‘Partially retired’ (my chosen term over the last decade) though I may be, although still with important independent chair role and voluntary trustee roles in UK,  I rightly needed to limit my enthusiasm for ‘celebrating’ an unwanted ‘significant’ birthday with an even longer period of extended travel. No six month travels or even a belated ‘gap year’ for me. In Kathmandu on my last full day, I have at least achieved my stated wish of escaping talk about my beginning an eighth decade by instead doing as I said, ‘going far away & high up’. That is if Uzbekistan, at least in many perceptions of Central Asia, qualifies as ‘far away’ and trekking to Annapurna base camp in Nepal at 4100m constitutes ‘high up’.

What good fortune it has been to spend time in the fascinating & stunning old ‘silk road’ cities of Khiva, Bukhara & Samarkand, and then be surrounded by spectacular 7/8000m snow/ice covered peaks at Annapurna Sanctuary and on the trekking route to it. And equally important to me, enjoying the immense richness of conversations with people, not just from UK, Uzbekistan and Nepal, but from so many other places. From virtually every country in Europe to Kazakhstan, Israel, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, as well as all the more expected – Germany, Holland, France, China, India, Australia and the like.

For me though when travelling it’s not simply the ‘places’; it’s the geopolitics, unique histories, diverse ethnic & migrant cultures, current politics & national personalities, all  set in the global context of international relationships, climate change and sadly (and embarrassingly) the current world-wide fascination with why the UK has launched itself into such a self-destructive, reputation destroying and damaging exercise as ‘Brexit’. 

It’s the chance conversations; the opportunity to open conversations in one or both of the two world languages everyone can, and usually wants to speak – politics & football (cricket in India or Pakistan). As on previous travels I have learned so much. Pre-existing notions about many things have been stretched and challenged. Simplistic understandings are usually more complex, but occasionally the reverse. As I talked for example with an Israeli Jewish family about the unrealism (I believed)  of any continued hope for a ‘two state solution’ in Israel and the Palestinian West Bank territories, I was offered an alternative and surprisingly still hopeful view. In depth conversations with young Uzbeks, Nepalis, Chinese & Koreans opened my mind to new perspectives on their countries about which I know less, the opportunities & constraints within which they live or work, & I listened to carefully expressed criticisms of their own governments. 

So, to more specific thoughts on my experiences of Uzbekistan 

Peter Frankopan’s two books ‘The Silk Road: A New History of the World (2015) and ‘The New Silk Roads’ (2018), TV programmes and travel advertising, also elsewhere in Europe and Asia, has increased awareness beyond that of supposed little changed former Soviet republics in Central Asia from before 1992; in Uzbekistan the same President (Islam Karimov) until his death in 2016. And his successor Shavkat Mirziyoyez offering ‘stability & continuity’. Karimov, with tomb almost to match that of a past emperor  in Samarkand, presented himself as ‘father of the new nation’, venerated in ways not so different from Kemal Ataturk in Turkey or Ayattollah Khomeini in Iran.

But as well as the undoubted autocracy of  government, limitations of rights, alleged child labour exploitation in cotton fields, control of opposition forces and media freedoms, Uzbekistan strikes a visitor as a rapidly developing society of the sort familiar in other countries of East and South East Europe and the Caucasus. This is illustrated not just in its ‘modern’ rebuilt post 1966 destructive earthquake-damaged capital Tashkent,  but in the evidence of positive & ambitious young people everywhere’s appetite for education, IT & use of modern media. This is with the qualification that I did not visit the Fergana area in the east with its greater political sensitivity and more overt religious (Islam) practices scarcely visible in Samarkand and to the west, except in the presence of old or restored Islamic buildings, just like churches in the UK.

The three old cities are each stunning in their immediate impact, notwithstanding much rebuilding & restoration, most especially from the damage done from Peter the Great and the first Russian Tsarist forces in 1717 through to the C19 and by the Soviet Union in C20. All have outstandingly historic & beautiful mosques, minarets, madrassas (several converted to hotels or business use), mausoleums, museums, elaborate water supply systems and thriving markets in each of the city oases, surrounded beyond their built up areas as they are by arid plains & desert. 

First sight of the (almost complete) city walls of Khiva, the smallest and most resistant to effective Russian incorporation until the 1870s took my breath away. Inside what some might describe as a ‘museum city’ was so much more, with ordinary life and businesses jockeying with all that modern tourism brings. But it is far from Dubrovnik, Venice or Prague. Two of us even managed to persuade a mosque doorkeeper just outside the city walls at the end of first morning prayers to open an internal door to a dusty minaret tower (not the one advertised as open elsewhere in the city to tourists)  for us to climb to witness a spectacular sunrise over the city. Sunset from the city walls was scarcely less impressive.

