First on the agenda was finding money. While googling where to find the nearest ATM I saw this man painting the tree outside the hotel. Weird…
Now this side of the world is quite peculiar when it comes to money. Good old fashioned freedom USD is absolutely king. Many times even over their own currency. However your bills have to be relatively new and not worn or damaged in any way otherwise the banks won’t take them apparently. It’s usually best to not have tons of local currency because it can be very hard to find somewhere to give you USD back, so you only exchange in smaller amounts. We all had tons of petty cash, but that all disappeared in Turkey with the engine debacle. You can find ATMs with USD in them, but unfortunately they will usually only dispense 100s. This presents a new problem in that most places won’t break 100s unless you get lucky with a hotel, but even then that’s rare. So they’ll take our money – if it’s new enough – but won’t give it back. Very frustrating. We found a place that would give us some cash though, which was a great location because we got to see the famous tile mosque.
Today’s drive was considerably easier, a pleasant 5 is hours, relatively uneventful. We didn’t have a hotel or anything booked so we just winged it into town and used google to find something near the Registan Square and the Bibi-Khanym Mosque.
The place we found was absolutely awesome. Hotel Antica has been family owned for over 100 years from what I was told. I don’t think it was built as a hotel originally as it’s all kind of disjointed, more like several houses connected by a common courtyard. It’s a very cute set up and the women that run it are very nice. I think it cost something like $50 or so dollars per room. Like most days once we got settled in from all the driving we met for a beer before heading out for dinner.
Our group walked over to the square to check it out, but unfortunately there was construction going on and it is not open to the public after 6. Bummer. The restaurant area appeared to be on the other side of town but there happened to be one close by so we dipped in there for a big meal of shashlik and the accessories. We’ve been eating a lot of kebabs because that’s kinda just what they sell everywhere and it’s not mystery meat typically. Typically. We also had some wine and in a hilariously trashy fashion they gave us paper Pepsi cups to drink out of.
Back at the hotel a few of the group headed to bed while the rest of us hung out in the courtyard. The ladies were kind enough to do our laundry for us which means they were also around to give us more beer. Double win! Dave from team Starsky and Dutch is the oldest in our convoy (in his 50s) and has some of the most incredible stories. Such a funny guy.
