We flew in to Tashkent, Uzbekistan and were greeted by a wave of heat. At this time of year temperatures often hover around 40 degrees celcius and we’re just not used to that… yet… We’d better adjust quickly! We decided to spend the first night avoiding adjustment by hiding in our hotel room. Sad I know but we were feeling a bit wiped out and in need of a night in.

The next day we headed out to do some admin before our flight to Nukus in the west of the country. We tried unsucessfully to get some answers about our visas. In London i was told we could only stay 30 days, at the Tashkent airport they said no problem to stay 32 days. At the visa office downtown Tashkent we were once again told that we could only stay 30 days. This is kind of important to know the correct answer to but as yet we’re still not really sure. I’d hate to do something truely complicated here – like organise health insurance! Speaking of which, i’d dreamt that all my German health insurance dramas were over but i was obviously in some delerious state of hopefullness. As we speak a form is being faxed in Germany to someone’s mum (who i think is in Nigeria) to scan and email to me before the internet cafe closes in 20 min. I will then print it, sign it and tomorrow morning go in to a friend’s office to get her to fax it back to Germany. Welcome to my life…

But a very big highlight of coming to Nukus has been to meet up with the friend i mentioned. Last year when we were in Kyrgyzstan we met Gulzar and a doctor from the US who were both working over here in Nukus for MSF (Medicins Sans Frontieres) trying to deal with the TB problem. She came to meet us at the airport and we had dinner together last night. Tonight we went and saw her office and meet some of her colleagues. From everything we’ve seen and heard they seem to have a well run operation that’s gone a long way to make a difference to the local population. It’s really good to see.

During the day today we checked out the local art museum which has an impressive collection of modern art from 1920s and 30s USSR based artists. The artworks were collected by the founder and first curator of the museum and were mostly from artists who had been denounced and banned by the Soviet authorities. With considerable risk to himself Igor Savitsky searched out these artists and bought their works from the artists themselves or their heirs. These days of course it’s one of the only collections of this period of Russian art and is very valuable. It also had an impressive ethnographic and historic section, which was just as interesting to me as the modern Russian art. Actually, probably more so if i were to be completely honest.

Tomorrow we head up north to the remains of the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth largest freshwater body of water it’s now a shadow of it’s former self. The dusty, polluted, oversalinated waters of a massive environmental disaster may seem like a strange tourist attraction but hey, so is Chornobyl. From a photographic point of view i’m looking forward to seeing the beached ships in Moynaq. The remains fo what was once a thriving fishing village is now 150km from the receeding shoreline.

We’ll spend a night at the remains of the lake, then a night in Moynaq before returning here. After that we’ll head further east to Khiva and on to the big name Silk Road cities.