Bukhara’s monuments are more spread across the city’s different localities – to the north and west the Ark fortress, monuments beyond, the nearby prison in which C19 Britons Conolly and Stoddart famously met their end, and an ugly iron water tower structure converted into a useful city viewing platform; more centrally, the spectacular night time illuminated minaret and adjoining madrassa of Kalyon mosque; the Lyabi Hauz complex; and more.  Wandering about I discovered a still thriving synagogue for a small Jewish community and impressive football stadium for Buxoro, which, like Ipswich, is now rather more impressive than the team which currently plays there. It was difficult not to compare the still partially destroyed old city walls of Bukhara on one side from Soviet attack in 1922 with images of the effects of Russian/Syrian bombardment of Aleppo a century later.

Sensibly travelling west to east brought us to Samarkand, the last of the three, and to a city and its monuments on a wholly grander scale – Amir Timur’s final burial place in the Gur-i-Amir mausoleum; the complex dedicated to his wife, the rightful descendant of Genghis Khan; the tombs at Shah-i-Zinda; and most of all the spectacular Registran with its three madrassas also lit by a  sound & light night time history lesson from prehistory to today’s climate changes challenges. Last but not least the journey out to witness where it all began at the Afrosaib Fort and C7 excavations there.

Notwithstanding the greater distance between locations in Samarkand, as with Khiva and Burkhara, and London, three of us realised the best way to view the city was on foot walking the 7km north east – south west across the city and out into the modern universities & student areas and beyond where we were staying, revisiting places we had been to earlier along the way. 

Even if the traditional focus of travels to Uzbekistan is what remains of the mainly C14 and C15 dynasties up to the decline of the Timurid Empire in these three splendid cities and their impressive and revealing buildings, Uzbekistan should not to be visited  without time spent in its Nuratau mountains in the north, the desert, the seemingly so out of place huge & rich Russian avant garde art collection at Nukus, and many features of its capital city Tashkent including the revealing a ‘museum to the victims of repression’ and surrounding attractive parkland. 

Uzbekistan feels a young country, with straightforwardly ‘nice’ people whose initial reserve is quickly overcome with friendliness, kindness and helpfulness when eye contact is made. I really came to like and respect so much about Uzbekistan over two weeks, while mindful that I still knew so little and understood even less. 10 days of my two weeks in Uzbekistan was enhanced, it must be emphasised, by a really excellent & well matched group of 10 other ‘Wild Frontiers’ travellers (interested, intelligent, respectful of where they were – not always the case in my past experience of some groups, and fun people), and outstanding Wild Frontiers and superb complementing young Uzbek ‘tour leaders’. 

And so on to Nepal

And now for somewhere completely different! 

I returned to Nepal for the first time in 15 years and for the third time in all, hence not since visiting my son on his gap year teaching experience at the height of the ‘Maoist’ insurgency, strikes, curfews, road blocks & security checks. That visit included trekking part of the Annapurna Circuit. It was a year after I had trekked to Everest base camp and returned home (and hospital) with pneumonia. But I was travelling this time with five different antibiotics, and steroids, and other drugs in a mini pharmacy shop for almost all eventualities!  

My objective this time was quite specific: to experience, perhaps for the last time, given my wish to avoid chest infections & pneumonia, and to be among the highest mountains in the world and feeling all the related emotions (some might say ‘spiritual’ connections) of their massive & majestic scale; history, risks and outcomes of attempted ascents – both successful & tragic; seeing the light of dawn & sunrise, changing daytime colours, and feeling the cold! Annapurna 1, 2, 3, 4, South Face, Machhapuchhre, Gangapurma, Hiunchull and more encircling me.

My hopes could not have been better fulfilled. After a couple of days preparation & relaxation in Pokhara beforehand, and more there afterwards, I spent 10 days trekking to Annapurna base camp from and back to the main road ‘trailheads’ at Kande & Nayapul. Eight mornings of crystal clear sky from first light 5.30 until circa 10.00 and two more hours of broken sunshine before high cloud mostly enveloped the high peaks, not cold except at Machhapuchhre and Annapurna base camps in the spectacular basin effect (‘sanctuary’) between them. The exception was at 4.00am beginning the head torch lit two hours climb between Machhapuchhre and Annapurna base camps for first light & sunrise, & then the following  night itself at Annapurna base camp. Clear mornings, wind free, no rain, and true warmth when the sun came up. Superb panorama, everything I could have hoped. Indeed, I broke my own altitude record for an outdoor sleep, settling down for 20 unconscious minutes at 4100m above Annapurna base camp.

