The Great Custom Gaim and Afraid of FEVER

13th of October:

From Kohjand is just a few kilometer to the border of Uzbekistan. As always, before we leave the country we have to do all custom documents for the car. Then we can leave the country, enter the next country, and we have to do the custom again. The immigration is normally no problem but the custom are always like a Mafia, they always want money for something. This time the Tajik custom want that we pay a penality. They blame us that we stayed more than 15 days with our car on Tajik streets. That is really stupid because nobody told us. In non of the documents it is written that they are only valid 15 days. Furthermore, our visa is one month, so why they make car documents which are only valid 15 days! But I was prepared since Klaus San told me this story and that they always try this. I just did not do anything and stayed there and wait. Everytime they came to me I told them this law is not correct and it is there mistake if they do not do proper custom documents. They called some big guys in Dushanbe, because I said this law does not exist anymore. Finally after one hour we go through and nobody ask for anything anymore.

First step entering Uzbekistan is a desinfection of our car, we have to drive through some desinfection bath. Second we have to pay for it. Third, our temperature is measured. Luckily Kotomi has no fever although she feels very bad. I wonder what would happen if she would have a fever. We could not enter Uzbekistan and we also have no Double entry Visa for Tajikistan !?!?. The Uzbek custom again takes long time again. All documents have to be filled out two times. The lady there is very friendly but very strong. She is not the boss but she is comanding all people including us. First they want us to take out all of our stuff to put in there small x-ray. Fortunatelly we do not need to do this, just taking out the stuff and open the tent and show. After one more hour all documents are ready and we are in Uzbekistan.

We are driving almost until Taschkent. We sleep at a lake not far from the capital city. We can open our tent at the area of Uz-telekom. They have some company daschas there. A young guy takes care of the area, his father comes, and we have a tea and tomatos from his garden together.

(N 40.94832°, E 69.32232 °)


By the way, I am a little bit slow in writting. I am two month behind and just if you want to know where we are now, we are in Turkey N 37.73934°, E 37.92722 °.