How to Travel Across Uzbekistan

Various dates.

By air, you ask? I yearn for the days of flying carpets. Let's get a show of hands here: How many of you would get in an old derelict Soviet plane called a Yak? OK, flying is out.

Private taxi: Reasonably cheap, horrifically dangerous. My driver from Nukus to Khiva--normally a 3-hour drive--makes it in 1 3/4 hours! Both feet on the accelerator of a Daewoo Tico, one hand on the mobile (Allo? Allo? Allo? Da? Da? Nyet? Nyet? Allo?) and the other hand on the horn. I try to concentrate on his horn protocol. What does the short, slapping, beep, beep, beep mean? And what deserves a long 10-second blast? Brakes are good as we head into that truck. And the car even maneuvers sideways as we scream around before a head-on collision with an oncoming lunatic. On another taxi ride, my driver accelerates into a group of several little children playing in the street. HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! And they all scatter in every direction for their dear little lives.

I think the psychology behind this relates to the drivers' childhoods packed in video game rooms where they learn last-minute dodges and swerves. And if you crash, well, so what! Either that or there's a genetic memory still lingering from riding across the steppes of Central Asia with a headless goat in tow.

Shared taxis: Now I tell drivers that I won't get in if they drive fast. We write in the dust on the car price and speed limits.

In Khiva, I wait a few hours for more passengers to show up for the shared taxi to Bukhara. Nobody comes; it's too hot. I walk over to the train station and do the scrum at the window to buy a ticket. I'm in luck! I wait a few hours for the train. I get on; I look around the sea of bodies and packages and get off immediately. Not quite the "Death Train," but it's too much to deal with.

Bus: I walk over to the bus station. I'm in luck again! The bus is leaving immediately to Bukhara--only 9 hours. Sweltering for the first few hours, but once the sun starts setting, it's halfway tolerable. Driver can't speed, people are behaved and polite--much more so than Orange County. The normal Uzbek in the street is exceptionally nice. We stop at a chaikhana (tea house) and the cook boils eggs for me on request since everything else looks a little skeptical.

Not quite pitch black--starlight sparkles above, we rumble across the Kyzylkum Desert. All is well, the iPod is in. Pink Floyd seems suitable.