Annapurna base camp (ABC) trek is generally thought of as modest, can be undertaken in seven days, or even less if a jeep travel route is used at the beginning and end. Taking more days more enabled me to spend some 30 hours (two first lights, two sunrises and two early mornings) at Annapurna base camp and a full day at Ghandruk on return. The latter is the cultural ‘capital’ of the Gurung people & language, is a splendidly set village with two museums, a Buddhist monastery, a large area of traditional old housing and people living similarly to the ways they have over many decades; indeed a very welcoming and rewarding village to stay in and wander about. There is the Annapurna Area Conservation Project Office, a visitor centre, school and basic health centre.  There is an excellent publication ‘Ghandruk – Heart of the Tamu’ by Iain R Taylor and Jagan S Gurung (2015) available for purchase at the cultural museum. The book includes beautiful water colour paintings by D. Ram Palpali, such that I purchased one of Ghandruk, Annapurna South Face and Hiunchull back in Kathmandu to hang back at home in the same room as one of Namche Bazar and Everest purchased in 2003.

Hotels/Guest houses/Tea houses/Lodges (all meaning essentially the same) are many up to Chomrong but required advance booking beyond in early October, causing me to spend one night sleeping on seating in the dining area with some 15 trek porters, including the excellent porter I had hired for my 10 days.

Given a choice between travelling independently in a mountain area and a group with pre-arranged day itineraries and long advance booked overnight accommodation, I would make a strong argument for the former. Not only does it enable changes of plan and flexibility in event of bad weather, tiredness or good ideas picked up en route. And you are never alone!

October around the Dashain Hindu festival is holiday time for Nepali workers & schoolchildren.  Many, especially younger people, students, educated and professional men and women made up approaching half the trekkers to ABC. By far the largest other national group were South Koreans, in part because of the fame of some of their climbers (Park Young Seok especially for whom there is a monument at ABC), followed in my estimation by German, Dutch, Chinese, Indian, UK, French, Australian and Israeli. Just about every world nation outside Africa and South America was represented. This meant both short and really in-depth conversations, often about either politics, sport or past/future travels, along the route and during evenings.

By comparison with my memories of trek to Everest base camp and part of the Annapurna Circuit in the early 2000s, this trek was cleaner, little polluted by smoking fires and animal litter waste and less discarded paper. No animals or single use plastic water bottles are allowed beyond Sinuwa.

What other changes did I notice about Nepal? The attractive lakeside town of Pokhara which serves as a base for all Annapurna region treks and other adventure sports in the area has grown in size, become more commercialised & more polluted, but still far off Kathmandu as I was reminded during my last 48 hours in Nepal. Days there offered endless opportunities of things to do as well as relaxing in warm sunshine and lovely views. My choice was a sunrise taxi ride to Sarangkot and scenic 800m walk down, a fitness testing 400m steep ascent to the World Peace Pagoda prior to my trek, fascinating Mountain & Ghurka Military Memorial museums, an outdoor ‘Movie Garden’ to watch ‘A star is born’, and beginning a draft of these experiences. Nepal retains its magic, notwithstanding so many changes, from its popularisation in the 1960s to the present.

Final Thoughts 

Long ago I discovered the error of trying to visit too many countries on a single travel adventure (‘It’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium’ comes to mind). However this trip very successfully combined two very different countries & the places within them. I left Uzbekistan with, whatever aspects of the political system I may dislike, respect for what the country has achieved in a quarter of a century since independence from the Soviet Union, the positive and engaging manner of its younger people especially, it’s surprisingly (to me) good physical infrastructure and its aspirations for the future

Nepal, as before, creates wonder. Not just it’s stunning mountain landscapes but how many people live such very humble lives, with minimal material possessions or wants, indeed many scarcely above subsistence levels and poverty so evident, and a government with limited ambition which seemingly accepts too many young people moving to work in other countries, perhaps fearing the potential challenges of a rising educated middle class.

I return to the UK which seems characterised currently by lack of any wider world perspective, self-absorption, blaming others, and with increasing anger, hate & racism which has followed on from the Brexit referendum misjudgement.  Two weeks in Nepal and an evening in Kathmandu among the damaged, destroyed, rubble-strewn or propped up buildings & temples of its historic Durbar Square in would be a useful reminder to many in the UK  of how the ‘other three quarters’  (or more) live !

Brian Parrott 

October 2019