Conclusions

Finally, the last post of this blog! I somehow ended up being very busy doing nothing here in Finland and just didn't have the time write this final post. However, today was a day of action and accomplishments!

First, it's the trip in numbers. I was surprised to have spent so much money during the trip. Everyone has been asking about how much I used and my estimate was maybe 3 000 euros less than what it really was.

• Duration of the trip: 290 days
• Number of countries visited: 17
  
• Total cost of the trip: 10 700 €
• Money used per day: 36 €
  
• Cost of flights: 1 200 €
• Number of flights: 8
  
• Cost of insurances: 1 120 €

Then a bit about the highlights of the trip in the form of top 5's. A lot of people have asked me what was the best place, the nicest country etc. etc. These listings should give answers to those questions.

Nicest countries:

1. Colombia
2. Bolivia
3. Mexico
4. Peru
5. Kyrgyzstan

Best cities:

1. Mexico City
2. Bogota
3. Hong Kong
4. La Paz
5. Bishkek

Best places:

1. Little Corn Island
2. Ciudad Perdida
3. Taganga
4. Montañita
5. Cusco

Dodgiest places:

1. Central American capitals
2. Quito
   
3. Inglewood
4. Lima
5. Bishkek at night

Best nightlife

1. Bocas del Toro
2. Bogota
3. Motañita
4. Hong Kong
5. Taganga

Scariest rides:

1. The boats between Colombia and Panama
2. Shared taxis in Tajikistan
3. Buses in the mountains of Peru
4. Shared taxis in Uzbekistan
5. A flight with a Tupolev in Uzbekistan

And then finally, a link to my photos in Picasa. You'll find the best of my photos arranged by countries. Also, if you're interested in seeing a bit where I've been, download this kml-file and then open it with Google Earth.

Thank you for all my readers. I hope you have enjoyed my trip and I hope that there would be at least one person who has read all the posts. If there are any more long trips coming up, the trips will be blogged at this address.

Riga

At last, here is the promised last travel update of this blog/trip. Still, as promised, I'll write some general comments about favourite places and overall costs a bit later so stay tuned.

Some street art from Riga.

But a bit about Riga. My flight landed in there early in the morning and I started by brushing my teeth at the airport bathroom. While there, a man is trying to use the fancy electronic non-touch taps but gets very confused. As the only people there were the people from my Tashkent flight, I guess he was an Uzbek and clearly had never seen a tap that works by just placing your hands under it. The guy spends about a minute looking for a way to turn the tap on and finally I had to show him how the thing works. After this he tries to dry his hands under the soap dispenser and gets very confused when it doesn't work: "ne robota!".

There were nice parks.

As my flight to Finland would leave Riga around 19, I had about 12 hours to explore the city. I had already been to Riga once about one and a half years ago and I had then seen most of the city already. Thus I didn't really need to do that much exploring or sightseeing. I then just concentrated on walking and just relaxing. Riga really was a nice city during the summer with its parks and the old city. The only real touristy thing I did was to visit the art museum, which had some quite nice paintings and an elderly guard who made me feel very impolite by letting me know that it's not proper to wear a hat indoors. Another very clear indicator of me leaving the developing countries behind was the amazing way how cars actually yielded to pedestrians who were crossing the street using a zebra crossing. Also, most of the time in Riga I was just amazed how fancy and expensive everything looked there.

A view of the Riga old town.

And then I flew to Finland, met a plenty of friends, had good coffee and went to the sauna. The trip was over.

Tashkent

I got to Tashkent for the third and the last time. I didn't have much to do or see here as I'd managed to cover bits on the earlier visits. I started by visiting the local history museum and found a building very similar to the one in Bishkek. The division between ancient and recent history was also similar with the first floor being about Uzbekistan from the stone ages to the Russian conquest. This part was quite interesting and I enjoyed viewing the objects on display until I noticed that some of the things on display seemed to look very familiar. I realised that they actually were the exactly same objects as I had seen in Termiz at the local archeological museum. However, neither of the places had any mention which of the objects would the original one and which the copy. This made me a bit suspicios on everything I saw at the museum. Maybe they were all recent copies? Also an interesting feature at the museum was that the Mongol conquest was reduced to one small corner while Timur had quite a big section with a very grand mural on the background. The second floor, which in Bishkek's museum was dedicated to the history of the Soviet Union, was about Uzbekistan after the Russians took over. First few displays explained how the Russians were not too good masters and how the Uzbeks tried to get rid of them. Then there suddenly were plenty of displays with happy Uzbek-Soviet workers building dams, starting a nuclear physics institute and picking cotton. Then there was a big section about the first and only president of Uzbekistan with photos of him shaking hands with Georgo W. Bush, Vladimir Putin and Henry Kissinger. There were also plenty of his quotes on the wall but sadly only few were in English. The last bit of the museum was just about displaying different products made in Uzbeksitan.

