Soviet-Era Design (and Magic City)

Built during the Soviet era, many of the Metro stations in Tashkent are beautifully designed, and our self-guided tour felt like visiting several worlds in one afternoon. 

It wasn't exactly self-guided, though, because English wasn't an option at the ticket stations. A teenaged boy bought tickets for us and led us to the right train once, and a college -aged girl mercifully approached us to help with directions (then invited us to have breakfast at The Hilton, where she works), and younger kids offered us their seats if the trains were full. One stern woman finally opened the gate for us when she tired of us asking how to operate the ticket machine.

We have found this culture to be generally calm, happy, and respectful; we have seen no homeless people, and the uniformed kids returning from school seemed somehow not teenagery at all. 

Here are a few station design highlights:

Domes inspired by Islamic architecture:

A dedication to Soviet astronauts and space exploration, (our favorite):

Teal ceramic columns:

A dedication to Abdulla Kodiriy, one of Uzbekistan's most famous writers:

A trip to the future:

Crazy lighting:

And mood lighting:

We ended our day at a place called "Magic City" - Tashkent's version of Disneyland, with rides and fountain light shows and lots and lots of advertisements:

The people here love Magic City; it was the first on a list of recommendations by our hotel owner. We got tired of it within about 20 minutes, though, so we found some Korean fast food and ate it in a restaurant filled with 90% women and their daughters. 

"We Do it Here"

We passed a row of bank machines and entered the Chorsu Bazaar where all of the pickled vegetables live: mounds of shredded carrots, chopped red and green cabbage, beets, garlic, tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

Our tour guide, Sam, a twenty something IT student who started doing this three tours ago, stopped at the first stand and said, "You want a taste?"

Without waiting for a response, he grabbed a pickle, broke it in half, and handed each of us a piece. Sue and I looked at each other, then at the vendor, who sat unconcerned on a stool in front of us.

"You can do that?" Sue asked.

"It's okay, yes," he reassured us, "Everyone does it."

Next he picked a few shredded carrots off a huge pile and offered some to us; again we looked around, embarrassed.

"No one would ever do this in America," I said.

"Why?"

We tried to explain about hygiene, rude behavior, and stealing.

Sam shrugged. "We do it here."

At first Sam seemed to shrug off almost everything; he seemed generally unexcitable-- perhaps, even, dull. Within the first five minutes he had told Sue he didn't like Chinese people, or Indian people either.  But by the end of our two--hour tour that had turned into three, we loved him. We called him "Dad" because he kept offering to tak our trash -- even the shells of almonds and strawberry husks. He took us places in that market we never could have navigated on our own, and was thoroughly amused at our reactions to the 50 things he helped us taste. 

Sue and I were in a state of dumbfounded awe the whole time, experiencing our dream version of a Central Asian magic carpet ride.

"If you weren't here with me doing this, I would be wishing you were here with me doing this," Sue said. I agreed--I would be trying really hard to explain it to her for a very long time.

After three hours, we had only seen maybe half of the bazaar. The picture above is the main market area, called The Blue Dome; the entire upper level of the dome only sells dried fruit, nuts, spices and tea--the best dried fruit and nuts I have ever tasted, and the best smelling spices and teas. Almonds in the shell; plump, sweet raisins: huge, light and crunchy cashews; dried, sliced avocados, oranges and figs; kaffir lime tea, orange peel tea, cardamom tea. Saffron.

The bread section is a bread art museum. Uzbekistan is known for bread-making in huge ovens, and this market hosts a famous working bakery with about seven flaming furnaces, dough formers, and oven masters. 

Sue asked if she could "help" put the loaves in the oven and, of course, was indulged. The oven masters go all the way in the ovens, slap bread on the ceiling and walls, wait two minutes, and retrieve the loaves with long-handled baskets. I called Sue a chicken for not following her oven master all the way inside, but I had to admit that her loaf turned out really good, even without the courage.

The butcher section was next to the dairy section--horror movie material next to high milk product art:

"We are going to the food court now," Sam said as we entered an open-air market filled with grill smoke. Just like Vietnam, Mexico, and so many other countries, this food court was filled with multiple variations of the same items: shashlik, kebabs, sausages, chicken. 

