We arrive in Tashkent at 3 in the morning, unpack our bikes, and there we go to find our hotel … which turns out being quite non trivial (next time I’ll mark some coordinates on my GPS). A nice place, apparently well-known to the French.
The modern part of Tashkent likes to show its wealth – in fact, space has been created by the earthquake of 1966 which destroyed much of the old town, and since the independence in 1991, many of the soviet buildings have been replaced by even more impressive ones, and of course, the Lenin statues have all disappeared …
We visit only a small part of the huge city (population over 2mio), the somewhat preserved part of the old town around Chorsu Bazar and the modern downtown with its parks and fountains where people come to find some fresh air during these terribly hot summer days (over 38˚).
We are a bit surprised how easy it is to take photos … people are literally attracted by our cameras, they want to be on the photo, sometimes together with us, they want to see it on the screen, they laugh, say “khorosho”, that’s it. And it’s the first time that we encounter people stopping us to take photos of us! of course, everyone has a smartphone nowadays.