Tajikistan Day 1

Day One:

I spent roughly a day flying to Tajikistan, since apparently there are so few flights. In fact, the only major flight I was able to get on such short notice was a Turkish Air flight, which sadly had about an 8 hour layover. Turkish Air is very much a purgatory airline, there is nothing I can really say about it that is that good or that bad. They learned how to be miserly with space, yet the service was acceptable. Food really varied, but I've certainly had far worse. Most likely you will not have any other option to get there, unless you fly out of Central Asia or Russia.

Our flight didn't start immediately. Unfortunately someone on the plane had air fright, and began shaking. An Indiana Jones look-alike came to calm him down, but sadly the man needed to leave the air plane. In front of me sat an absolutely perfect group, of the Indiana Jones doctor, a young man from Hong Kong working for a bank there, and a young girl from Alaska working for an NGO in Northern Tajikistan. All of them talked to each other and were delighted with each other's presence.

I did not have that. On my left was a sleepy Turk who didn't take up much space, but on my right was an utter ass. He brought his fucking dog on the plane, and for about 5 hours I put up with that stupid shitty dog barking.

When we arrived there, I knew it. A bus drove down the tarmac to pick us up. Stairs were brought up to the plane, like you see at photo ops for various foreign leaders. Ours was not so official, but rather cold as it was 3am and gun-slinging guards were waiting at the bottom.

Our airport baggage claim center looked like it needed to apologize for its sorry state. It couldn't have been bigger than my Kindergarten Gymnasium, except it wasn't as luxurious inside. Heaters lined the walls, put up as almost an afterthought. As I waited for two hours to recover my bags, I met several people. One of them, named Jared, studied abroad in Cyprus and was kind enough to give me his phone number, in case I needed help. Since I do not usually expect such kindness for nothing, I thought there had to be a catch. The longer I stayed in Dushanbe though, the more I realized how untrue my assumption had been.

Finally I received as many of my bags as I was going to get. After all had been recovered, I met the man who would be taking me to my hotel, the Tajikistan Hotel on 22 Shotemur.

Kevin's face had several scars on the left side, as if it had been partly melted or encountered fierce fighting. His shirt was an olive green, beneath a decent gray suit. For my whole time there, he simply made my first name plural, thus I became "Mr. Andrews". Next to him stood an extremely spry old man, who jumped up onto the sad-looking baggage claim area.

Dushanbe's streets were extremely broad, and had a distinctly European flair to it. The whole city seemed planned out according to some grand Soviet scheme, as if they wanted more people to move there than eventually did. Old Soviet cars zoomed next to ours, a mere Daewoo. Apparently there also was some unspoken speed limit everyone adhered to, since being there several days I did not see one speed limit sign.

Kevin spoke fluent English, and asked me if there was anything in particular I would like to see after getting to my hotel. He mentioned we could either see the nightlife there, or we could see some of the history there. Since nightclubbing in Dushanbe seemed just a bit too far-fetched for me, I opted to see more of the countryside.

The Tajikistan Hotel looked like a modern hotel on the outside, but the inside showed something a little different. Inside, it reminded you that you weren't in Kansas anymore, so to speak. Nothing had been changed inside for the past three decades. While I was there, a joint American-Chinese company worked diligently to fix the place, to bring it into a new century. What the hotel lacked physically, it made up for in exquisite service. Not once did I have an awkward moment with a single employee there, who helped me more than any employee I've ever dealt with at any other hotel.

My hotel room confirmed the poverty the country suffered. My dorm room at college looked happier and with more personality. Also, instead of a shower, it was more of a hose with a shower head attached to it. In the center of the small bathroom laid a drain, for the water to go into. I looked around for a place to put the shower head, in a vain attempt to make it feel a little more like an actual real shower.

Kevin came back after I slept off some of the jet lag. We went to a museum to see some of the history of Tajikistan. While there, I saw the lying Buddha, who lounged on its side. Before Islam had reached Tajikistan, it apparently had been a mix of pagan religions (like fire worshipping) and Buddhist. As we talked, he expressed dislike for the extreme religious fervour that took away and persecuted many of the Buddhists. Some still do exist in Tajikistan, however, only in the remote mountainous Eastern section. Also, Alexander the Great had conquered part of it, and we got to see pieces of Hellenic temples.

While we drank tea at a trendy (as trendy as it could be) bar, I asked him what else he did as a job, besides do tours of the country. He also worked at a local television station as an advertising agent. When the United States invaded Afghanistan, he gained work from that as well. BBC paid him $250 a day to translate for their television crews, and he did the same for CNN for $500 a day.

Finally night fell, and we ate at a rather nice restaurant. The waitress brought a big glass vase to our table, alongside our lamb and salads. Unfortunately, the Soviet Era influenced the food there, and it did not have as much of the spices as the rest of the Middle East possessed. My guide Kevin told me the vase was vodka, and we needed to finish it. Tajikistani Vodka is intensely powerful, far stronger than any vodka I have had anywhere else.

Kevin explained to me that from 1985-1987, he fought in the Soviet army in Afghanistan. The scars were from fighting there, and he also had shrapnel in his body from that time as well. He went there when he was 17, and after leaving the army, he went to college to study Persian and English. Since then, he raised a family of 11 children, 7 of which had died, leaving only 4 daughters. His large family seemed to be the norm, as children stood all over Tajikistan, every corner and cervice.