Tashkent - trip to the opera to see Oltin Qalam

After a quiet morning in Samarkand we drove to Tashkent after lunch. First stop for everyone was the laundry place and then lunch – with a few shasliqs again.

Nico got the idea to go see an opera in the evening so me, Charles, Neil and Nico went there. Mikkel was supposed to join but he fell a sleep and was too tired when we were leaving. We didn't have tickets when we arrived to the opera and it seemed like the ticket office was closed even though there were quite a few people around. A guy came and led us up some stairs while he kept asking if we were journalists. We didn't really understood why. Then we came to a foyer and the guy opened a door and showed us inside. The opera hall was full of people and there was singing and dancing going on when we went in. We also didn't really understand why we didn't have to pay and why we could just choose a seat. After the singing and dancing the host couple came on stage and did a lot of talking and slowly we realised it wasn't opera but a journalist award show – the OltinQalam, the Golden pen. Expect from the awards talks – which we hardly understood a word of - the show was interesting with different local dances and songs.

After the award show we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was a nice evening and a lot of people were out in the streets because it was a holiday. We also got the first impression of the city and definitely got the feeling of the Soviet influence.

It started to turn dark after and hour or two and after a wrong turn we decided to jump into a taxi since we still had to walk while. It was an interesting trip back in the taxi the taxi driver didn't really know the hotel or the street even though we showed him a card from the hotel with several streets on it. It's quite common the drivers don't know the streets because they change once in a while and a lot of people only know the Russian names. The next day we learned that it's better to tell a monument, an embassy or likewise to get to the right place. We did end up quite close to the hotel and walked the last kilometer home. Which turned out quite good because we found a small noodle restaurant which seemed like a nice change from the shasliqs. Before dinner we went to the hotel to pick Mikkel up and it was definitely a success to go to the noodle restaurant.

On the road to Tashkent

No need to argue

Laundry basement

Oltin Qalam

Traditional Uzbek singing and dancing

Spicy food