Any comments or questions about this site, please contact Bob Zolnerzak at

bobzolnerzak @verizon.net

 

 

 

FIVE STANs 2 of 2

FIVE STANS - May 10-31, 2010

SATURDAY, 5/22/10: Pee at 12:34AM. At 4:26AM pee and type dream, thighs STILL mildly sore, but constantly improving. Underarms more rank than usual. My stomach is slowly settling down, too. The moth was flying around as I entered the bathroom, having flown for Richard yesterday morning but settled onto an upper cornice when I got into the bathroom. Yesterday evening it seemed to be gone, but now it flew around and settled on the floor right at the base of the door to the room, and when I next looked it was gone, so maybe now it's free to fly around our bedroom! Type to 4:33, trying not to keep track of the number of days left in the trip now that I'm feeling healthier and enjoying the destinations, such as they are, and even the group, for what THEY are. Richard's light goes on about 5:45AM, and I lie and think that I probably should get up and organize my bags for repacking, and get up at 6AM and start in on the task. Thighs groan as I sit to type at 6:33AM that it's just not worth the trouble keeping my suitcase open to put in the slippers I might wear to breakfast, so I put the slippers in and lock the case, which turns out to be REMARKABLY expandable---just hope nothing BREAKS, and prepare to dress, depressed looking out the window at the POURING rain, lightning, and dark clouds---what had been ideal weather may be taking a turn for the worse, though we ARE traveling toward a desert, so hopes for continued clear and hot weather are high. 6:43AM: Over half through the trip, switched to my second camera disk already, stomach vaguely feeling cleared, yet not hungry for breakfast; our moth reappearing. Putting one more empty water bottle in the trash. Put my bag into the dark hallway, working lights at the breakfast buffet on, and I remark that they're putting out the remains of yesterday's breakfast already. It's nice to feel a kind of equilibrium with the trip: though the feeling that there's going to be something spectacularly new has vanished, and I can only hope that my stomach will accept what I think are small amounts of food at meals so that I won't have to shit very much, or won't have to contemplate taking the carbon pills to stop gas, or can STOP being concerned about my BOWELS on this trip: now the rain and lightning, even to the dimming of the hotel lights, will take the place as prime worry about the success of the rest of the trip---not to mention the dawning awareness that we have two INTERNAL flights to make before the final marathon to home. Now at 6:48AM figure to put on my shoes, pack the last items into my shoulder bag which I'll leave up here until we depart, and get something in my stomach in the line of breakfast while I still have my normal complement of pills to keep me confident in my "continuing health." Nice to know that there's time for rambling that isn't TOTALLY negative: it HAS been an INCREDIBLY different trip, and the slide-show (if that's the final testimony of a trip) will be fabulous, so cross another six countries off my list! 7:42AM: Fruit, juice, a bowl of cereal AGAIN while waiting for an omelet, very nicely done. Laurie and Michel talk about awful people on tour, and I make no bones about the fact I think Lisa is a pain in the neck, and confess that Richard is my worst of five "random" roommates, but he's not really that bad. Type while he occupies the bathroom before I can pee and leave at 7:50. Bus goes at 7:56AM. We pass an overturned truck filled with bags of onions that spill over the curb. The clouds are so dark and low that it looks like TORNADO weather. The bus just bulls past trucks at 9AM at Kashkod area entry gate. Down lots of side streets, through farmland; these people are probably used to the busses pulling up to the concrete steps built down the hill for the tourists coming to see the medals of the 11-kid 60-year-old woman who looks 80, surrounded by the children of her youngest son, who by custom lives in the new house built next to their old one. A granddaughter pours tea and Michel breaks me off a solid hunk of dense brown bread. The mints are good with my second and third cups of tea. Spreads of souvenirs attract the women, while I look at the two young teenagers who hang around each others' necks, unfortunately not at all attractive. The doll in the cradle I think for a horrible moment is a live baby, but then it turns back to being only a doll. I take pictures, people buy things, I stop on the way down for a pee, and the whole stop is 9:30-9:54. 11 kids, 33 grandchildren, only one great-grand so far. Husband is 68 and looks better than she does as he climbs up and down the stairs to wave goodbye to us. Weave through the cars thronging the entrance to the Saturday market, and I'm down to get into the area first, not really attracting that much attention, but I'm sorry I don't see more of the promised Turkic-descended green- and blue-eyed people. Start taking pictures slowly, but then warm to it, and again an old lady wants ME in a picture with one of her friends, but I've learned to just shake my head no. Around and around, encountering Chuck, who's really becoming more and more pleasant to be around and talk with, and he says that he DOES prefer to be called Chuck. Try to get an incredible pigtail from the back, but she's reluctant and I don't really get a good shot. Some people DEMAND that I take their picture, but at least they please me by smiling and giving me a thumbs-up when I show them the results. Thank goodness the age of the give-away Polaroid shots is over. EVERYTHING is in the market: hardware to tires to clothes to junk to food, meat in the central section, and maybe even animals on the sidelines, since I didn't get to the area where people were leaving on donkeys, as promised by Michel. There 10:09-10:40, people standing around the bus chatting. To Ak Saray at 11:39, hordes of people posing in front of the monumental bronze of Tamerlane, and I'm involved in taking pictures of the weddings when I realize that I am the subject of a number of video cameras. I hop over the very wet ground to the towering remains of Tamerlane's "White Palace" gate, take photos, and then when I find I still have twenty minutes, take off for the Ferris wheel in the distance, finding that it's in constant rotation for only 2000S, so I pay and get on and take a number of movies and stills, feeling VERY happy with the morning, and get off at 12:04, prepared to dash back to the bus in the requested half-hour at 12:09, but after taking MORE shots of MORE bridal couples (there must have been at least SIX), I see Michel talking with a number of tourists just at the edge of the flowered statuary border, and I go over to heap praise on myself for having gotten on the Ferris wheel, and we chat and get on the bus, which leaves at 12:15PM. Then go a short distance to the tombs of Tamerlane's first two sons, taking my shoes off for the first mosque, but then going to the back to take photos of the brickwork and tile work and wooden columns. Past the eternal roses to another complex, photographable from many angles, with shops and groups of tourists all over the place. To the bus at 12:52, hot and tired. Bus goes at 1:03. Boys circumcised at 3 years of age, given gifts to "make up for their loss." To another private house, this more of a restaurant since another bus load of tourists is sitting in another section under a separate roof, and we get the usual salads, two kinds of water, a good dumpling and fritter, another bowl of soup, and then rather awful meat mixed with carrots that taste like turnips and greasy potatoes that Michel likes. Good shortbread covered with powdered sugar at the end, of which I have two, and we leave at 2:15, weather very hot. Try to find a place to pee along the road, getting into the Kyzyl Kum Desert, and he passes the first gas station because it doesn't have diesel fuel, and we stop at a second attractive place which has fetid johns, so the guys pee in the bushes at 4:20 and the women wait for the next place. Move at 4:33 after a pause, because the bus has no air conditioning! The drivers try to fix it, Michel tries to talk endlessly through it about Afghanistan, the gas industry, the salinization of too much---water---not fertilization, not canalization: IRRIGATION! See my first camel sitting by the road at 4:38, but no one else sees it. Stop at another gate for a minute at 5:20; Richard moves to the back of the bus because I won't shut my shade against the sun, and the air conditioner, blessedly, comes back on at 6:04. Dinner tonight at 7:30. To Sasha and Sons Bed and Breakfast at 6:30, settle in and get laundry OUT by 7:04, and I type to 7:28, ready for dinner, earplugs in to shut out Richard's infernal whistling. 9:48PM: GREAT dinner: good appetizers of deviled egg, beets, eggplant, bread, salad, then a delicious bean-vegetable soup, and then rather mediocre chicken with potatoes and carrots, with a good pastry for dessert. Owner gave a charming introductory talk, and John had his birthday cake which wasn't shared with any of us. Graeme and Judy and I had wonderful conversations about Taormina, Palermo, Bali, Borneo, and other wonderful places, with Richard chiming in on occasion, sometimes even appropriately. Back to the room just before 9PM to start switching through TV channels, watching a few bits of news, shit rather a lot, though still not enough, and then turn TV off at 9:40 as Richard starts to snore, I turn the A/C up from 19 to 21, and type this to 9:52 before shutting off lights and going to bed. Bed at 9:57, still chilly, so I put on the coverlet, and that works very nicely. Go to sleep quickly.