At the first stall, we saw a huge pile of what looked like thin rice noodles and shredded pork carnitas. Sam said, "Oh, this is my mom's favorite. You have to try."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Noodles and horse meat."

I recoiled and told Sam we didn't eat horse meat in America.

"Why? It's so good. Come on, you must try."

He negotiated a small sample plate from the woman and handed the fork to me. "Oh, come on, try."

I gave in, and so did Sue. Sue thought it was kind of good; I didn't. 

We handed the plate back to Sam, who handed it to the woman, who scraped our leftover sample into the pile for sale.

We moved on.

It was difficult to choose what to have for lunch, but I settled on this chef's minced beef kabob--something I hadn't seen at the other stalls.

Like so many others, he asked, "Where you from?"

And when I said, "America," like so many others, he had a strong reaction. 

"I love America!" Then he asked Sam to ask us how much a kabob would be in America. I pulled up the menu from Caravan on my phone and showed him the menu, which made him very happy.

"It's so expensive!" he said (translated by Sam).

After lunch, I told him his kebab was better than any kebab I had ever had in America, because it was. It was tender, juicy, and full of flavor. The slivers of onion accompanying it added just the right touch of contrast, a great compliment for Sue's bread:

When I say "America" brings a strong response from everyone, here's what I mean:

One of our Uber drivers (YandexGo here) just said, "Donald Trump" with a question in his tone. I gave him a thumb down, and he returned it, accompanied by a fierce frown. He was about 60 years old.

While ordering Samsa in the bazaar, a couple responded with "We love Donald Trump!" They were in their 30's.

Our hotel owner asked, "How is my friend, Donald Trump?" And then, "What do you think of El-Sayed?" When I answered enthusiastically about the second mention, he smiled. "He is a very good man. Take care of him."

One teenage boy selling nuts lit up. "Mike Tyson! Michael Jordan! Micheal Jackson! Muhammed Ali!"

There are many more Chorsu Bazaar stories I could tell, but I will leave you with this one: I had read that if you came across pumpkin Samsa, not to pass it up. It's the end of the season, but this woman was selling it. My excitement about it pleased her, and her pumpkin Samsa certainly pleased me. Like I said, I am thinking about my dad with many tastes on this trip, but pumpkin this good is on another level. In our household, canned pumpkin was a sin; my parents grew their own sugar pumpkins, harvested them, pureed them, and froze bags of the pulp so our family could have fresh pumpkin pie all year long. Growing pumpkin, like growing corn, was religion.

My dad would have loved this samsa, because it was topped with just the right amount of caramelized onion on top--a perfect contrast. 

Sam, who was too shy to have his picture taken, walked us to the Metro station and helped us navigate buying tickets. We were sad to say goodbye to our twenty something brand new tour guide; he had been very good to us. Honestly, I doubt he will have two more enthusiastic bazaar guests for his fourth tour, or any after that.

Join Us for a Walk Down the Street

It's 4 am again and I am wide awake, learning how to upload YouTube videos and imbed them into Blogger--thank you, jet lag!

So I'm going to practice by taking you on a walk down the street from our hotel. Here are samosas being made in a tandoori oven (but they are called Samsa in Uzbekistan):

After they were removed, the second guy scraped the burned parts off, then the owner--a woman--offered us a fresh one to sample. We chose potato and onion (that detail is for EdmondsKindOfDay Maria, a person crazy for potatoes).

We read that you don't come to Uzbekistan for the food, but this potato onion Samsa made me think we did; I will happily devour these flaky, warm pillows for a month! We had just eaten lunch next door before this fresh, kind offer--shashlik (grilled meat) and a gorgeous beet/egg salad with shoestring potatoes on top:

I hate to leave the Samsa, but we need to move on. A few more blocks down this busy street we heard frantic yelling caused by a severe traffic jam; a bus was in the middle of the intersection and a plain clothed man was running around, gesturing wildly, directing traffic. 

This second practice video captures about 1/10th of the frenzy of what happened before, but we were too far away to get the real drama on film:

Yet further down the street, a carload of flour was stuck in the jam (I just hope the flour arrives to our Samsa makers in time for tomorrow morning.)

We ended up at the Khast Imam Complex, the religious and spiritual center of Tashkent's Old Town, but you aren't going to get any of those pictures for a few reasons: 1) You're going to get a lot of pictures of beautiful tiles and mosques as this journey takes shape, and 2) we were so jet lagged that I didn't really get great pictures, except of the Tourist Police.

