid various old monuments, there were some newer innovations like colorful, musical fountains.

We got an early start the next morning to go to the nearby town of Urgut, which has a bazaar famous for traditional textiles.  As we headed out of Samarkand, the roads quickly become bumpy.  Our driver merrily swerved about, avoiding both potholes and old men who had randomly stopped their cars in the middle of the road.  I started to feel sick.  I thought motion sickness was the most likely culprit, so I took a Bonine and hoped I would feel better.

As time went on, I felt worse.  As we got closer to the bazaar, our tour guide learned that the bazaar was closed that day.  She knew of a man who was selling a trove of traditional textiles out of his home.  The driver pulled over and stopped the minibus so our guide could try to contact this person.  The scenery was beautiful, and I felt a little better getting out of the minibus.

Our guide got ahold of the man who was selling textiles, and we got back into the minibus.  I eventually felt so awful that the driver had to pull over and stop the minibus.  Our tour guide got out and offered me an anti-nausea pill.  Ordinarily, I don't like to take any kind of medicine without knowing exactly what it is and reading about it (I blame this tendency on several summers of working in a pharmacy).  However, I was desperate.  Unfortunately, the pill was large, quick to dissolve, and awful tasting.  Just tasting it made me feel worse, and I had to spit it out.  The tour guide, Scott, and I ultimately walked the last quarter of a mile or so to the house of the man with the textiles.

I was feeling pretty woozy at the house, but I enjoyed seeing the textiles, and ultimately bought a small traditional embroidery that I was told would have been used as a window covering.  Then I sat outside and drank tea.  One of our friends had a smaller, more user friendly anti-nausea pill for me to try.  I took it, and felt pretty confident about the trip back to Samarkand.

Garden at the house we visited.

The man with the textile collection modeling a traditional robe.

I sat next to the door of the minibus, just in case.  It wasn't long before I needed to stop, although as soon as I got out of the minibus, the nausea passed.  At this point, some of our friends scrounged up some thick, opaque plastic shopping bags, and the driver suggested to the tour guide that I sit up front with him.

I changed locations, and the driver proceeded on, driving much more slowly and with less dramatic swerving.  I will be forever grateful to him because I know that driving slowly went against every fiber of his being.  Also, how many people would invite someone on the verge of throwing up to sit next to them while they're driving?  When I finally (and regretfully) broke my twelve year non-vomit streak, the driver silently rolled down the window and stayed calm.

Under any other circumstances, I would have loved what we had for lunch that day--doesn't it look great?  It takes a lot for me to forgo food.  I did eat a little plain bread.

Our plan for the afternoon was a fairly lengthy rest in the hotel during the hottest part of the day, followed by sightseeing.  I was determined to go out and see things, so I took a nap during our rest and then headed out.

We saw the Gur-e-Emir mausoleum, which has the tomb of Tamerlane and some of his sons and grandsons.

We saw the Registan, which was the heart of ancient Samarkand, from the outside.  Some group (a dance troupe, maybe?) was practicing inside, thereby preventing anyone else from going in.

We saw the Bibi Khanum mosque, which was named after Tamerlane's wife.

Stone Qur'an stand at Bibi Khanum mosque

 After that, we went to Samarkand's covered bazaar.  I was starting to feel pretty lousy again, but I was able to help Scott select some apricots to eat later and some silk scarves for gifts.  Then, I'd had enough and needed to sit down.

On the way back, I got sick again.  Fortunately, I was still carrying plastic bags so I didn't have to throw up on the grass or the sidewalk.  The first time I got sick on the way back, a couple of young men in a nearby shop rushed out to bring me a chair and a cup of water (one of our friends was astute enough to notice that the water had come from the tap, and advised me not to drink it, so I used it to rinse out my mouth).  Again, I will be forever grateful.  It would have been much easier for them to ignore the vomiting foreigner outside their shop instead of trying to make me comfortable.  After resting for a few minutes, we walked on.  I got sick again as we got close to the hotel.  After that, though, I had the feeling that I'd be okay, and I was, or at least as okay as you can be after something like that.  I spent the evening in the hotel room, but fruit sounded good to me and I was able to eat a fair amount of it as dinner.

We did some more touring around Samarkand the next day.  I was feeling pretty weak, so I didn't see everything.  My main regret was not getting to meet the man who had helped restore Arabic calligraphy to many of Samarkand's monuments.  Scott did get to meet him, inside the Registan.  Here are a few pictures Scott took inside the Registan while I rested.

After that, we visited the Ulug Beg observatory, which was a center for studying and researching astronomy in the 1400's.

We had lunch (I think I just had bread and fancy lemonade) and took a comfy, speedy train back to Tashkent.  Our flight wasn't until pretty late at night, so we met up with the Uzbek friend who had found such a nice restaurant for dinner in Tashkent at the beginning of our trip.  We went to a Middle Eastern restaurant, and, very unfortunately, I still wasn't up to eating very much.