SUNDAY, 5/23/10: 6:37AM: Woke at 2:35AM to pee, with a slight dream that I didn't bother to record. Wake again at 5:35 to see that Richard's gone into the bathroom, and he stays quite a while, until he comes out at 5:55 and announces that it IS cool in the bedroom, but that the bathroom heats up quickly, and then cracking the door cools off the room quickly enough. The tub is more convenient than it looks: the shower comes straight down and the temperature is easily modified to be quite perfect. Then the SEAT in the tub operates well: the legs and feet can be washed without constantly fearing falling down. Wash and rinse, and then wet my hair so I can comb it, and then swat one mosquito and look for the one I missed, and then Richard reports that he's been hearing some at his end of the room. Shit a bit, even softly, but still leave no colored impression on the toilet paper. Out about 6:25 to compare notes, Richard still lying down, and I get out a clean pair of socks, happy to see that I have three clean pair left, four good for the essentially eight-day trip-remainder. Even put on the stained T-shirt because it's clean, not really caring if anyone notices the stains, and anyway, during the day, I'll be carrying my shoulder bag and camera around my neck. See that the temperature is now on 23, and it's cool but not uncomfortable typing in my T-shirt, shorts, and slippers at 6:44. VERY depressed sitting on the john: WHEN will the trip be over, WHAT will happen that won't be much fun, HOW will each day be redeemed, as, of course, it usually is, and HOW HAPPY I'll be when I can finally be home again, though clearly my mal-anticipation of the LAST trip of the year will be TRAUMATIC, though I might just be willing to sit out days which will be too energetic, even to not seeing the gorillas. AND I surely won't be climbing any more minarets, even though my thighs are now merely PRESENT, rather than HURTING, from my climb which is now, I think, FOUR days ago. Hope my blue pants with the thinning seat hold out through this laundry day, though I brightened when she said the laundry might even be returned this morning. Now, moment by moment, the worst way to write, at 6:47, I have the urge to return to the john to see if any MORE excrement might be favorably forced from my crammed intestines. 6:58AM: Well, dammit, it worked! Flushed twice as that familiar foul smell of incipient diarrhea flowed out into the room, and I wiped the sickly yellow-brown (thankfully not the full-yellow of true-blue [HA!] diarrhea) three or four times, sprayed the handy air freshener placed by the toilet, happy not to see the mosquito again, and stuffed my bottom with lots of paper, and even as I type I can feel the grumbling within that forebodes a day of running to the john more often than I'd wish. DAMN, DAMN, DAMN---if it's not constipation, it's the shits!! SHIT!!! 7:54AM: Worse and worse: Linda and Nancy (or whoever) talk endlessly about "Antique Roadshow" and "eBay" and other appraising and selling programs, and I have a great cheese omelet (having asked for ham and cheese and being told they make only cheese, but that ham is available from the appetizer table) [start file 5, having filled up file 2, at 7:56AM 5/23/10] and a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, and return to the room (with relief from the conversation, which Lisa joins in, viva voce, from the next table) to shit AGAIN, this time MORE liquidy, MORE smellily, MORE yellowly, so I take ONE imodium, hoping to come to some happy medium, and I exit to find Richard in the room, so I complain that I've NEVER had such a trip in which my bowels were first at ONE extreme and then at the OTHER extreme, and he can only respond that I'm lucky that it hadn't happened to me before: it usually happens to everyone, and I just have to learn from it. THEN he asks whether we're walking from the hotel or taking the bus, which will determine what he takes with him, and I say I just don't know, I guess it was announced during the usual orientation at breakfast, at which Michel didn't appear while we were there. Sit typing THIS while feeling slightly uncomfortable in my gut, not knowing what to expect from the recent diarrhea followed by ONE imodium, since I don't want to be stuffed up COMPLETELY, but debate what it would be like not to shit for the remaining days of the trip. DAMMMMMMMMIIIIITTTTT!!!! Try to take my mind off that subject by thinking of all the things we'll see today in Bukhara, and some special trip a bit out of town for another tomb, and certainly no more rain now that we're in the desert, and maybe I'll just take my magazine to the lobby to read while the others pass by. But others gather, and talk, and people not in our group take some of the seats, and we're finally onto the bus at 8:23AM. The squat, heavily made-up guide Nayla speaks commandingly, but doesn't seem to be able to control groups very well. At 8:37 we get to the tomb of Samani from the end of the 9th Century, but it's just outside the enormous, semi-reconstructed walls of the Ark, and she or Michel may have MENTIONED this before, saying that we'd visit it in the afternoon, but I had the impression that this enormous structure was just IGNORED, and we should concentrate on this comparatively insignificant structure nearby and ignore "the elephant in the room." I took pictures from a distance, not even realizing what it was, and others were doing the same, and finally Michel ordered the bus to a corner where we could get out and take some pictures of the reconstructed gate and some of the enormous walls on either side of it. Then back to the 1500S-photo-cost tomb of Samani, with its elaborate brick-work which was NOT the 18-type previously described by Michel (and I've recently started thinking "Abdullah" when I should be thinking "Michel," which makes typing and speaking difficult), and Nayla doesn't help with her mixed-up recital of names and dates and reconstructions. Samani founded the first dynasty after (or before) the Arabs, from Balkh, as part of an "Oriental Renaissance." At another time this is called the oldest mausoleum in Asia (which doesn't seem right), and contains not only Samani but his father, and, somewhat later, the body of his grandfather, all buried beneath the one tomb in the center of the mausoleum, which was affected by the salinization of the soil from the higher water table produced by too-great irrigation, and I took some salted photos (#101) to show the effects, which also served to make the stone friable and subject to collapse. And THEN I wrote "And THIS was the building that demonstrated 18 ways of laying brick." The square base of the mausoleum was topped by a structure of eight sides, forming an octagon over the square, and that was further divided by sixteen sides, which were further modified so that a ROUND dome could be fit atop a SQUARE base, again seemingly a first. #103, the Mosque of Job's Well, the site of a well that didn't exist, from a distance, because we weren't including that mosque on this part of the tour. Then my PEN gave out and I had to borrow one from Nancy, at which point my pen started working again. Also resisted the impulse to take the time for ANOTHER Ferris wheel ride in the amusement part that surrounded this treasured mausoleum, I guess another example of how people are saying that the modern civilization is really ruining these wonderful old historical sites. To the bus at 9:15 to write with the old pen. At 9:22 off the bus to the Kalyan (which I kept hearing as "Column," until I saw it in writing in a museum atop the Ark) Minaret and the "Bug Pit." In various places, watchful women start shouting that there's a fee for photography, when no one warned us about it, so we were reluctant to pay, though it seemed that Bill HAD paid even though the woman insisted he didn't, and he simply replied that the woman had pocketed it and wanted to be paid again. Much shouting between Nayla and various other women. Introduced to the Ark at 9:45, told that it was started in the Fourth Century BC, had been much enlarged from the original 20-meter-high mound in the center of the founding town, destroyed and reconstructed, and then became the subject of the first aerial bombing in 1920 when the Turks destroyed most of it from the air, leaving only a heap of rubble which experts were STILL debating how to handle: leave as is, try to rebuild as was, or rebuild as something else entirely, and so they've done a bit of all three. Another Bukhara negative characteristic is that WHATEVER treasure is set up (well, EXCEPT for Samani's mausoleum) for tourists, it's FILLED with people SELLING things: shops with junk, rugs, miniatures, papier-maché boxes, jewelry, scarves, paintings, clay objects like whistles or toys or dolls, and puppets. And of course it was impossible to pry the women away from the shops while the guide was trying to explain the historical significance of the places infested with the sales areas: in mosques, madrasahs, and even, the ultimate irony, antique sales domes. Ark = Citadel in Persian, nothing to do with the Jewish Ark of the Covenant. The Kalyan Minaret is 46 meters high, has 105 steps that can no longer be climbed, built in 1147, and was heavily damaged in the 1920 bombing, with pictures to attest to the damage. Genghis Khan supposedly leaned his head back so far to look at the top that his hat fell off and he had to bow to pick it up, and decided that anything he bowed to was worth leaving undestroyed. Or maybe it was Tamerlane with the same story, which explains how it survived the universal destruction wreaked by both of them in the intervening centuries since it was erected, while everything around it was destroyed. Tour part of the Bug Tower, which impressed people who'd read about it because of the barbarity of the 6-meter rope that lowered prisoners into it, the dozens of lashes given to prisoners who were later photographed for their scars, and the bugs that infested the shit that gathered about their years of imprisonment, though I THINK it was at the same time that worshipers at an adjoining mosque would throw money into the pit to appease the sooth-sayers who set themselves up as requiring payment to ensure the health of those visiting them. Part was called the Death Tower because criminals would be flung to their death from the top, though she told the story of a woman who requested wearing the forty gowns that her husband had given her, and she floated down alive, starting a custom of new husbands giving their new wives forty gowns. Again a charge for pictures which I chose not to take, telling Chuck that I was deep into a mood of "Been there, done that" with madrasah facades, shopping areas, mosques made into storehouses, and rug shops serving tea and mints while women shopped while Nayla tried to get us to move to the next area, all the while the raucous women of our group would find some NEW reason to burst into loud laughter. I got so pissed I stopped returning the cheerful "Hellos" of passersby and mostly stopped taking pictures of the "same-old, same-old." Not the best feeling. Saw the biggest mosque in Asia, second after Samarkand. Before Communism there were 100 madrasahs, now only one for men (usual) and one for women (new, and only three in all the world). Guys enter aged 15-16, stay four years, study religion and even English, and can finish with University work in Tashkent. At 10:25 I'm out of it: too cheap to pay 1500S to take pictures of guys washing prayer rugs with soap and water. #141 tiles falling off a poor local-done restoration in 1994! Then photos of the earliest mosque (now a rug salesroom) from the 12th Century. We get back to hotel at 12:30, to meet at 12:45 in lobby for the walk to lunch. For dinner, meet at 6:45 in lobby to walk to a former mosque for entertainment and dinner. Monday 7AM breakfast and leave on bus at 8:30 for tour. Lunch from 1PM when (---and his name just LEAVES me---starts with M---) Michel has to knock on two doors to get into the converted Hammam, formerly only for men, with six interconnected rooms with heated water and steam pipes running beneath. We go into a domed room whose walls have colorful embroidery to disguise the fact that there are no windows, and four sit at one table, seven at another with Nayla and "the professor," and poor Michel, who sleeps through most of the lecture and has to be tapped on his knee by me to eat his main course of grape-leaf wrapped meat and stuffed green peppers (the latter almost edible, the grape leaves ripped off and left behind), after the usual start of salads and beets and a watery soup very much like borshch, which reminds everyone that we THOUGHT we had been promised boneless chicken kebabs SOME TIME today. The lecture is hopeless, spoken in Russian, with translation by the heavily accented Nayla, with difficult words supplied by Michel, illustrated by progressive maps of the size and density and mosque-distribution of the city of Bukhara which mean nothing to us since we have no idea what Bukhara even LOOKS like NOW. Richard insists on a chair, and then refuses most of the food, but makes it very difficult for the tall thin serving boys to serve me, sandwiched between Richard and Michel. Bill asks a stupid question, "What's your favorite site?" and gets an all-purpose non-answer barely translated by both translators. Then what appears to be a line of women waiting for the ladies' room actually leads to the exit. Out into the heat at 2:12, the bus finally goes at 2:29, and we're off at 2:40 to climb up a long covered passage, after a long stairway, into the Ark, and up more levels in the heat to the empty Coronation Hall, sides covered with rugs being sold, and to the Museum, where all the guards are selling their beadwork from their laps, "Only $1." Some previous guide said that unemployment was so high that a large percentage of the population is trying to sell ANYTHING to tourists! Take #164 of a 1909 color photograph lent by a Netherlands Institute, among MANY early Russian color photographs which have held up REMARKABLY well in a number of displays we've seen already. THIS museum is rather a disaster of dusty, rusty, dimly lit displays of metal, wood, paper, and cloth, none vaguely interesting except for photos of the 1920 bombing destruction. Here's where I find a description of the KALYAN Minaret. Hot down to the bus at 3:45. To hotel at 3:57, and I tell Richard that I have the fantasy of going out to "Broadway," which we passed on the way back to the hotel, of a pool surrounded by fountains spraying into it, with restaurants and parks around, kids playing around the bronze of a sage on a goat that has some mythical significance, and it looks like a good place to see the PUBLIC who is NOT selling anything. But I lie down and just don't get up until 6:32! Wash face, don't bother to change into returned laundry, and get out to a gathering in the hall where Michel is explaining that Nancy and Laurie were left buying a rug and will join us at the restaurant. Leave at 6:54, walking to the entrance where "anyone who's anyone" is entering for the dozens of tables around a large open-air stage with about eight instrumentalists and two singers and a parade of costumes and lackluster dancers that starts at 7:01 exactly and goes for about half an hour. We're served the same old food, except we're told NOT to eat the uncooked salads, and get meat-filled buns that aren't bad, and then four pastries that may or may not be the final course until they are. Some guy sits on a chair with an enormous television camera with attached felt-covered microphone who I HOPE is with the producer and not just a tourist, while other tourists stand to take pictures, blocking tourists' views behind them, and others scurry around the borders of the dancers. Nancy tells me about her wonderful trip with Travel Dynamics up the west coast of Africa, for whom they (for her and for her ALONE) waived the single-supplement charge), and she thought it was expensive but totally worth it. BUT there were few animals: one elephant, some birds, what may have been the back of a hippo or an alligator, an overnight trip into some nice resort, and the wonderful comfort of returning to the ship and a shower after each shore excursion. I take few photos because the show is SO "been there, done that" with sexpressionless models, phalanxes of clothing, wrist-wreathing dances, hair falling to the backs of knees, lots of glitter, astounding stretches of ugly white legs under miniskirts, and a display of what someone calls "Cleopatra's wigs" that I say are guaranteed NOT to sell any local wigs, they were so poorly done and perched so awkwardly atop heads. One singer was young and plain, the other old and ugly. Maybe the instrumentalists were good, and a compulsive would have recorded their names and samples of the playing, but I did not. Left about 7:45, eager to walk the town, but found that the way around the pool was BLOCKED by two different restaurant-barriers, and there was nothing ELSE to look at but shops in the shadowed entrances of former madrasahs and mosques, and REGULAR shops with few people inside, except one undershirted husband who was obviously living in his laundromat. Back depressed at 8:39, Richard still not back, and watch TV to 9:35, during which time Richard retired to the bathroom and didn't emerge until after I put on my eyemask and shut off my light. Finally got that it was a Boeing 737 on a flight from Dubai to Mangalore that slid off the runway at 6:30AM local time Saturday and killed most of the 160 people aboard. Got to bed at 9:40, having set the temperature from 23 to 24.