We were trying to stay active until meeting our airplane friend for dinner, but I caved and had to go back to the hotel to rest. 

Here is walk number two--about three hours later--starting at the BeshQuozon Central Asian Pilaf Center, where they make the national dish, plov., for thousands each day. Plov is made of two main ingredients, rice and oil. It's best not to focus too much on the oil, although I am going to make you do that here:

Plov also contains chickpeas, meat, and vegetables, and it is quite good; however, I cannot happily eat this for a month. It is heavy and oily. Oily and heavy. 

This restaurant is enormous and has indoor and outdoor seating. The cooking area houses multiple cauldrons with plov masters at the helm.

This will give you a better idea of the vast cooking area, with our plane friend, Aaron:

Walking through this 10-acre restaurant you see nothing but people eating plates of plov, the simplest of menus.

I chose the beef/lamb classic combo:

I don't want to traumatize anyone, but the sliver of meat on the upper left is horse sausage. The little eggs are quail (my favorite, I ate these all the time in Vietnam).

I didn't eat the horse.

We walked for about an hour after dinner, here are some highlights:

An abandoned amusement park called "Tashkentland" -- a site begging for a photo shoot: 

And the biggest, sparkliest TV tower that looked like a space shuttle taking off:

And, okay, one shot of the roof tile work of the Islamic Civilization Center, the biggest museum in the world showcasing Islamic history,which just opened in the spring of 2026:

Here's the scope of it:

Speaking of Islam, one last note before attempting a little more sleep: when our plane landed in Tashkent and everyone was turning on their phones, I heard a few people playing Michigan's Senator-elect's victory speech, "My name is Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed..."

Can you imagine the excitement of the Muslim world? I got to taste a bit of it up close, just when I thought I couldn't be more excited about what happened on Tuesday :) 

Walk Five Steps Forward. . .

Getting into our Tashkent hotel at 4 am was like breaking into an escape room. I got the directions after landing in Tashkent at 2 am:

The door code is 480. Press three buttons TOGETHER and pull handle down.

(Woe to the person without a hand or fingers, because this took both and all...)

Enter the hotel and take 5 steps forward (it was 8 steps), turn left, go forward 5 steps (it was 10) and you will see the room #1.

For second room, make 5 steps forward (15), turn to the left, go down the stairs. If you will have difficulties call me.

So we do have two rooms.

The owner had called me through WhatsApp right before takeoff from Istanbul. Surprised, I answered, sending apologetic looks to those sitting around me.

"I need to tell you some things," he said. "The person in your room, he is a problem. He has taken the key and gone to Samarkand, and won't be back until tomorrow. You will have a basement room with a king sized bed tonight. He is from Holland."

I had booked this particular hotel as a "get over jet lag" hotel -- it was inexpensive because it was a little further out of town, but it had a 9.2 rating out of 10. I figured Sue and I would need our own space after 24 hours of travel, so I had booked two rooms for three nights. 

So what could I do at midnight, minutes before takeoff and turning on airplane mode, about this guy from Holland who had run off with our key, and with no mention of a second room?

All I could say was, "Okay."

I found Sue after takeoff, sitting about twenty rows back because she had flown standby. "I think we might be sharing a bed in a basement this morning..."

She laughed, of course.

But now, two rooms. It's a funny place -- ornate, yet the bed is only a (surprisingly okay) very firm (hard) box spring and my toilet is not connected to the floor; it tips when used.

It's 11 am and Sue is still sleeping.

Here we are right after discovering we were texting in the security line with just two people between us:

(And minutes before we ran into Pam's sister and brother in law, Andi and Todd, in the American Express lounge, courtesy of Sue's partner-pilot, Cage.)

We met a Russian-speaking guy from Colorado Springs on the plane, and we are planning to meet him for dinner tonight; when I asked him "why Uzbekistan?" he said he had watched a YouTube video of a restaurant in Tashkent and wanted to try it. (He had other reasons, too, but he led with that.)

Now we get to try it, too.  And Sue is awake! Here we go!

A Nod to My Father

Most people know that my father had a license to fly before he had a license to drive, and that he bought his first plane, a Piper Cub, at age 16 -- the first of a number of planes he would own.