Getting through security and passport control at the airport was an adventure.  Fortunately, none of us were asked to provide any proof of having transferred money at the "official" rate.  That was probably my biggest concern.  Interestingly, only one person from our group had to produce any hotel registration slips, which I had been guarding like gold the entire time.  The only trouble I had was some fairly excessive interest in my luggage at the end, with an airport security employee barking at me in Russian and taking the cap of my mascara in order to examine it closely.  

One of our friends had arranged for a shuttle to pick us up at the Astana airport.  The driver came to get us, and even seemed remarkably chipper, considering that it was the wee hours of the morning.  However, he had great difficulty actually getting us out of the airport lot.  There was some trouble with the ticket he got on the way in to park, and whether he needed to pay it on the premises or on the way out.  We were all wondering if we'd be able to get any sleep before Astana's early summer dawn was upon us, but it all worked out.

It was a fantastic trip, even with getting sick toward the end.  Living in Astana has been a challenge, often in ways I hadn't imagined going in, but living there has opened up opportunities for travel I didn't think I'd have a chance to do.

Bukhara

The drive from Khiva to Nukus was estimated at about eight hours.  We all noted to our relief that our new minibus was both slightly larger and had better air conditioning.  Our new driver quickly distinguished himself by doing two things:

1.  He abruptly made a u-turn in the middle of the road to circle back to show us something he had seen on the side of the road.  It turned out that it was a man riding a donkey in the midday heat.  As we looked to the ground, we could see that he had harnessed the largest lizard I have ever seen in the wild.  He had a rope around the lizard's hind legs, and the lizard was snapping its wide mouth open and shut.  I did not photograph this scene because I knew if I had been outside trapping lizards on a hot day, I would have been really irritated to have a bunch of tourists photograph me from the comfort of an air conditioned minibus.  Also, I felt sorry for the lizard--I like lizards pretty well anyway, and this one was truly magnificent.

I asked our guide why the man had trapped a lizard.  She asked our driver and then translated back to me that the man wanted to graze his cows in the field, and that these lizards stole the cows' milk.  I had never heard of lizards drinking cows' milk before, but as one of our friends on the trip later pointed out, nobody goes out in the midday heat to trap lizards for fun.

2.  When we stopped for lunch somewhere in the middle of our drive, he revealed to us (through our guide) that he had a rather large supply of different kinds of alcohol on hand, and advised everyone to drink after lunch to break up the grease in our food.  He had mostly hard liquor, but I think one bottle of wine, also.  I'm not much of a drinker anyway, and in the heat, nothing sounded worse to me, so I decided to take my chances with the greasy food.  Some of my friends on the trip enjoyed our little minibar, though, so he didn't have to feel like his thoughtful gesture was in vain.

Our "minibar"

It was interesting watching the scenery become gradually greener until we finally reached Bukhara.  When we arrived, it was close to evening.  We went out to dinner and saved the bulk of our sightseeing for the next day.

After a breakfast in our hotel that included large platters of fresh apricots and cherries, we visited the summer palace of the last emir of Bukhara.  It was quite a compound, and included a mix of more traditional and European design elements.  There were also a number of beautiful--but very screechy--peacocks wandering around.  We were told that they were descended from the emir's peacocks.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day exploring Bukhara on foot.  Here were some of the highlights:

The Ismail Samani mausoleum, which was completed in the tenth century:

Seeing an old mosque still being used for prayers:

A mix of old and new in the city:

Kalan mosque (I think!  Maybe I should have written down what I was photographing, rather than relying on my faulty memory):

The Chor Minor ("four minarets") madrasah.  Each of the four minarets represents a different faith (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism):

Bukhara's synagogue.  The rabbi's son spoke with us and said that Bukhara has about 150 Jewish families today, some of whom are foreign.

This didn't really lend itself to photographs, but Bukhara had so many fruit trees, especially mulberry and apricot.  I love fruit, so I was enchanted.

After spending one full day and two nights in Bukhara, we were scheduled to go to Samarkand, via Tamerlane's birthplace!

Nukus and Khiva

Our next day in Uzbekistan, we had an early morning flight to Nukus.  The flight was blessedly uneventful, although the plane shook pretty violently before take-off.  Our purpose of traveling to Nukus was to visit a very interesting art museum that was the subject of the documentary "The Desert of Forbidden Art".  A brief history of this museum is that Stalin outlawed modern art, and as a result, a large number of works by artists of that time were not publicly displayed.  A man named Igor Savitsky saved thousands of these works by persuading the artists' families to entrust them to him.  He then opened a museum in Nukus to house them.  The cost for taking photos there was quite high, so I don't have any pictures from there, but it was a very interesting experience to visit it.

After visiting Nukus, we piled into a minibus to go to Khiva, one of the Silk Road cities with well-preserved/restored architecture.  Driving through the desert, we saw a number of camels.  I still get a kick out of seeing them, even though I saw quite a few when I lived in the Middle East.

We stayed inside the old city walls.  The place where we stayed was run by a family who lived in part of the building.