MONDAY, 5/24/10: 1:31AM: Pee and type that I can't remember any dream to type. Thighs do NOT protest for the FIRST time, at last! Remember that I FORGOT to take my NIGHT pill! Woke about 5AM, shut the air conditioner off from its setting of 23 as requested by Richard from his bed, debated what to do, started Actualism, and probably napped, because I woke at 6:05AM to find Richard in the bathroom and not only the memory of a dream, but the vague recollection of a dream before that, which I type. Catch up on part of yesterday to 6:47, when Richard exits bathroom, so I actually shit a normal, if small, shit, hopefully a good portent for the rest of the trip; wash my face; sort out my morning pills, and get back to typing at 6:57, unbuttoning all the buttons on my laundered shirt to put it on against the air conditioning which Richard has put back on when we really don't need it, though I suppose he has to dry his underwear and long black socks in the bathroom with it. Guess I'll go to breakfast now at 7AM and finish the journal later. Get there at 7:05 and order pancakes, which six others there (except for Chuck) have, with quince jam instead of syrup, which may have made the milk in the muesli taste sour, but I didn't risk it by finishing the dish I'd poured for myself, so I just left it on the table. Lisa and Bill gabbed on about their upcoming trip to the Galapagos, and how much they loved A&K, who took Porta-potties and masseuses on their Inca Trail walk, and will take oxygen to the Kilimanjaro climb. They want to combine the Galapagos, Lake Titicaca, and the western part of Colombia in one four-week tour, which they're hoping to get Chuck and his wife to come along on. Through all this they TOTALLY ignore me, so I ignore them and come back here to start typing again at 7:23, having to get the key from Richard at a table with Laurie and Nancy, and coming back to shut off the air conditioning. REALLY counting the days left on the trip. Lisa had no idea (well, neither did Richard and I) what was on the itinerary for today, except for the afternoon off, which they're looking forward to filling with shopping. Richard's back, thinking we're leaving at 8AM, but I correct him (correctly, I hope) to 8:30, and he lies down and I finish this to date at 8:08, STILL, damnably, feeling like I want to SHIT merely because I've had something to EAT. Maybe I'm just not used to the feeling of something on my stomach, which the four fluffy pancakes certainly provide. 8:20AM: Richard leaves, and I shit AGAIN, though comfortably and "normally," (even though for the second time, and that right after eating) and hope it goes OK for the rest of the day. Leave in the cool sunny morning for the bus at 8:22AM. [9:27PM: digesting dinner.] 8:36 leave for mausoleum of Sufi Nakshabandi. 4:30PM today: future talk of Mir trips by Michel in restaurant. Darvish from the Persian Dar = Door. #189 Nakshabandi's cane grew to a TREE! Sufism: Stage 1: Shariya: Law; Stage 2: Yarik: On the road; Stage 3: Enlightenment; Stage 4: Truth. Off at Summer Palace (2300S for photos, I own Richard 3000S) at 9:15. In 1886 unveiled women were killed by husbands, fathers, and sons: "True Love." 10:45-10:55 stop for two miniature salesmen Nayla knew. To "handstitch" museum, sales again, to 11:15. #122 quince, as on pancakes this morning. To bus 11:24. To Four Minarets, colorful, 11:37-11:55, again filled with a sales department. Get a photo of handsome waiter Muxlis and kebab skewer, yum! Meet at 5:45 for bus to dinner. Back at 2PM from lunch beside pool, fountains spraying breads, drinks, and foods with polluted water, but the chicken kebab was pretty good, once the skin and gristle were cut away. Walk from lunch to hotel, finish New Yorker at 2:52PM to lend to Michel; sudoku to 4:20, and get to restaurant at 4:30 for talk: Iran the only possible, and not very probable, next Mir trip for me, to 5:30. Bus goes at 5:51 to concert in old madrasah turned mosque turned childrens' library with Nayla's husband as a poor pianist, a drummer that Chuck says didn't know his rack, and a stringed instrumentalist that I got a recording of as being different, as opposed to "Satin Doll" and other awful jazz standards played poorly. That's from 6:10-7:02. Driver asks me, "Concert good?" I waggle my hands, "OK." He waggles hands back in sympathy. Dinner at 7:30. Tuesday 7AM breakfast, luggage out, leave 8AM, packed lunch, seven-hour trip, 4PM hotel, then Khiva walk to Ark. Good meal and what Michel described as Bukhara Plov: meat on rice. They serve lots of beer and wine and I have none of the above. Out at 9:05, full, walking behind John and Lea with their flashlights, getting to hotel at 9:15, peeing, taking evening pills then night pill, typing this to 9:46PM with my shirt over my shoulder to protect me from the 22-degree air conditioner Richard seems determined to have on. The host's brother was quite handsome, but not worth a picture, as the dining room itself was. Companionable conversation with Chuck, Nancy, Michel, and me, with Bill joining in, and the blonde Nancy making a "Just you wait!" comment when Laurie chokes on her water after she complains that I take hers only to cool my tea, and I say, "You'll never laugh at me again." I really think she doesn't like me! But then, I can't stand her either, as she and Nancy talked ENDLESSLY about their housing decor across from me at lunch; while only Lea occasionally said something to me, Laurie was engaged with Linda across the table, who NEVER stops talking, and I kept staring at Muxlis, glad that I'd chosen to sit with my back to the pool, facing the serving staff. Now at 9:50, surely finished eating for an hour, still feeling too stuffed to go to bed, but refusing to try to shit until I have "the perfect shit" in the morning, probably even taking a quick shower to be prepared for the seven-hour drive tomorrow. Since I had NO bowel problems today, it was A GOOD DAY!! I seem to have gotten quite a bit of sun-color today, too. Bed at 10PM. Pee at 11:52PM.

