Uzbekistan part one

One thing that Central Asia is famous for, or perhaps infamous for, is the Aral Sea. This used to be the world's second largest inland sea, after the Caspian, but has been receding continuously for the past 40 to 50 years due to the rivers which feed it being diverted to irrigate crops.

Moynaq is a small town we visited which has a monument to this: it used to be a fishing port employing 50000 people but now is over 120km from the sea. There are rusting ships lying in the sand of the new Aral Kol, or Aral Desert, where they were abandoned after the sea left. The remaining Aral Sea has apparently changed from fresh to salt water, and the chemicals used for farming have become concentrated in the water thus killing all the fish which used to live in it. The lack of the sea has changed the local climate, the winters are very cold now, and the dust storms in the summer cause respiratory problems for the people living nearby, again due to the high levels of agricultural chemicals left behind.

All this was started in the Soviet era, when irrigation canals were dug to water the cotton crops. The big issue now is since the dissolution of the old USSR there are several different countries affected by the Aral Sea, and no international consensus on what to do about it. And, frankly, no money to pay for it either.

Which is mildly ironic when you know just how much money people have to carry around here. Uzbek money is called Som, and comes in bills up to 1000. This sounds like a lot, but 1000 Som is worth about 50 pence, so when you change, say, a 50 dollar bill, you get 78000 Som back. This does not fit in any normal wallet, and even pockets can be a struggle. I asked our local guide, Mansur, how people carry all their money around and he said that they pay someone else to carry it. I think he was joking.

We have now visited two Silk Road cities: Khiva and Bukhara. Central Khiva is one big museum, with 2000 or so people still living within the old city walls. It is pretty much as it was in the 19th century, which was the last time the city was burned down in an attack. It is small, which made it pleasant to walk around and see the sights, and still not quite as touristy as Bukhara.

Bukhara is more the bustling city, with the centre geared up for extracting money from tourists and the locals' areas further out. It does happen to have two nightclubs, and it being Saturday night when we got here, some of my fellow travellers and I decided to try one out. Clubbing in Bukhara is an experience, especially when you don't know where you are going. So after getting mildly lost, asking directions from a very drunk van driver, and much walking of dark alleyways, we arrived at the club. The music was a seemingly random assortment of Russian and Uzbek hits, some sounding very Western, some definitely not. The clientele were all locals, who were polite enough not to stare too much at the woefully underdressed tourists. The taxi back to our hotel was an improvement on the Kazakh ones, in that he actually took us where we wanted to go. He did hike the price up once we had arrived though, the dirty chancer.

One odd thing about these cities, is that they don't feel as exotic as they look in photos. Even looking back at my pictures of Khiva, they look very mysterious and enticing, but being here just feels like another city, albeit with different architecture and more heat.

Pics are of a boat in the Aral Sea, and US$100 in Uzbek Som.