We started the day at Bon! cafe—it’s quickly becoming our favorite eatery.
Then we explored the Khast Imam Complex. It’s a series of beautiful buildings that used to be a mosque and schools, but now are most mostly souvenir shops. They use a lot of blue mosaic tiles because blue is the color of the sky and the water.
Their national beloved dish, plov, is rice and meat and vegetables cooked in a huge wok. It’s a very heavy meal, so it doesn’t really appeal to me, but it was fun to go to Besh Qozon, where they make plov in a wok the size of a hot tub. It’s sort of a place for tourists to take pictures.
We ate lunch at the Uzbekistan hotel, which was built as a showpiece during the Russian era to entertain diplomats. It’s super fancy inside and the view is magnificent. Jim and I don’t usually go to such posh places, but our two meals, including drinks was under $20.
I don’t usually write about the metro, but the train stations here are so beautiful. Each one is different. We went to about a dozen of them today, all for $.17 total for the whole trip.
People have been so welcoming, and I feel a strong sense of community here. People greet each other warmly on the streets. Most of the men wear black pants and a white shirt. The guide yesterday said it’s because they feel a sense of camaraderie with each other. No one likes to stand out or be flashy. They drive identical cars. 95% of the cars here are white Chevrolet’s. One of the reasons for that is that there’s a Chevrolet factory here .
Longtime readers may remember I am obsessed with this strawberry tart from the French bakery chain Paul. So when I heard they had a Paul here in Tashkent, we had to go. they didn’t have the strawberry tart, but the raspberry cheesecake was incredible.