TUESDAY, 5/25/10: 1:06AM: Feel as if I JUST got back in bed when I wake and have to pee again, this time typing to 1:13. Pee again to 1:16AM. 4:53AM: Woke twice, with two different dream cycles, which I try now to transcribe. 5:08AM: Finished the dream, and now sit on the john wondering whether I should try to shit, or just let my bowels force their own rhythm, difficult considering today's seven-hour trip from Bukhara to Khiva. What needs to be recorded is my first gasp that I thought it was about 5:50AM and I hadn't yet recorded the dreams, showered, or packed, and then my relief to find it was only 4:53 and I had an extra hour to do what I wanted. Now I have to decide what that is at 5:10AM. 5:14AM: Actually shit (almost) sufficiently to consider this my SECOND day of "normal morning defecation" on a good trip: no feeling of the stuffedness of constipation, no fear of the runniness of diarrhea. Back to bed, sleep, and wake at 6:15 and shower to 6:30 and start dressing and packing. 6:48AM: Astoundingly, still manage to close my suitcase without sitting on it, even though each time needs a BIT more coaxing and compression. Put it outside and type this and prepare to put on shoes and go early to breakfast, as most seem to do. Half the people there already, and rather than sit with Lisa and Bill and Chuck, I choose Nancy and Laurie and Nancy, who talk about their fingernails on trips. Michel returns my New Yorker, I read "the" paragraph to absolutely no reaction from the table, and tear out the museum-clothes-exhibits article and give the rest of it to Judy. Back at 7:25, and when I ask for the key, Richard asks if I've gotten more "tp," for toilet paper. I ask the girl (who reminds me of Marj) at the desk, and she has to go somewhere else to get it and offers me "one roll or two?" Back to shit again, gratifyingly, and type this to 7:32, ready to go outside to sit and read. Luggage sits behind me and starts gradually getting moved through a back door to the street. Richard sits across from me and asks when the bus boards. "8:30," I say. We board the bus at 8AM. Fourteen seats are reserved by us thirteen tourists, so I have to sit way in the back. We have a dune-pee at 9:56AM, where I can only muster a few yellow drops in the high wind. Judy spots a yurt at 11AM and we're all out to take pictures of the part-time nomads who live in the city half the year while the kids go to school. It's raining very slightly, and I ask how often it rains and Graeme makes a big point of saying these falling drops wouldn't even register a millimeter in a rain-meter, so it's NOT raining. Stop for lunch 12:50 in a concrete blockhouse with a chandelier, looking over a canal, with colorful bags full of a meat sandwich, a cheese sandwich, a container of pineapple yogurt, a banana, two chocolate-covered cookies, two other cookies, a bag of raisins and shelled walnuts, a container of apricot juice, and a boiled egg. Everyone eats fast, consolidates trash, and leaves food to be taken to others, from which I take a Snickers bar, for which I get rebuked by Nancy, to whom I reply, "Well, I'm other." Down to pee in the john, then back on bus at 1:25; it's still drizzling. Cool desert. Our guide in Khiva is Horschnut, and we leave for our walk at 4:30. Dinner at 7PM. To hotel at 3:45, having taken a picture of the Amu Darya and the bridge across it a few times, and get room 35, no room in the bathroom for dop kits, air conditioner that works, and barely room for two beds, though the closet has two robes and four huge shelves. I'm tired from doing nothing. Real diarrhea smell emitted from Linda when I sit behind her to look out over the canal on her side of the bus. Our Asia-Xiva Hotel right across from one of the entrances to the walled city, with tombs built ONTO the sloping walls to discourage invaders. Hor, as I shall call him, is handsome and seems to speak better English than most other guides we've had. Type this to 4:15 while Richard sub-whistles aimlessly around the room, opening and closing the closet doors. I decide to start crossword. Out at 4:30 for Hor to explain the photos in the lobby, then start out at 4:40 by practically walking around the entire central walled city, though in actuality we only went from the West Gate to the North Gate, to take a picture of Al-Korizma, #266, died 783, pay 5000S for a 2-day photo permit, snap the map of the 64-hectare town, 400 x 600 meters, said to have been founded by Shem, son of Noah, and various pictures, including a replica of the throne which was a wood frame covered with eight kilograms of gold and sixteen kilograms of silver, which is now in the Moscow Kremlin Armory Museum, and the leaning tower, built in 1789 and only starting to lean 15 years ago, until we're led to the 25-meter tower, which I climb, favoring my sore left knee, with no problem, to take pictures with everyone else, then down, to a UNESCO rug factory 6:05-6:10, after 6PM, when all the museums close, and walk a long way through the old town to the gate that leads to the hotel Asia-Xiva main entrance, to the restaurant, and the door next to it that leads out to our building 2 at 6:20. Work on the puzzle, dinner 7-7:45 with the Aussies and John and Lea and Richard talking about wine and beer and liqueurs and drinking and leaving me completely out of it, so I get back to finish the puzzle, do a couple sudokus to 9PM, when Richard's snoring, so I just leave for the supposedly artistically lit old city. The gate is lit, the path through the town vaguely remembered until I hit the first of the tall minarets, and find that not THAT much is specifically lit for night, but I end up taking a dozen or a bit more shots, trying two or three times for each effect, sometimes using the almost-full moon, sometimes trying (but failing) to catch the lightning which gets closer and brighter, and wander here and there, amazed at the number of families, couples, kids, gangs, tourists, photographers, and just plain people that are out on the pedestrian streets and sitting in restaurants and going in and out of hotels. Then it starts to rain, with someone ironically singing "Raindrops Keep Falling on Your Head," as I shelter my camera in my shirt, take a few more shots, and, going beyond where we'd gone before, get what I think there is to get and almost fear losing my way back to the green-lit gate, going a different way, but get to it sooner than expected, and there's the hotel to prove I'm in the right place, at which point it practically stops raining at about 9:50PM. In to chat with Richard for a while, starting in to type about 10:15 and finishing now at 10:34, tired enough to go directly to bed, hoping the few drops of leaked urine, because I had to pee so badly, won't smell in my shorts too much tomorrow. The air conditioner is buzzing away at 22 degrees; I take the duvet-stuffing out and prepare to add the coverlet if I have to. With an urge of hunger, peel and eat the banana from lunch, feeling vaguely like shitting, but deciding to try to leave it for the third "normal" morning in a row. Tomorrow is a no-bus day, breakfast at 7 and meeting in the lobby 8:30, as before, for more walks around the town. AND hope to buy SOME kind of souvenir guide of Khiva. Take my night pill, set up my morning pills, and figure I'll get under the covers by 10:40PM.

WEDNESDAY, 5/26/10: 2:18AM: Wake, cold; pull blanket up, then decide to pee and type dream to 2:23, happy that I'm not FREEZING when I get out of bed; ready to complain to Richard for keeping the room too cold. And I'd also opened the closet, expecting to find two ROBES, but sadly that was in the LAST hotel, not in THIS one. [But it WAS this one, I later find: Richard had put the robes into a DRAWER for some obscure reason.] Sleep quickly. Wake again at 5 something, and 6:10, and up at 6:25 to shit a good shit and wash my face and plaster my hair down. Then try to remember my second dream. Not very successful by 6:47AM. Found a new way of carrying my topless pen in my shirt pocket: stick it into (preferably) two index cards used for notes, so that they form a kind of envelope with the holder that prevents the pen-tip from touching the pocket cloth. Turning the note AWAY from the body seems to keep it dryer than when the paper's next to the body. Put on shirt and pants and slippers for breakfast at 6:55AM. Lisa is already at one table, and Linda later joins them, so the two motor-mouths are placed. I take the next table, and Richard sits one empty chair away, making it difficult for anyone else to sit with us until Graeme and Judy join us---they are SO pleasant, and the conversations are SO easy, and they even make the effort to include Richard, even with his distance from them and his incessant "What?" to any remark. Have a fried egg, a small piece of French toast, two nice tasteless fritters, and a bit of cheese and salami with two glasses of apple juice and a cup of tea with a bit of sugar, and feel quite satisfied. Back to the room at 7:30 with the knowledge that we have an hour before our tour (an whoer before our tower?) (show this to Richard and he laughs appropriately and says, "Why not?"). Richard asks, and I tell him in all detail, about my abstaining from alcohol. We at least agree that it kills cells and is very bad for possible diabetes. Type this until 7:53, looking forward to a VERY easy day. Watch a bit of TV to 8:18; they're still trying to stop the oil flow. QEII speaking at age of 84, or is it 86? And LOTS of trash! Michel directs us to gather in the front lobby at 8:27AM. Hor leads us to 57-meter highest minaret with 120 steps to top. Museum of National Crafts at 8:44. 32 circles of Paradise: in center is 8-pointed throne-base of Allah, to 9:25. Covered well in "Art Museum." Deep well and shallow water photo at 9:49. 9:55 to New Palace: 163 rooms in labyrinth. Al-Illah = Allah = "The God." Oldest mosque built in 937 is the "forest of columns," and "Friday mosque" of 212 wooden columns, 21 of them from 10th and 11th Centuries, at 10:56. My camera is showing that my battery is losing power: take almost every photo by snapping quickly before "no power" symbol shows up, fearing each may be the last, but always seeming to get one more. Try reversing the four batteries, but that's even worse, so I reverse them back and squeeze out at least a half dozen more shots. The Koran says that the Antichrist will be a one-eyed Jew from Isfahan, "an only son and have no sons." Hor takes the oil fire as a sign of the last days. At 11:55 I spot the Khiva Guide I want and she starts at $10. I offer $5. She goes to $9, then $8, and starts grabbing my wallet to see how much money I have when I say I have no more. Finally she ends just demanding one more dollar, and I keep refusing, and finally, to my shame, simply walk away from her to catch up with the group that just disappears around the corner as I leave her courtyard. But I have my book! To Tomb of Said Alouddin 11:57-11:59. Lunch at Hotel Kheivak Restaurant 12:05-1:25, under thatched roof that's not much protection against sun. John and Lea, Graeme and Judy, Richard and I seem to have settled into being permanent table-mates, which is fine with me, except that I'd like to be with Chuck and Bill (though not Lisa) more. Michel announces 6:30 dances at the Conference Hall next to the swimming pool. 7PM dinner; bring old currency form. Thursday, bring three extra head shots. [Stop typing at 6:15AM to start packing and find pictures before I forget about them.] 6:39AM: Pack very nicely, closing bag for the "final time," when I AGAIN remind myself that I need to find the PICTURES! Unpack the top two bags and finally find them, putting four of the best into an envelope in the front of my shoulder bag and close the lock on the wheeled bag for the PENULTIMATE time on this trip. Richard has finished with everything and is lying in bed channel surfing with the volume on rather too loud. I'd opened window for fresh air from the somewhat-shit smell in the room air, and then he asks if he can put on the air conditioner! Madness! Look to see my hair is still a mess at 8:42, and decide I might as well just leave on my white T-shirt that I put on last night to keep warm after my shower. Just doesn't matter, and I still have my blue shirt in my bag in case I need it for the cold.] NOW Michel says "Sha-mood," for the guide. Tour 1:40-2:05. Pahlavon Mahmud, to room at 2:19. Change batteries. Start Hoeg 2:30-3:55. Sudoku to 4:22. Skim Khiva Guidebook to 5PM, not really readable. Back to Hoeg: p.58B: "And strange---removed." p.72-73: "Thorvald---Hell." Read to 6:20. Dance from 6:30-6:55 with gold-toothed drummer, ineffectual accordionist, two singers, a midget metal-clacker, and finally, ME, dancing, with a wooly cap on my head that predetermines my showering before bed tonight. Nancy really shakes it up too, and Judy's face is so transformed by her dancing that I barely recognize her. Thursday: 7AM breakfast, 7:45 luggage check, 8AM leave. Dinner 7:20-8:16, same old stuff. Shower to 8:52, reluctant to start, but doing it anyway. Change shorts and socks and put on T-shirt and shirt to get warm. Bed at 9:50PM. Pee at 11:52PM.