Other sights I've seen in Tashkent include few parks with soviet architecture, a quite nice art museum, an old mosque-medressa combination and more modern administrative buildings. The mosque visit allowed me to see the worlds oldest quran. I also spent some more time enjoying the nice subway.

As I'm just about to leave Uzbekistan now, I'll write few general things and observations about Uzbekistan. First of all, the country is full of policemen. They're everywhere and they do nothing. For example a road construction site in Samarkand had about 20 policemen there with one of their main tasks being stopping people from walking through the area where the road was built. However, the road was full of people walking through with the police stopping only about every 3rd person. Also, the roads in Uzbekistan are full with police checkpoints but they rarely stop anyone even for asking bribes not to mention to enforce traffic regulations. Usually the policemen just sit in the shade and chat with eachother. The other thing worth mentioning about this country are the notes: the biggest one they have is 1 000 sum which is worth about 0,40 e. This means that when you change money, you end up with huge stacks of bills (which give good opportunities for funny photos) . Money changers (the blackmarket one's that is) are also easy to find as they all carry big plastic bags full of money.

And next, after less than 5 hours, I will fly to Riga and hence return to Europe. After 12 hours in Latvia, I will fly to Finland to Turku. I decided that the start point of my trip was Matti's flat in Turku and I've decided to finish the trip there too. This means that my nine and a half months of looking for and rediscovering life will come to an end on either Saturday or Sunday when Matti hopefully invites me to his place for some sauna and beers. The next update will be written in Finland and is followed by few final comments on the whole trip and on the places I've visited. I've also decided to compile some top 5 lists on the places I've visited so don't stop reading this blog even though I'm back.

Shakrishabz and Termiz

After Samarkand I made a quick turn in Tashkent. This included an episode at the train station where an Uzbek taxi driver demonstrated how they do business in his country: he was asking 10 000 sum (3,80 e) for a trip of 1 km, that should normally cost about 2 000 sum (0,80 e). After me and my French group refused to pay this sum and walked to some other taxi drivers, the first driver followed us and started shouting to the other drivers who dared to talk to us. It soon became clear, that he was making threats to anyone who would agree to drive us to our destination. He was still asking a lot although he lowered the price to 8 000 sum (3,10 e). We finally met a very friendly driver who wasn't too scared and agreed on the correct price very fast. Meanwhile the first taxi driver was shouting very loudly and started to get a bit aggressive but we all managed to get to our hostel unharmed. I hope the nice and honest driver doesn't get in to trouble later. I heard of another similar incident where a group of taxi drivers was threatening to beat up a Turkish truck driver for taking two tourists in his car after the two tourists refused to pay triple the normal price for a trip between two towns. The Uzbeks seem to be very determined in general to rip-off the tourists but the taxi drivers are by far the worst.

In any case, after my return to Samarkand from Tashkent, I headed to the small town of Shahrisabz. This place was about an hour away so I made the visit a day trip and was able to see all that I was interested in seeing. The town was the home town of Timur, the newly appointed national hero of Uzbekistan, and had some nice historical buildings. I also made a visit to the local bazaar and bought a very nice traditional Uzbek robe that I will start using as my bathing robe and as something to wear when reading a newspaper at home.

Then I headed south to Termiz. The main reason for the visit were the archealogical sites around the town and the museum containing things from these sites. After spending many hours in a hot and crowded taxi, I discovered that both of the cheap hotels mentioned in the Lonely Planet were not available: the other having disappeared while the other would not accept non-Uzbeks as guests. The only remaining LP hotel was nice and fancy and was charging 50 $ (34,90 €) for a room. I found this a bit too expensive and went out to look for cheaper alternatives. After a short walk I found a hotel for 20 $ (13,95 €) and filled with German soldiers who would drink and talk loudly all night just outside my room. I visited the museum, ruins of a buddhist monastery and a mausoleum the next day and enjoyed especially the museum and the ruins. The mausoleum was not too much after seeing many much nicer ones in Samarkand. I'm not sure if the trip really was worth it. I then headed back to Samarkand where I will spend few days before heading back to Tashkent and then to home.