We decided to wait to have lunch until we reached Khiva, so our first order of business was to eat (and drink lots of water--it was really hot there!).  After a leisurely lunch, we had some time to explore.  It gradually got cooler outside as it got later in the afternoon.

Because of the heat and our late, large lunch, nobody was in a rush to have a huge restaurant dinner.  Scott and one of our friends went out in search of take-out shashlyk (like shish kebabs), so that people could have something to eat, but not commit to a large plate full of food.  We ate our late meal on the roof of our hotel.  At that point, it was dark outside and considerably cooler.

We got up fairly early the next day, both to take advantage of the relative cool of the morning and because we had a long drive to Bukhara ahead of us.  One nice thing we saw was a lot of local families touring Khiva.  There were lots of very cute little girls in frilly dresses and seemingly incongruous shaved heads.  I asked our friend who had spent a lot of time in Uzbekistan about that.  He told me that a lot of families shave their daughters' heads when they're little with the idea that their hair will grow back thicker later on.

After a morning in Khiva, we piled into another (somewhat larger and better air conditioned) minibus to head to Bukhara.  This was also our first encounter with the driver we had for most of the rest of our trip, who I came to like and appreciate tremendously, though I could barely communicate with him...

Tashkent

We started our Uzbekistan trip in Tashkent.  After a night of sleep, we had a day to see the sights.  The following morning, we were scheduled for an early flight to Nukus and a drive to Khiva.

The first order of business was exchanging money.  There appeared to be very few ATM's in Uzbekistan, and credit cards seemed to be accepted only rarely (in some carpet shops, for instance).  Even the tour agency we booked through wanted their final payment in cash upon arrival.  This was sort of a new situation for me, needing to anticipate how much cash I was going to need for the entire trip, keeping in mind how uncomfortable I am carrying around large amounts of cash.  In addition to these considerations, there was a rather large difference between the official dollars-som exchange rate, and the "unofficial" one.  I was a little uncomfortable going the unofficial route, but fortunately, it all turned out okay.  Interestingly, I noticed that souvenir merchants were using an exchange rate in the ballpark of the unofficial one when giving prices in both dollars and som.

We exchanged $200 initially, and it yielded quite a stack of bills.  If any prospective Uzbekistan travelers are reading this, I highly recommend bringing some sort of bag to carry it all in.  You won't be able to fit much into a standard size wallet.

Our fat stacks

After a hotel breakfast, our guide picked us up to take us around the city.  Tashkent was beautiful.  It reminded me a lot of Almaty, with its tree-lined streets and mix of old and new.  Some people were clearly doing quite well, as evidenced by some of the very new buildings and western stores.  Unfortunately, this was not the case for everyone.  I saw quite a few children begging over the course of the day, which always makes me sad.

Our first stop was the Khazrati Imam complex.  There was a lot to see, and lots of merchants selling souvenirs.  My details about a lot of the sites will be pretty incomplete, since my mind is like Teflon with information while I'm looking around and taking pictures.

The next step on our itinerary was Chorsu Bazaar.  It was large, with multiple sections for both food and stuff of all varieties.  We bought cherries and cashews to snack on.

Molds for wonderful Uzbek bread!

Looking down on the meat section

We also saw the Kukeldash Madrasah from the outside.

We had lunch at a restaurant famous for its plov.  You could get it with various types of meat in it, and with chicken and quail hard boiled eggs.  Much to my delight, the plov contained chickpeas.  We also got a wonderful tomato and cucumber salad on the side.  After spending the winter avoiding the crunchy tomatoes available in Astana, it was wonderful to eat good tomatoes again.  I sat next to our driver during lunch, and he brought out his cellphone and showed me pictures of his wife and daughters, which I thought was great.

After lunch, we walked around some more and then took a short metro ride in order to see Tashkent's famous metro stations.  Unfortunately, photography in the metro stations is forbidden, and there were plenty of police in every station we passed through.  Their designs were beautiful, though, and as a fan of mass transit, I was happy to see them.

It was an extremely hot day, so we took a rest in the hotel after that.  For dinner, an Uzbek friend of the friend who organized the trip had a lovely suggestion for a restaurant on the water.  We ate sitting on cushions around a low table.

The food was great, too.  The only fly in the ointment was actually the flies.  They were attracted to the light above our table and kept dropping into our food.  I looked at the ground beside our table and saw an amazing avocado green slug.  I'm not usually a fan of creepy crawlies, but I actually think slugs are pretty cool, and I liked the size and color of this one.

Then it was back to the hotel for a little sleep before our early morning flight to Nukus!  We didn't have a lot of time to spend in Tashkent, but we liked it very much.  Scott and I were talking, and it turned out we had both been envisioning a place like Tashkent when we decided to move to Astana--a city with many modern features, but a lot of elements of traditional culture.  This may have been naive thinking considering just how new Astana is, but it was nice to see a city able to modernize but still keep many of its charming older attributes.