THURSDAY, 5/27/10: 3:50AM pee and type dream to 3:57. Remember to take simvastatin at 4:45AM. Try Actualism and nap. 5:37 type dream to 5:41. Many confused thoughts: stay in bed or get up? Up at 5:59AM with Richard up and humming about, and I start day. Type 6:08 to notes interspersed previously: lots to iron out on editing. Finish this finally at 6:50AM, ready to finish dressing and get to breakfast. Meet Michel in the hall and say that I closed my bag three times before finally remembering to get out my spare passport photos. He says he knows how it is. At breakfast I actually wish I had some muesli, but took two thick fried eggs, various hard breads, including a French-toast end so hard I couldn't cut it with a knife and had to bite it by hand (so to speak). Back at 7:28 to actually shit satisfactorily AGAIN, marveling how much it improved the tenor of a trip to NOT have to worry about incontinence on a bus or airplane. Had to point out the "Sham Poo" label to Richard when he couldn't figure why he might want to take it as a funny souvenir. Other groups waiting outside with their luggage, guide, and tour busses, which I hope clear out by the time WE get outside at 7:45. Happy to be immersed in the Hoeg book, a real time-passer, now that I've finished the New York and New Yorker from the past. I feel comfortable with a T-shirt AND shirt on, and look forward to a fairly easy day, in which my worst current worry is whether to change my totally black earplugs now or wait a few more days, just as John, at breakfast, said he hoped his shoes would last four more days so that he could throw them away before he left. Lea seems to shift in and out of lucidity, or maybe it's just my appreciation of her peculiar style. I'm just rattling on, now at 7:40AM, waiting for the transfer to the LAST of the Five Stans! Off at 7:49AM! The guide's name was Khoshnud. Ilyas is the new guide. Turkmenistan MOST repressed and controlled. Ashkabad: City of Love; 600,000 people. To border 8:43, walk from bus at 8:49. Oq Yol = White Road = Good Trip. We and funeral-attendees jostle to be let through to totally EMPTY gate ahead of us. Ah, they DO have a radio in their possession. We take out bags at 9:04. At 9:12 we hear "prepare passports." To first X-ray, which doesn't work, at 9:18. GET our passports at 9:28; to exit-stamp window to 9:29. TO Turkmenistan at 9:38AM, after two MORE passport checks. Onto minibus 9:51, off at 9:58 and stand in shade. I do sudoku. At 10:29 Lisa says, "Oh, there's stamping going on." Through X-ray (working) at 10:43. Wait for bus at 10:45, onto bus at 10:48. Bus goes at 10:50, so the whole crossing took "only" 2:07. Get $20 in manat at rate of 2.84M/$1. To Dashowuz for lunch. At 11:28 we're told we went too fast through the border, so lunch won't start till noon. We get good rounds of bread about 11:40, which are totally consumed. We're told we should leave here at 1:30 to go directly to the airport for a 50-minute flight to Ashkabad that leaves at 3:40. An apparently inedible mayonnaise salad arrives at 12:08. Judy recommends over-the-counter Travelan, taken one tablet before each meal to counteract any possible E. coli. Lunch ends with GOOD cake, of which I finish Judy's, at 1:15. We leave Uzboy Hotel at 1:21 to get to airport at 1:43. Through X-ray at 2:12, and at 2:25 bitch Nancy won't give up the window seat she told Michel she'd gladly give me. When I tell Michel, he says he'll try to arrange something, and he actually does. Start back on Hoeg 2:26: p.145M: "dream---village." Boarding at 3:18. At 3:33 I GET window through BIZARRE switch with the guy next to me, in 5A, who has a ticket for 4A, who moves to the back of the plane while Laurie moves from 6A to 5A, Michel from 6B to 5B, and some Turk to 6B as I settle into 6A, knowing I'd better not take a picture of the airport. Off at 3:48 for the 50-minute flight. Take a photo and am focusing for a second when the stewardess says NO PHOTOS. I say "Just a camera," and she repeats NO PHOTOS, as does Ilyas across the aisle from me in 6C. So I decide to WRITE the description of the desert which wouldn't come out on photographs anyway, writing almost constantly from 4:05 to 4:34. Definitely some kind of fort/wall once. Dried pans; dried river basins; areas of salt, snow, or sand. Rather heavy haze at 8000 feet, clouds only in distance. Patterns, riffles, corrugations in sand with intermittent pocks or pimples of texture. Small seeming-patterns vanish. Distant clouds with shadows underneath. No more than a hundred-foot deviation in height of "dunes," though this is not a SAND desert but a ROCK desert that winds would ERODE, not SHIFT. Odd SATELLITES of "salt" around lakes, like splashes. 4:14 seat-belt sign comes on; they serve a cupcake, a dry croissant, and an acid-chemical lemonade at 4:15, at which time we're definitely starting DOWN. There had been FIELDS before the desert, and will fields come BACK? More clouds visible now. A canal, too rectilinear to be a river, at 4:17, though there are quasi-ex-bow-lake excrescences off some straight sides. Branches lead to what LOOK like, but couldn't be, LAKES. But they MUST be lakes, and ONE "canal" looks like it could be a ROAD. Now large areas of "smooth" and "fuzzy" sands, and SMALL patches, now, of GREEN, as if oases, now straight, which intersect scratches that are clearly roads, and buildings or factories in settlements. Now edges of greenery, hedges or trees, around "pans." Now clearly a double-lane highway at 4:22, and barely productive north-south valleys. More towns with NO trace of green around, just a stone-strew of gray-roofed structures. Now small lines of hills. Odd elliptical/paisley lakes. Plane's shadow lowers over roads and man-made squares of cultivation. Bumpy air! More green---the desert is ending. Old abandoned town grids. Marshland at 4:27. Orchards, fields, NO signs of irrigation, but NOW canals, large green fields under LARGE plane-shadow. Transmission towers, a town of hundreds, MOUNTAINS to the south. Tree-lined roads, now a CITY. Metal roofs, paved streets, large industrial areas, haze over the city, high-rises in distance: Ashkabad. Wheels down at 4:31. HUGE apartment blocks like Lego-Land domino-towers. Factories and malls and parking lots. Parks, tree nurseries, research centers, highways, traffic, high fountained traffic circle before landing at 4:34. Seatmate undoes his seat-belt even before plane SLOWS. No APPARENT haze from ground. In the terminal at 4:52, the john at the exit is closed; the guide points to the next one, and I'm down out doors and down halls and in doors and the other one's closing as I approach it. "The other one's closed too," I shout, and BANG through door to pee. I'm going to get into trouble! [Michel later says they had to close them because they had no WATER.] Luggage-carousel buzzer sounds at 4:54, and my bag's out at 4:56, taken by porters and put onto one of two carriages that they take out to bus. Onto bus at 5PM, second from front, as I was IN front earlier today, and bus goes at 5:03, through, as described, "Disneyland" town with white-marble buildings, receding-to-infinity blocks of apartment houses under construction, Expo-ready international company headquarters, quadruple-lane highways with central planted margins and side plantings too, with huge fountains and statues and monuments at every other corner. Dinner is on the "M" level of the hotel at 7PM. Get to room 604, one key only, at 5:20. Fuss with lights, not needing the key: very few drawers, only five hangers; Richard observes there's only one set of soap and towels and no Room Service Menu, which gradually arrive over the next ten minutes. I start typing at 5:38, talk with Richard about the way the air conditioner isn't working very well, eventually end up typing only in shorts; get room-service menu at 5:45, Richard tunelessly whistles around me; luggage guy plugs in Richard's bed lamp and turns mine on, and he's still unpacking as I finish this at 6:24PM, only needing to dress for dinner at 7PM. OH, and Ilyas bugged me to get off the plane with the group, which only made sense because I had to follow them to the proper luggage carousel, but it pissed me off anyway. I'd better relax. Maybe reading Hoeg puts me in a surreal mood. Anyway, I'm caught up, having moved the lamp to better serve my typing, and will now settle into more reading, I think. No, continue unpacking, using all of two drawers, getting out blue pants for dinner, getting ready to wash face when Richard goes back into bathroom, and find to my delight that the bed is covered with an EMPTY duvet cover, WITHOUT the useless duvet! AT LAST. This goes to 6:45, having gotten a call from Michel to bring cameras because he's going to have maps for photographing on M. Get out at 6:56 and take 5-6 pictures, then sit with Chuck, Nancy, Linda, Richard, John, and Lea, and have to listen to the horse-laughs coming from our group at the next table. The appetizer of tuna, potato, and other vegetables, sprinkled copiously with dried hard-boiled-egg yolk, is enormous, followed by a large bowl of quite good borshch, followed by good beef and vegetables with a heap of rice I didn't touch, followed by a terrible triangle of desiccated cake that I barely touched, followed by lots of water and a retreat to my room by 8:12, feeling VERY TIRED. Type this at 8:26 as Richard describes the fire escape just to the left outside our door. Michel announced breakfast starting at 7, meeting at 8:50, and he's in room 205. Look out to see a FABULOUS full moon over Turkmanbashi the Great and take pictures of it. Read Hoeg 8:43-9:24PM, and then, eyes closing, put the book down, double the pillow, and go to sleep. 11:13PM: Wake and pee and type dream to 11:19PM, remembering then to take my simvastatin and get back to bed with only the lightest coverlet in the warm room.

FRIDAY, 5/28/10: 2:40AM: Pee, change pillows from rock-hard pillow to soft coverlet, and Vicks nose in VERY drying air of room air conditioner. Long time getting back to sleep. 5:13AM: Pee and type two dreams to 5:20AM, now having slept over seven hours, but probably not as close to eight hours as I might wish. Drink lots of water; protruding tooth is MORE sensitive than it has been for a few days. Bed 5:25AM. 6:45AM: Do Actualism until I fall asleep, after a longish bit, and suddenly wake at 6:22AM with the room BRIGHT with sun and Richard's light. Go for a bit of a shit and a pee, and decide to bite the bullet and take a shower NOW, which I do to 6:43AM, getting out to find Richard sitting on the edge of his bed, as usual, surmising that we've been put on the top floor to COOK, as he puts it, whereas the temperature on the second floor, where most of our group is, must be more moderate. I say, "That's a possibility." He confirms that we don't meet downstairs until 9AM. I go back to Hoeg at 6:49: p.234T: dreams---1920s." p.254T: "Floating---egg." To 7:49 exactly. Pee, put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign in my T-shirt and shorts and bare feet JUST as friendly Laurie and stony-faced Nancy pass, Laurie saying "Good morning," to which I echo, and then finish dressing and type this before going to breakfast at 7:55AM. Down to find ONLY Richard from our group, and find rice porridge that I dose with nuts, raisins, and corn flakes and milk good, followed by a plate of cut fruit, and a glass and a half of apricot juice with my pills. Back up at 8:20 to watch sixty channels, the fifty top of which contain the same ten programs: BBC is on 13. Richard wants to move from the top floor, which he's convinced is hotter than the others. I think I'll put my short-sleeved pocket (to describe it functionally) on just for its functionality. Plan to leave at 8:40AM. Richard goes into the bathroom at 8:37AM, having said nothing more about trying to move. On bus at 8:55AM. Michel says we CAN move, to which I add: "Only if the room is better temperature-wise!" To Lenin's statue at 9:10. Then to Arch of Neutrality, built in 1998, 12-meter statue, 65 meters in all, rotates once per day. On 10/6/48, at midnight, a Richter 9 earthquake killed 150,000 and destroyed most of the city. #375 OLD President's Palace (one dome), #376 NEW President's Palace (three domes), #377 Parliament (blue). Michel finds the operator for the elevator to the roof, and we go up in small groups to take pictures, and Graeme calls down to Judy, who doesn't like heights. The shoppers love the shopping madrasah, I photograph the stadium and lovers and get lost getting back to the bus at 10:55, which was supposed to leave at 10:45, but John says it leaves at ll. At ll:11 we're quoted $5/picture, so we all leave our cameras on the bus. Into the Rug Institute and find a presentation of a band with the rugmakers' dancing. Ironically, we're told we can take pictures. "For $5?" "No, free." "We left them on the bus!" At 11:14 we're back to the bus to go somewhere else until the concert's over. 90% of the land MUST be cotton or wheat. At 11:28 stop at 8-legged tower, #402 fountains and DUST STORM in front of dome of Museum of Personal Gifts to Turkmenbashi (and I have the nerve to leave off "the Great"). Elite apartments 20% occupied. I could buy and live here. Museum of Archaeology, no photos at all. 11:48: back to bus in an hour. Spend $25 to 1:08 on books, INCREDIBLE stuff: rhytons, archaic women busts, costumes, recreations of old walled cities, jewelry, and wonderful displays which we're only the second group to see; no catalog yet: the place is too new. Back on road: 34 hotels for each embassy, all empty. Stop at 1:30 for lunch. Entertainment and lunch to 3:28; Michel recommends trying the Maison du Chocolate on Madison Avenue. Back to the Rug Museum at 3:40 for 45 minutes(!). It took 40 ladies 8 months, working two shifts of 8 hours a day, to make the largest rug at 1.3 tons and 14 by 21 meters. Out at 4:41, more than an hour, leaving me totally bored while everyone else dutifully followed the guides around the displays on two floors. Leave ten-horse monument at 4:48. 5:28 to minibus and arrive at 5:40, hot. Horse farm is not that interesting, though the hair glows in the late-afternoon sun. Back to minibus 6:18, Lisa disappointed that a ride has to be pre-planned, take at least two hours, and must be in the morning, as she OF COURSE understood beforehand. To bus at 6:27. Bouyges Company (French) built the new Ashkabad. To the new mosque, minarets 91 meters high, $158 million to build. Turkmanbasi tomb at 7PM with a changing of the guard caught on film. Leave mosque 7:15, back to bus 7:20. Saturday: Leave at 5AM, take passport, Michel leaves earlier, Ilyas will take us to airport. Check flight HOME time: 4:45 to Frankfurt, 6:40 flight back, home by 8PM CURRENT time. To hotel 7:39, to room at 7:44; Richard HAD key. Start dinner of my leftovers at 8, to 8:18, bed at 8:33PM.

