Well I’ve obviously been relaxing a little too much to update my blog. And for someone not really in travel mode I’ve still covered a fair bit of ground. Prague was great, I caught my family again briefly then flew to London to hang out with friends and sort out the Uzbek visa. While I was there I popped up to Edinburgh to catch up with someone else. And now I’m in Riga with Brett and we fly to Uzbekistan tomorrow morning.
But let’s start at the start: Prague. A beautiful city full of historic buildings but I wasn’t the only one to think so – it was swarming with other tourists. I wandered the old town during the day and hung out with my friend in the evenings when she was taking a break from school and paid work. We checked out some performances of the Prague Fringe festival and watched a couchsurfer play a gig at a little bar around the corner.

On a day trip out of the city I went to Kutna Hora, a small town an hour outside Prague. The first settlement was a monastery in 1142 and by 1260 people began to mine silver in the area. The city grew quickly in the ensuing centuries and even rivalled Prague as the most important city in Bohemia. These days it’s a pretty sleepy little town but people come to see the Sedlec Ossuary, which contains the artistically arranged bones of around 40,000 people. Back in 1278 the abbot of Sedlec monastery went to Jerusalem, brought back some holy earth and sprinkled it over the cemetery. News of this meant that Sedlec was THE place to be buried, and people from all over Central Europe were interred. Plague in the 14th century and wars in the early 15th century meant the cemetery had to be enlarged several times and in 1400 a new church was built with an area to house remains that had been dug up to make space for new burials. In 1870 a private family took ownership of the church grounds and employed someone to tidy up the bones. The results speak for themselves – chains of skulls, a family crest fashioned from bones and a chandelier that contains every single in the human body. It was interesting, but a little creepy.

From Prague I went back to near Stuttgart to see my German family very briefly before flying to London. It’s amazing how many people I know in London. As it turns out I didn’t have time to see most of them but I hung out with a school friend, saw my cousin and met up with a few other people while I was in town. One thing I didn’t do was any sightseeing, not a teeny tiny little bit. I’ve been to London before and done most of it but I did plan to see the British Museum. I have no idea why I didn’t go last time but that was my plan… I guess I’ll have to go back. But I did manage to get visas for Uzbekistan, watch some World Cup games, eat some great Indian food and sort out a few more things for Uzbekistan.

Speaking of Uzbekistan, it feels a little like we’re stepping into the void. We’ve experienced the void before, and I have to say I’m a little apprehensive this time around. We’re heading back to the world where people don’t answer phone calls, ATMs are scarce, 600km in a bus takes 55 hours and everything tastes like greasy mutton. Oh and where the following is a review for the only accommodation in a town I really want to visit:

“There’s no electricity, no running water, and it looks like a poo volcano erupted in the shared bathroom… Ask for directions because it has no address and no sign.”

(Lonely Planet Central Asia, 2007)

But before I talk any more about what’s coming up I’ll finish off talking about what I’ve already done. While in London I decided to head up to Edinburgh to see an ex-tour leader friend of mine who lives up there. Instead of flying or taking the train I went by bus, and realised it really isn’t all that close to London! 9.5 hours on the bus each way, but at least I had a good book with me. Because I spent so much time getting there and back I only really had one day to hang out but we made good use of it by going to New Lanark. On the River Clyde, it’s a small village that was founded in 1786 as a cotton mill and was run as a model of utopian socialism. Compared to other employees of the day the workers were well looked after, and the mills were very profitable until they closed in 1968. We wandered around the village for a while then headed out for a walk along the river for a few hours, checking out a peregrine falcon nest along the way.

Back down in London I picked up the Uzbek visas and flew out the next day to Riga, Latvia. I met up with Brett on the way, in Oslo, and we spent today exploring Riga. It was fun showing him some of the little corners I found in my time here last autumn. Anyway, tomorrow we fly to Tashkent then the next day out to Nukus which is in the west of Uzbekistan near the remains of the Aral Sea. We’ll spend 30 days in the country (unless we can extend our visas) before Brett heads back to work.