As a kid, getting in a plane was as familiar to me as getting in a car.

I loved flying with my dad.

I grew up thinking my Montana Grandmas lived only five hours away from Paine Field in Everett, because we would load up on ginger snaps, fall asleep in my dad's Cessna 210, and wake up 900 miles away.

Sometimes my mom would allow my dad to let us push the steering wheel in, then pull it out, sending us soaring up and down through cumulus clouds, making our stomachs rise and fall, rise and fall.

Even more fun for us (but surely not for them) were forced landings, which would be turned into eating adventures, snow adventures, or motel swimming adventures.

One time we had to land in The Dalles because of bad weather. We were walking around town trying to find something to eat when my dad said, "Let Marjie choose where to eat. She will find a good place."

I'm not sure how he knew this, but I did -- I found the best place, establishing myself as the official family food finder at the age of eleven. Years before restaurant reviews were ubiquitous, I discovered a German potato soup in Eugene that became a family obsession, a whole fried fish in Sayulita, Mexico that altered everything, and a thin crust pizza place in Glasgow, Montana that years later flew their pizzas all over the country.

Eventually I expanded past the job with my family--and, well, most of you know about that.

Anyway, I have always loved using my talent to find tastes my dad would enjoy.

One time I brought a Pork Chop John's sandwich home for him on the plane from Butte; another time I smuggled mangosteens back from Vietnam because the risk of a $500 fine was nothing compared to the importance of my dad tasting my new favorite fruit. (I did not get fined.) The most successful Christmas and birthday gifts from me to him were always food-related.

 

I got to tell my dad about this trip before he passed, and, of course, he was excited for me; he knew I needed to be in foreign places tasting new things as much as he needed to be in the air.

That's the kind of person he was--someone who encouraged others to find their passions, the best part of life. 

I inherited my dad's blue eyes, his sense of adventure, and his ability to know what is amazing to eat in this world. When I taste something delicious on this trip, I know he will be tasting it with me. 

Let Marjie choose where to eat. She will find a good place...

Thank you, Dad~

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/lynnwood-wa/john-bowker-13084177

Wisdoms and Trees

This year's Scarecrow was supposed to be interactive -- a Hallowood tree with a jar of  wisdoms to draw from: Shakespeare, Mary Oliver, Lao Tzu, Wislawa Symborska.

No one came up the walk, though; I guess "Trick or Tree/take one wisdom" wasn't clear enough. 

But at least I enjoyed them.

The morning my dad passed, I drew this Charlie Brown gem: 

"Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy."

Coincidence?

When Sue came over for trip planning, here's what she drew:

"Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown." -- Anthony Bourdain

I am positive this is the only travel-focused wisdom in there, out of about 100.

I have to ask again. . . coincidence?

Now this little leaf is coming along as our trip talisman~

Why Are You Border Hopping the Stans with Sue?

One afternoon last spring, I texted my friend Sue, asking if she could meet for dinner at a new Uzbek restaurant in Wallingford called Caravan. Sue loves invitations like these.

See you in 45 minutes, she replied. 

So we sat for a few hours -- the only two non-Uzbeks -- watching a stream of happy people come in and eat the food of their homeland. The food was interesting, but not amazing. The dumplings were great, the national rice dish, plov, was good, but the bread was dry and the noodles greasy. 

Being in the midst of a surprising Seattle subculture, though, felt electric. Everyone was so warm and friendly, proud to be sharing a taste of home.

Over our meal, Sue told me about eating plov with a group of Uzbeks at Burning Man last year, and how taken she was with their generous spirit. "I really want to go to the Stans next," my friend-who-has-been-everywhere said.

Then I retired from teaching in June and my world opened up.

Now we are leaving on November 4 to spend a month in the Stans--mainly in Uzbekistan--with a few jumps over the border here and there.

That's pretty much it: we ate at an Uzbek restaurant, and now we are going to Central Asia.

Here's the Sue part:

When I say Sue has been everywhere, I mean she spent three years riding her bike around the Middle East and Europe in her twenties before becoming a firefighter, and the only reason she ever declines my food invitations is because she is somewhere else, eating, surfing, meeting people and asking them questions, making them feel like they are the best books she has ever read.