SATURDAY, 5/29/10: Pee at 2:20AM. Up at 4:24; downstairs at 4:47. 4:41AM: Behind on file 5, I don't really remember the second dream (except that it had something to do with dreaming), so I'll say here that I woke at 4:23, lay there for a while, and then looked at my watch at 4:23, so something was wrong somewhere. Had left a wake-up call for 4:30 (or had I mistakenly said 5:30?), but it didn't come yet. Richard, for some inexplicable reason, felt compelled to go downstairs at 4:40, saying it would take at least six minutes to get there. I offered that there wouldn't be much competition for the elevators at this time. He said it was about as warm out as it was in our room, which I felt was actually pleasant, but then he always felt it was MUCH warmer than I felt it was. Will still wear my short-sleeved shirt as a note-holder and pill-holder, and at this point the only people I really speak to are Judy, Graeme, and M---edusa? Mellila? Michel! Guess that's all I have to say at 4:46AM. Will put this on my bed with my "Do Not Disturb" sign. [Spend ages trying to find what I left out, NOT being able to find "neutrality" or "8-legged," though I'm SURE I typed that [but, in RE-proofreading on 6/17, find that I had NEVER typed MOST of note 17!], and finally decide to start at the end of note 17, Saturday morning, where I clearly stopped.] Downstairs at 4:47, leave 5:02, no John and Lea. Airport at 5:13. Flight at 6:40. ZOO of people at airport: fat wife of bearded mullah, Downes-type young man hauling luggage back and forth, women with babies pushing into line. Get two bananas, eat one. [To note 18.] Through third X-ray at 5:36. [Typed SUNDAY, 6:07AM: Shit softly, "why" is a mystery, so I stuff in toilet paper again; wash hands and face, deodor, sort out AM pills, and get back to typing notes from Saturday.] Hoeg: p.278M: "Dreams." p.291M: "All---novel." Finish breakfast and penultimate part of Hoeg at 6:07AM. 6:19 board (after shoving crowd after crowded bus) to seat 11F, at window. But behind engine and front edge of wing. 40-minute flight. MOSQUITO inside plane window! Off 6:43, RIGHT PAST CITY! No photos! Huge dust-haze turns into thick CLOUDS. Land at 7:22. Mostly farms; LONG canal, towns, clearer air, 25 degrees C. Quick off plane by 7:29. To john. Onto big bus 7:40. Bus goes 7:45. Longest canal: 1300 km to Caspian, dug in 1960s. Seleucids sprang from one of Alexander's generals in 300BC. Then Parthians were kings to 300AD. Then Sassanids to 850BC, followed by Persians again. In 650 the Arabians captured Merv, and it became Islamic, converted from Zoroastrianism. Seljuks came here from 1000-1300, burning 11,000 books in one of ten libraries by Ghengis Khan, who killed 1 million people between the ages of 7 and 70, and then Tamerlane's grandson Gharmun made Merv into Herat. Merv sat between China and the Mediterranean on the Silk Road, which Khan destroyed. Then Russians took over, in 1884, then from 1924-1991 it was an SSR. 6M for photos at museum at 8:21. Merv 401 square kilometers. First was "girls'" castle, then "boys'" castle. Leave castles 9:05. Military commanders' tombs 9:14-9:25. Linda makes a painful talk, complaining about wanting to see 2nd millennium BC and only seeing 700AD. 9:43 to Erk Gala: in 1048 Sufism was born here. Pre #521 is northeast walls of Soltan Gala. To Hoje Yussuf 10:01. 10:41 leave Yussuf after many pictures and cute guy who wants to be an interpreter. To Soltan Sanjaryn 10:45. Double-walled dome built in 1147. Out 11:04. Zeyin 11:08-11:26. Stop for lunch 12:20. Killing-awful lunch to 1:35, then music and dance, in the dark because they can't put on stage-center lights, to 2:13. 2:33 NO book of the new museum, no time for book yet. I go through by myself: incredible stuff, including Jacobean curls said to be wheat on "joke," as I insist, Michel says maybe, Ilyas cites asshole authority who wrote two books. We can look to see if we want photos and then pay 20M for shots. Ilyas says to read "Margouz: Ancient Delta of River Murga," and "Gonurtepe." Out to explanation at 4PM: "Not one photo without 20M, not my rules." To Hotel Margosh for "shop open in 10-15 minutes" for THOSE TWO books, at 4:13. Tourists order beer and ice cream, and THERE are books. Shop finally opens at 4:20 and I look through both books ($30 each), and find a representation of wheat depicted with individual grains, not like the worm-shit curls on the improbably Jewish profiles over slitted eyes to Hersey-kiss tits looking TOTALLY modern as a joke. But of course Ilyas says it's only poetic differences. Nothing like the Giacometti-like figures I point to. WISH I could have taken a picture, as they're no where else, but not worth $7.11. Watch dreadful Russian comedy show on TV because I don't want driver to go to bus just to get me something to read. Anyway, it's 4:49. To bus 5:03. Through 3 X-rays at airport to 5:24, hand-checking my four batteries. Pee at 5:52, ready to board. finishing (nearly) Hoeg P.332B:"18---myth." At 6:32 EVERYONE gets up and walks out onto an, apparently, empty field, except as we round the corner, there's a plane waiting for us, which some know, somehow, is a REPLACEMENT, thus BIGGER, allowing anyone to sit where they wish, and "producing" Richard's non-existent seat in 25B. I ask which side is away from the sun and the stewardess doesn't know. "Take any seat, and then you can change." I GUESS we're flying WEST, into SETTING sun, which should put sunset in the south, to the left, so I sit on free seats on the right as the plane fills up. What do I do if someone demands MY seat. 28 degrees F? Wrong. But they close overhead doors and start talking on mike, so I sit OK. Hoeg: P361B! 35-minute flight. Off at 6:58, 7:08 guy behind keeps PINGING, so I use that as an excuse to get out of sun and move across aisle---to a hazy window. Take 3 pictures that are aimed too high, trying not to be seen. Land 7:32, 36EC is 97EF. On bus 7:51, having collected two "dinners" from plane and extra water. Sunday: breakfast 6:30, leave 7:30; lunch 1:30, dinner at 7PM, which we may skip. Have a GOOD
SHIT! Dinner starting at 8:19, then shower to 9:05. Bed 9:08PM.

