dilapitated bus, Uzbekistan

Some background: I spent the summer of 1993 in Uzbekistan, teaching economics at a newly established private Uzbek university (which went out of business shortly thereafter) and consulting the Uzbek State Property Committee on their plans for privatizing (very, very slowly, if really at all). During that time, I met some incredible people – including a wonderful host family in Tashkent – and had some amazing adventures.

The following is excerpted from an e-mail I sent home that summer.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan - August, 1993

We decided to go to Bukhara for the weekend. I still have no idea why we thought the best way to get there would be an overnight bus: 12 1/2 hours on a rickety bus through the desolate Central Asian desert in the middle of the summer. I hoped it would be tolerable. Or that it even could be, somehow.

There seem to be three kinds of buses in Uzbekistan: new Mercedes buses which, although poorly designed are rather comfortable (for Central Asia); older red buses which are actually slightly more comfortable than the pink and green Mercedes buses as they have bigger windows which open wider and slightly more leg room; and extremely old, rickety, horribly uncomfortable (no leg room, practically no cushions on the seats, windows which opened only into tiny slits if they had not been glued entirely shut) yellow buses which all seem to reek of gasoline. Of course, it was a yellow bus that was destined for Bukhara.

The bus was beyond full. People sat on the stairs, on the floor, and in every available space; some even had to stand in the aisle all the way to Samarkand (half way). Squashed in the corner, doubled over the wheelbase, I tried to be grateful: at least there weren't any animals. Chickens could definitely have made the whole experience worse.

After a couple of hours of driving in the pitch black desert night it became clear that something more than normal rickety-ness was wrong with our bus. The floor and the walls were radiating. My feet sizzled on the floor above the wheel. And still no one would open the windows (if they happened to be by a window that actually opened) because, they claimed, the ventilation was bad for the health of a baby traveling somewhere in the back of the bus.

Then we stopped. On the highway, in the middle of nowhere.

Everyone got out and stared: the exhaust pipe was glowing orange. The driver waited for the glow to lose some of its brightness then he herded us back onto the bus.

The bright orange bothered me. It was a color I associated with special effects in movies, explosions and fires and such, not with actual vehicles I was trusting to deliver me safely to my destination. I tried my best to think about other things, but as the floor heated again, thoughts of doom arose: How, exactly, would they identify my body? If the bus exploded and my body were blown apart, would my passport still be near me? On me? And even when they figured out who I was, how long would it take them to figure out who to contact?...

But on the other hand...

...it does seem rather senseless and, well, really random for me to die this way. Maybe that's not my fate. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't....

We kept spinning: the bus and my thoughts. Periodically there would be another stop to consider the pipe, then we'd resume. As if this were normal. As if this happened to everyone at some point or another in their Central Asian travels...

At 2:30 a.m. the bus stopped – altough this time it wasn't because the bus was overheating. The driver yelled "uzhen" ("dinner"), woke everyone up and kicked us all outside.

In the dead of night in the middle of the Uzbek desert where there were hardly any gas stations, much less truck stops or convenience stores, there it stood: an enormous shashleek stand and impromptu bazaar. The Uzbek passengers immediately started shopping.

We three Americans turned to each other and shrugged.

"So what about that fruit?" I asked one of my traveling companions, feeling somewhat inspired by the bazaar, and the long wait.

He stared at me blankly.

"You know, the peaches and plums your host family packed. In the station in Tashkent you were telling us about that..."

"Uh...you don't want that fruit."

"Why not? It sounded good. And we're stopped here anyway."

"Uh...well...my backpack was on the floor and well, uh...it sort of cooked itself into my underwear."

"Oh," we sighed, and shrugged. Stewed peaches: another casualty of the exhaust pipe.