Day 10: This morning we take an early flight to Tashkent, arriving in the Uzbekistan capital around noon. We have one last “object” on our itinerary which is to visit the modern Art Gallery of Uzbekistan. It’s a modern very beautiful building which was commissioned by president Karimov and has a small collection of modern paintings.
It has some really interesting sculptures from the early centuries AD.
For our final lunch, Fazli takes us to a very local restaurant which ends up being the best meal we had in Uzbekistan. Shane has been wanting to try a dish called “naryn” which is only available in Tashkent and is shredded horse meat with cold noodles. As we walk into the restaurant we see a counter where a woman is preparing something that we think could be it and yes, it is. It sounds horrible but it is really tasty.
Not only do I have the naryn but I have sliced horse meat on a salad of noodles which I really enjoy, it’s my first time eating horse and it’s really nice (sorry Black Beauty!!). The bread is really good and as if that’s not enough we are served a giant platter of meat including lamb chops, kebab, chicken and beef. It’s so good, we definitely won’t need dinner tonight.
After checking into the hotel and saying our goodbyes we head out for one last ramble. We take the metro to the famous Kosmonavtlar stop which is decorated with images of space and Russia’s cosmonauts aka astronauts.
Yuri Gargarin:
I won’t miss avoiding these ditches:
We hit the hotel for an early night (and I try squash my purchases into my bag) as tomorrow we fly to Dubai… well officially it’s tomorrow but it’s a 4am flight so we have to be up at 1:15am – so that’s tonight to me! We were supposed to be flying to Catania (Sicily) via Dubai but a few days after I left Ireland and flew to Austria I got an email from FlyDubai to tell me my flight was cancelled. So now, after what will likely be a very expensive phone call, we are on the original flight out of Tashkent but have to stay over in Dubai for a night and catch the Catania flight a day later. The joys of traveling 🤪
Ah well, we get through the flight and arrive tired in Dubai to 40 degree heat. Thankfully our hotel isn’t too far outside of air conditioned walkways and they let us check in when we get there at 8:30am – score!! We get some sleep and agree that a day indoors at the mall is the only way to go. I just can’t hack that heat – it is literally like walking through a fan oven! There’s a lot of “I’m roasting” going on.
We take the metro (beautifully air conditioned) and view the many weird and monstrous buildings through the window.
You can get to the mall from the metro without leaving the air conditioning so happy days. We walk around what must be the biggest mall in the world. It has so many shops and restaurants from all over the world (M&S, Bloomingdales, H&M, Pottery Barn, Five Guys, Nando’s… to name but a few). There’s even an aquarium, cinema and video arcade. We settle for rambling (gotta keep those steps up) and sushi which is expensive but gorgeous.
We go outside for a brief ten minutes to view the highest building in the world the Burj Khalifa
and that’s a wrap… Sicily tomorrow and I can not wait.
odohertyelaine 