SUNDAY, 5/30/10: 12:32AM: Wake with SEVERE cramps in BOTH lower legs, having to shift positions two or three times before they're relieved. Get up to pee and they're STILL slightly cramping as I sit on the john. And my loose tooth seems to be getting PROGRESSIVELY "out of joint" at this time. But at least Richard has shut off ALL his lights when I wake this time (after shouting a number of times at managers and Room Service at the telephone right at my ear). So far behind in my journal that I type this here rather that in its usual place. Now to type the dream fragment. Type to 12:37, ready to take off T-shirt and shorts I put on to protect myself against the cold of going to bed right after taking a shower. Also conscious that at last it's SUNDAY, the NEXT-TO-LAST-DAY of this trip! Up 5:30. Take valium 5:34, type dream to 5:41. Catch up on journal (with entries mysteriously unfindable) by 6:37, ready to dress for breakfast. Down at 6:40AM. [Start file 6 on 5/30/10: 7:04AM.] Both tables have only one or two seats left; I don't want to sit next to Richard at Linda's table, so I have to opt for Lisa and Bill, and Lisa's actually almost becoming acceptable in my desperation. Still bouyed by lovely Graeme and Judy, and John says Lea is feeling better, but won't be joining us today. Have a much gloppier, sweeter rice gruel, and they actually have muesli out! I make a large bowl of my cereal blend, then lots of fruit, and a glass of apricot juice takes me through to 7AM, when I essentially leave the table without a word, and no one responds anyway. Back up to room to type this at 7:06, ready to pee and finish dressing and get out for the LAST DAY OF TOURING! Blow nose a number of times, brush teeth, put everything away, including this on bed with "Do Not Disturb" sign, and catch this improbably (since I thought it'd take HOURS) up to date now at this very moment of 7:19AM, going into the penultimate day, only ONE group meal left at lunch, with cash for Michel. 10:13AM: Onto bus 7:30, leave 7:32. To "elbow" market 7:47 after driving around lots of traffic. Leave area for goats and camels and rabbits and geese and sheep and ducks and turkeys at 8:26. To other side of market, through gate, and 8:43 off at "ethnographic:" jewelry, robes, rugs, toys, some few books, CDs, clothes, hardware, EVERY photo taken for groupings of color. To bus 9:45, having gotten lost, bus now near curb, and I had to follow Michel, Richard following me. Bus goes at 9:50, to hotel at 10:07 for 20 minutes "facilities" stop, and then to Nisa and BACK (for $200 tip for Michel) before lunch. Type to 10:16. ANOTHER soft shit to 10:20 and down to leave key so they can redo room. 12:33PM: Into bus 10:24, leave 10:31. Parthians ruled between 300BC and 300AD, building capitals in Ctesiphon, Ecbatana, and Nisa. To Nisa at 10:55 for one hour, 6M for photos. #634 round hall at 11:14, used for soma-drinking and hashish and ephedra usage. Pay 15M for Old Nisa book. Then to Red Room (taking a picture of the TOP of the scrollwork, protruding at ground level, which was situated above the red columns pictured in the book; then Square Hall, of which I took a picture of a reconstruction. Leave Nisa at 10:48 (55 minutes), since we didn't go to the north to the site of the Treasury where the rhytons were found. I climb a steep hill to take final photos, and still wonder if that strange triangle I saw from the plane was this site---though I certainly didn't see all the other paths, which may have been invisible from 9000 feet. We leave the hotel for the Grand Finale Lunch at 1:15. Monday: no airport tax any more; need passport and ticket (or voucher) at airport. Water was no problem in the past. We should bring old customs form, though we probably won't need it, and won't need to fill out new ones. Go to the GREEN line with nothing to declare. Make sure to go to SECOND, noisier, smokier, more crowded departure hall, because there are NO monitors and NO announcements of flights on loudspeakers: someone just SAYS that the flight is about to leave. [That proved to have changed.] The plane will probably be empty to Baku, where it will fill up for Frankfurt. We may or may not have to get off in Baku. The bus will leave the hotel at 2:45AM sharp, so be in the lobby at 2:30, and leave the luggage outside the door at 2AM. Ride back to hotel at 12:14 and get key to room and take off most clothes in preparation for dressing in North Face shirt and blue trousers for lunch. Wash hands and face while Richard insists on our full quota of soaps, shampoos, and towels from the cleaning lady, and now he's just flaked out on the bed. I've told him that since we'll be up at 2AM for the 2:30 lobby departure, I'll be going to bed at 6PM. Pack my evening pills for lunch, and will have to remember to take simvastatin before bed, when packing pills in soap boxes for tomorrow's very long day. Catch up with this at 12:43PM; and now to get out flight voucher to see how many hours before I land in NYC! Land at 1:10PM! Essentially 24 "something" hours from now!! Sort lots of things out: what to put in shoulder bag (like extra book, other camera disk, valium and ambien), and what to later "stack" into big and little souvenirs to ease closing my suitcase for the last time. Changed batteries in the camera so I don't have to carry spares. Wake Richard at 1:03 just before his alarm rings at 1:05. Finish this at 1:10PM, hoping to "land" in "exactly 24 hours." Bus leaves at 1:16, lunch is in an air-conditioned yurt with golden hangings and a cherry-juice server who puts his finger on his lip after I put my finger on my lip when he catches me pouring my own cherry juice, and I SWEAR he's flirting with me---it DOES take one to know one. The third veal Stroganov is the best, and I finish it, but not the French fries and the chopped cabbage, though I liked the starting salads of pasta and eggplant. Then came the "entertainment" by two effeminate "Cossaks" and two too-old "girls" who sang and danced for us in great, sweaty heat, followed by yet another fashion show which managed to sell a topcoat to Nancy, a shawl to Lisa, and a few other things to a few other women. It was hot as blazes outside, and Graeme remarked that a gas station showed 42EC, remarking that 38EC was the equivalent of 100EF. Yes, it was hot, but the dancers had to swelter in their multi-layered long-sleeved costumes, the boys with sheep's-wool ottomans on their heads. That went to 2:40, and then we were back for dessert that only Laurie finished, then at 3:03 the women went to shop (after we took pictures of the President's sister, who had something to do with this place) and we finally got to the bus at 3:30. Said goodbye to Graeme and Judy, since I won't be going to dinner and they won't be flying out with the rest of us to Frankfurt tomorrow morning. To room at 3:44, TIRED. 3:55 start to end Hoeg, earplugs in against Richard's "Devil's Trill." Finish Hoeg: "The History of Danish Dreams," at 4:45PM, and then finished packing things away according to size, deciding that my dop kit will just fit into my shoulder bag, leaving me with supplies in case another connection is missed and I don't get my suitcase for a bit. Put my blue shirt and umbrella and airline-voucher papers and passport and valium and ambien into my shoulder bag, and catch up with this, actually rather sweaty in the room only in my shorts as Richard lays on his bed, with his light on, with nothing over his underweared body. I finish this at 5:30PM, and then figure I might as well take a farewell shower before going to bed at 6PM. And Richard decides he wants to use the bathroom before I shower. Start on Houellebecq. Shower 5:35-5:53, brush teeth to 6PM, read to 6:21, bed 6:25PM. Wake at 8:25 and 9:52PM, all lights on. Wait for Richard, who pleads, "Almost no water," as he showers, and pee at 10:03PM.

MONDAY, 5/31/10: 12:09AM: Sexy dream, wake aroused, having taken rather a while to get to sleep before. 12:17AM: Pee. 12:26AM: Vicks nose, pee again, drink water. Save 200ml bottle for water. Up at 1:11 and 1:22, when the phone rings for Richard's wake-up call, and he insists that the meeting time in the lobby has been changed to 2:15, which may have happened at the dinner I didn't attend, and I don't want to be late anyway, so I get up at 1:33, try to shit and can't, wash my face, pack my dop kit into my shoulder bag, and take a valium at 1:45. Dress and finish with this at 1:54AM. It's warm out on the balcony already; my guess would be about 78EF. Put on shoes, close shoulder bag except for the Neo, and Richard leaves for downstairs at 2:01, deciding to just leave key in room. I feel wonderfully prepared, and vaguely awake after somewhat less than seven hours' sleep. He returns and whistles around the room and leaves again. I do one last check under the bed, in drawers, in the closet, and in the bathroom. Scavenge shampoo and finish this at 2:05AM, ready to go downstairs. Remember to put Neo on file 3. 3:15AM: AND file 3 was filled with JUNK! Sit in lobby 2:25 and pick up breakfast bag. On bus 2:30, bag on below, leave 2:32. To airport 2:45, X-ray #1. 2:51: passport and X-ray #2. 2:53: X-ray #3. 3PM: MUST CHECK bag to NYC, too heavy for carry-on. 3:12: Meet MICHEL in lounge, his plane doesn't leave till 4:10AM. Buy two Alpen Gold chocolate bars for 12M, leaving 3M only. All window seats confirmed. Show Michel my xxxxs in file 3 and he says his wife checked and the Neo is recommended to lagging students who need help with their work. "Perfect," says Nancy, "You didn't expect me to pass up that chance, did you?" And Michel says it would be the same for him. Everyone greets Michel with delight. 3:19: start proofing file 1. Have the decent breakfast furnished: a sandwich of salami and cheese AND TOMATO AND MAYO which I eat ALL of, now on this last day; a rather dry orange, a cardboard box of something like vegetable juice, and a piece of cake. Finish that and finish proofing file 1 by 4:26AM. Ready to pee before flight. John came in late with Lea in a wheelchair, and everyone expressed their concern that they hadn't been seen until very late. Some announcement made while I was peeing (and the smoker in the hall, when I entered, "suggestively"(?) entered a john stall), but group is still standing at 4:30 with the expected departure still at 4:45. Don't figure there's enough time to start proofing file 2. Start boarding now at 4:33AM. Board at 4:40AM, seat 36A nicely far behind wing, on left, so I should see rising sun! 1:10 to Baku. Fairly empty plane. Off at 5:05AM. I hadn't found [found only on 6/7, when I was unpacking at last] spare notecards, so I had to turn over card 20 to get card 21-space on which to write. Bumpy and cloudy to Caspian Sea. Cheese sandwich and orange juice and pills at 5:45AM. #678 featureless Caspian shore at 5:49. Lights on oil platforms? Fishing ships? Then clouds at 22 minutes to Baku. CRIMINALLY fogged window. ROUGH landing at 6:17 after 1:12 flight. "Stay on board." Stop at terminal at 6:27. 4:20 flight to Frankfurt announced. Off at 7:25, window somewhat cleared for Baku shore. Lose three hours. Finish my cheese-omelet breakfast to 8:08AM. All snow-capped Caucasus again to south---closer than when I last returned from India from Bhutan. Large city north of Sukumi, halfway to Rostov-on-Don, according to plane's map, at 11AM on #689. #690 straight west, on river, nearing Black Sea, south of Rostov-on-Don. #691 city SOUTH of Dneperpetrovsk (Zaporizha?) on Dneiper River at 9:21. Set watch and camera from 9:26AM to 6:26AM. Variable clouds and clear. Watch "Avatar" on TV screen two rows up. 6:43 start "Sherlock Holmes." They stop movie at 9:20 to collect headsets, then I use MY headset to see more movie. Land at 8:50, the INSTANT the movie ends! 9AM: "Check passport on LEAVING plane!" Put shirt on and ask three stewards: "No X-ray machine too?" Onto bus at 9:04; it's wet and cool, but not raining in Frankfurt. TOTAL clouds on landing. Make note to globally change Frankfort to Frankfurt. To terminal 9:14. Onto passport line 9:16. Linda pulls us OFF this line at 9:20, saying we don't NEED it. Get to a toilet at LAST at 9:30: same loose shit. On to gate C14-20 inspection line at 9:43 (with screaming kids). GLAD I CHECKED BAG! MILES of walking! 9:55 drank BOTH waters, since they FOUND small container in shoulder bag, saying it was too big at 400 ml. To lounge at 9:58. Long boarding line at 10:18. Board 10:26, hot; take shirt off; NO personal TVs! 7:40 flight. Start Houellebecq at 10:41. Off at 11:02, into clouds. ABOVE them at 11:07! "Lunch" at 12:55: beef, potatoes, carrots, broccoli. 3:16PM: JUST passed Greenland, the two to my left awake and drinking juice, and I'm JUST about to ask them to let me go to the john when we hit a WICKED patch of clear-air turbulence for two AWFUL minutes, and then we sit waiting for it to happen AGAIN. But at 4:14 we're past "point of no return" with only 3:26 to go. Watch the START of "The Blind Side." 3:48 pee, longly, at last. From 4:35, visions of snow-capped and ice-rimmed northern Canada. 5:01PM: Finish Houellebecq: "Platform." Not bad. 5:05 start puzzles: 100 minutes to NYC. Land at 7PM after ODDEST circle EVER: down the WEST side of the Hudson, so I just miss a photo of the southern tip of Manhattan and manage a blurry shot of the Statue of Liberty! Plane continues WAY to south, then WAY east, then WAY north, coming in over unknown parts of Westchester and for a moment I fear we may have boarded a terrorist plane bound for some skyscraper! Try to take ineffective photos through badly steamed window. And the landing is SO hard that I fling hands out so my head won't bump into the seat ahead, and people around comment that we MUST have flattened a tire on landing. Spartacus later tells me that one of JFK's three landing strips has been closed for three years of repair, so this must be a new, maybe short one, so we have to land hard to be able to STOP our 747 in time! LONG taxi to stop at 7:17. Off at 7:26, exhausted, through passport line at 7:34, pee at 7:36, get bag at 7:48, through check at 7:52, into cab at 7:57, and home at 8:35PM (2:35PM local time) to find FOOD waiting for me that Ron put into the refrigerator on FRIDAY when it arrived. Thus ended note 22. Leave word with Bill Petersen at 2:50PM to pick up Timeses. Check seven phone messages to 3PM: three ads; one from Edgardo, whom I call back and leave word with; one a wrong number to 520-591?; a message from Ron that my food arrived Friday; and a confirmation from HIP of my appointment 6/2. Water plants (which John had clearly just done) and weigh bags to 3:05. Look at 100 e-mails 3:07-3:18. Phone Spartacus at 3:19 and go over to get "Lost" and watch two hours of it. Eat something, I guess, and get to bed, exhausted, at 6:55PM, but decide to jerk off at 7:01; take viagra at 7:15, and cum and get to bed at 8:01PM, relieved to be home from the Five Stans.

