One Night Near Samarkand

Several years ago I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Uzbekistan paid for by the company.

The excuse for my trip was to help with the development of the market.  But the market was so small that I think I got more personal development from the journey than the company got professional.

It also afforded the possibility of visiting Samarkand & Bukhara, two of the most amazing places I have visited.

When I returned to Tashkent via a marvellous first class overnight train I had the opportunity to go out to watch Liverpool playing Barcelona.  But as Uzbekistan is in central Asia the match would not start until 2am.  The match would be in Spain so there was little chance of victory but I still decided to venture out in the dark city with my friend Herr Fischer.

We had located a Sports Bar earlier in the day & settled in to enjoy the match.  Liverpool's preparations had involved one player, Craig Bellamy, attacking another, John Arne Riise with a golf club in an argument over Karaoke.

The Russian owner of the bar was in a similar mood & decided to attack his wife while we were sitting in the bar.  Some local Uzbeks reluctantly agreed to ask him to stop hitting her.

Liverpool quickly went a goal down but amazingly came back to win with two goals from Mr.Bellamy & Mr. Arne Riise.

And to cap off the bizarre evening the taxi driver on our trip back to the hotel offered us the prostitute that was sitting in the front seat.

Being a Swiss & a Scot we politely declined the offer.  It was 4am & we were too tired for any further excitement.