In comparison, my travels look like the It's a Small World ride at Disneyland. 

So let's not compare. Instead, let's talk about why Sue loves traveling with me: because we both travel to taste. We both wonder why else would anyone do this? I went to Mexico because I was jealous when a friend told me she got off a bus and ate a fresh tortilla, and I spent two years teaching in Vietnam because I loved the turmeric rice cakes at the Tamarind Tree. That's why. 

In fact, Sue was my first visitor in Ho Chi Minh City, where I lived with two other people in a five-story stack house in the middle of a neighborhood market. We called our house "The Castle" for its Romeo and Juliet balcony room with a pink curtain. Sue set up camp there for a week while setting the eating/exploring bar for the 18 friends and family that would visit over the next two years; no one ever even came close to reaching her levels.

Here she is with my motorbike driver, Nam (whom I fondly nicknamed "my mother" for how controlling he was of my life*) in 2009. They gallivanted around Ho Chi Minh City eating everything in sight while I was busy teaching very sweet Vietnamese 6th graders ancient world history. 

Sue went shopping with my neighbors and facilitated making dinners at The Castle. She set up an interview with Nam, translated by his nephew, so we could hear his story of the war, about the failing economy after it, and of his three attempts to come to America in a boat before landing in a reeducation camp.

Nam talked about Sue for weeks after she left. "Sue and I went here and ate this," "Sue and I went there and ate that." Sue, Sue, Sue. He had his nephew write her a letter in carefully scripted English, thanking her for such a fun week. "Jolly" he called her.

The next year Jolly Sue visited again. She and an ecstatic Nam were reunited for food adventures the first week, then Sue and I flew to Indonesia and rode motorbikes over the mountains outside of Ubud, Bali, eating at any roadside stand we could find. 

Here she is with Officer Budiawan, who pulled us over outside of Ubud and threatened to fine us $300 each and confiscate the motorbikes we were riding without licenses ("that seems like a waste of a day," Sue had said hours earlier regarding the licensing process). 

I watched, in awe, as Sue complimented Officer Budiawan from his boots to his muscles to his hat until, rendered helpless, he wished us well on our journey. "Have a good time," he called after us, waving.

A few miles later, we pulled over to breathe sighs of relief. "I've never seen anything like that," I said.

"I've worked in the fire department a long time," she shrugged. "I know how to stroke an ego."

In short, Sue is up for being on the edge of adventure, always, in the most thoughtful, interested way possible. 

Here we are in the mountains of Indonesia, about to find the best fried rice of our lives at a mountain food stand, nothing else around for miles. 

Our adventure will begin in Tashkent, a modern city, and then we'll head west, following the Silk Road from Samarkand to Bukhara to Khiva--with one dip into Tajikistan--then back to Tashkent for entry into the Fergana Valley. There we will travel from town to town and see artisans making silk, embroidery, pottery, and knives. To end, we will hop the border into Kyrgyzstan for a few days before heading home.

While planning this trip, Sue kept saying, "I'd like to go to at least two of the Stans, possibly three," and I kept pushing back. "It's better to get to know one place..." But she looked so sad, and a few times said, mournfully, "But we will be so close!" In the end, I could not deny Sue her borders. 

I couldn't help giving Sue a homework assignment: to answer the question "What is it about crossing borders?" for this post. Here's her response:

I’ve always found it hard to translate the significance of a border when it’s just a line on a map. But crossing from one country into another over land makes it tangible. That simple line holds centuries of history, culture, and conquest. It brings so many reasons why I love to travel together in a single moment: curiosity about what lies beyond, the chance to experience two cultures side by side, and the fascinating--often unexpected--rituals each requires before welcoming you in.

I love the idea that you can stand in one place, take a few steps, and find yourself on the other side of a line that has shaped its identity and life of people who live there.

Well, I guess I just became a border crossing enthusiast, too. Bring on the borders!

Perhaps, when it comes to travel, writing about it is to me what border crossing is to Sue; if I have a laptop and an audience, everything is more fun. Bad experiences become good stories, and I can think about how to translate what's happening while I'm in a situation.

"Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." Exactly, Francis Bacon!

This is why I want to say "I hope you'll join us."

Because I'm pretty sure the stories are gonna be good. 

*my real mother is not controlling.