TUESDAY, 6/1/10: 1:55AM: Type dream, but have to note that the tip of my left finger is MORE SORE THAN EVER: could I have a pinched nerve THERE? It seems to be MORE than arthritis?? Also, sitting on the john, remind myself that I'd yet to remove the protective toilet-paper shield from my ass-crack. Weight is just 201#. Bright bed-lamp light flicked off useless as I went to bed last night. Blow nose three times. Still VERY tired: have no idea when I'll wake next. Back to bed at 2:02AM.

THURSDAY, 6/17/10: Retyped all the pages with the inserts from file 4 in place, which took from 10:50AM-3PM, then 4:30-5:30PM, going from 38 to 43 pages. Finished my Mir Guest Survey with two comments on specific hotels: 1) FOOD at Sasha and Sons among best meals on trip, and 2) Hard beds at Golden Dragon Hotel. Took the opportunity to note that I saw mympths on 5/14/; did Actualism on 5/16, 27, and 28; and copied down the web address of wildfrontiers.com.uk for West Africa. Put my favorite part of the trip: "Culture park" at Satkak on way to Fergana, for REAL people NOT selling anything! And collected all the names of the local guides: Almaty: Nazirah (very good); Fergana: Anwar (very good); Tashkent: Zaire (very good); Samarkand: Larissa (average); Bukhara: Nayla (needs improvement); no one for Urgench, wherever that was supposed to be, not in itinerary at all; Khiva: Khoshnud (very good); Ashkabad: Ilyas (average). Now all I have left to do is finish the Summary Page and fill in the 2010 Calendar.

 

FIVE STANS PHOTO LIST

DISK 1

1 of Frankfurt at 6:32PM
2 England at 7:38PM
11 at 2:36 on my watch, Europe time. Big river to east of Nizny-Novgorod
15 huge SALT pans in Kazakhstan at 3:58AM
73 warrior Ryimder Memorial at 10:35
91 Karkara Mosque, last village in Kazakhstan at 12:23PM
135 reindeer at 9:42. We're in Saka
370 Sir Darya river (Darya = River), the second major after Amu Darya
381 Hotel Afrasiab (former name of Samarkand) for pee stop in deep basement
489 Uleg Beg's Koran stand of massive blocks of stone
608 of Samani, who seems to be the local equivalent of Tamerlane here

 

DISK 2

101 salted photo
103 the Mosque of Job's Well, the site of a well that didn't exist
141 tiles falling off a poor local-done restoration in 1994
164 of a 1909 color photograph lent by a Netherlands Institute
189 Nakshabandi's cane grew to a TREE
122 quince, as on pancakes this morning
266 Al-Korizma, died 783
Pre 521 is northeast walls of Soltan Gala
375 OLD President's Palace (one dome)
376 NEW President's Palace (three domes)
377 Parliament (blue)
402 fountains and DUST STORM in front of dome of Museum of Personal Gifts to Turkmenbashi
634 round hall at 11:14, used for soma-drinking and hashish and ephedra usage
678 featureless Caspian shore at 5:49. Lights on oil platforms? Fishing ships?
689 large city north of Sukumi, halfway to Rostov-on-Don, according to plane's map, at 11AM
690 straight west, on river, nearing Black Sea, south of Rostov-on-Don
691 city SOUTH of Dneperpetrovsk (Zaporiza?) on Dneiper River at 9:21

 

FIVESTAN SUMMARY PAGE

MON,5/10: JFK at 7:09PM. Flight delayed; leave blue jacket; back out 11:46PM.
TUE,5/11: Fly JFK-Frankfurt 12:03AM-1:50PM (7:47 flight). Fly Frankfurt-London 6:38-7:44PM (1:06). Fly London-Kazakhstan 10:42PM, watching lights below.
WED,5/12: Land in Almaty 9:43AM (7:01). Gift-taxi to Dostok Hotel. Lunch in hills with group. Ethnographic Museum, Ascension Cathedral, bed 7:21PM, tired.
THU,5/13: Breakfast in hotel. Medey lunch. Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan by bus to Caprice Spa on Lake Issyk-Kul near Tien Shan Mountains for dinner and bed 10PM.
FRI,5/14: Walk and breakfast at Caprice. Petroglyphs; manager's house lunch; kids with horses; Buryan Tower and bal-bals; music with restaurant dinner.
SAT,5/15: Golden Dragon Hotel breakfast; awful school; State Museum; Arts and Crafts Museum (felt); Murnoho Restaurant lunch; fly to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 3:48-5:14 (1:26); Persia Restaurant dinner with dance & muscles; Richard falls.
SUN,5/16: Palace Hotel breakfast; bus to Kokond Palace; ceramics lunch; Satkak "Culture Park;" silk village; manager's Fergana dinner with Rustan talking.
MON,5/17: Club 777 Hotel breakfast; Ahman Al-Fargoni market dome; silk factory; cemetery; wood carver lunch; car Fergana-Tashkent; doctor; Room Service; vomit.
TUE,5/18: Palace Hotel breakfast; doctor; World View Buffet in Opera House; Applied Arts Museum; shops; Metro; Catholic and Russian churches; Taxim dinner.
WED,5/19: Palace Hotel breakfast; bus to Tamerlane Pass on way to Samarkand; dancer lunch; Tamerlane's Tomb; Registan (3 madrasahs): climb minaret; dinner.
THU,5/20: President Hotel breakfast; Bibi-Khanum Mosque; Shah-i-Zindah Complex; Art Gallery dresses; Astoria Restaurant lunch; walk to Jewish Museum; Valentina Romanov fashions; dinner in President Hotel; bed at 8:54PM.
FRI,5/21: Omelet breakfast; bus to Tajikistan for Penjikent: Rudaki Museum, mosque, market, lunch, school; bus to Samarkand, Uzbekistan: Registan "Picture Gallery" dances and sales; dinner in President Hotel; bed at 9:41PM.
SAT,5/22: Bus to Kashkod for 11-kid family; market; Shakrisabze for Ak Saray (White Palace), Ferris wheel, tombs; Kyzyl Kum Desert; to Bukhara for Sasha and Son's Bed and Breakfast for best dinner of trip. Bed at 9:57PM.
SUN,5/23: Samani's Tomb; Kalyan Minaret; "Bug Pit;" Kalon Mosque; Mir-i-Arab Madrasah; lunch in old Hammam; Ark-top Coronation Hall and Museum; dinner and dance-and-fashion show in old madrasah; walk nothing Bukhara town; bed 9:40PM.
MON,5/24: Pancake breakfast; Summer Palace; Museum of National Crafts; Four Minarets; lunch beside pool; sudoku; Mir trips; library concert; Bukhara Plov dinner in private house we walked to through town---writing CONFUSED in here!
TUE,5/25: Blockhouse lunch on highway; bus to Khiva through Kyzyl Kum; walk walled town; Asia-Xiva Hotel dinner; photograph in night-lit Khiva; bed 10:40.
WED,5/26: Museum of National Crafts; New Palace; Friday Mosque; Said Alouddin Tomb; Hotel Kheivak Restaurant lunch; Pahlavon Mahmud; relax;Xiva Hotel dinner.
THU,5/27: Bus to Turkmenistan; Uzboy Hotel lunch in Tashauz; Fly to Ashkabad 3:48-4:31 (0:43); Grand Turkman Hotel dinner; bed at 9:25PM.
FRI,5/28: Lenin's Statue; Arch of Neutrality; Museum of Archaeology; lunch with entertainment; Rug Museum; horse farm; mosque; Turkmanbashi tomb; no dinner, bed 8:33PM.
SAT,5/29: Up 4:24AM; airport at 5:13; fly Ashkabad-Mary 6:43-7:22AM (0:39); Merv for "girls" and "boys" castle, Commander's Tombs, Erk Gala and Soltan Gala; Hoje Yussuf; Soltan Sanjaryn; Zeyin; lunch with dark music and dance; New Art Museum with no photos and no guidebook; Hotel Margosh rest; fly Mary-Ashkabad 6:58-7:32PM (0:34); dinner from plane residues; bed 9:08PM.
SUN,5/30: Grand Turkman Hotel breakfast; "elbow" market; back to hotel; bus to Nisa: Round Hall, Red Room, Square Hall; Grand Finale lunch in yurt followed by fashion show and ethnic dancing; final packing; remnant dinner; bed 6:25PM.
MON,5/31: Up at 1:33AM; breakfast bag; fly Ashkabad-Baku, Azerbaijan 5:05-6:17 (1:12); stay on board; fly Baku-Frankfurt 7:25-8:50AM (lose 3 hours) (4:25); watch "Sherlock Holmes;" fly Frankfurt-JFK 11:02AM-1:17PM (lose 6 hours) (8:15); watch rest of "The Blind Side," severe turbulence over Greenland; taxi JFK-home 1:57-2:35PM; HH food waiting; 7 phone messages; "Lost" on TV; bed 8PM.