Sunday, August 25, 2019

Uzbekistan: Massage at Eco Wellness Spa

I had noticed the new Eco Wellness Hotel and Spa several times since it popped up a few blocks from my house, and after a few colleagues recommended it (all women), I decided to give it a try.

I had been told that walk-ins were easily accommodated, so I turned up and requested a one-hour “classic” massage, as presented on the spa menu.  In ten minutes, my massage therapist Nurata appeared.

“Follow me,” she said, and she led me up a wooden staircase to the second floor.

At the top of the staircase, I ran into one of my colleagues, emerging from a changing room sporting a fluffy white robe and slippers; perfectly normal for a spa.

Nurata ushered me into Massage Room 3, dimmed the lights, and stood there.

“Put the clothes here,” she instructed.

I was waiting for her to leave the room or at least turn her back, but she continued standing there, staring at me.  Realizing the system in place, I took off my shirt and pants under her watchful eye and hung them in the wardrobe.

Obviously, she would see everything in the course of the treatment, but this felt odd.  No robe, no slippers, not even a towel was provided.

I laid on the bed, face-down in my underwear, and I remained thusly exposed for the next hour.  Besides providing a thin veil of modesty, a towel would have been nice to stave off the cold.

Nurata started the session by bending my body, particularly my legs, in different directions, similar to Thai massage.  This was not what I wanted nor what I expected.

“Oh, lord,” I thought to myself, “I hope I don’t have a full hour of this.”

This was full-contact massage, and Nurata was up on the table with me much of the time.

As she was ramming her knees into my back and compressing my rib cage various ways, I could feel her long hair cascading over my body.  It seemed a bit too sensual, and I thought maybe a bun would have been more professional.

After 15 or 20 minutes of the bending and stretching, she pulled out the massage oil and lowered my underwear so far that there was little point in wearing it anymore.  Again, she hopped back up on the table, rubbing me down not just with her hands, but also with her arms and legs.   She alternated between wispy, barely-there pressure, which elicited goose-bumps more often than not, and piercing elbow gouging that made me wince.

She learned my name very well, and every few minutes, she would whisper, “What do you think of this, Chris?”

I’m easy.  “It’s fine,” I’d tell her.

As usual, she spent the bulk of the time on my back and legs, and then it was time to flip over.

She did a lot more chest and stomach work than I usually get in massages, and it was all with the goose-bump-inducing summer-breeze pressure.  Naturally, she worked the arms and legs as well, nudging into underwear territory more than once.  As before, the long hair was caressing my skin as she moved about.

I get plenty of massages, and this one felt fairly provocative.  I wondered how many of Nurata’s clients requested “special services” during their treatments.  Whether or not that was her intention, she was certainly setting the mood.

When at last she was finished, Nurata tapped me on the shoulder.

“I hope you enjoyed it,” she told me.  “Please come back again.”

 Then she supervised as I got dressed, lest I should miss a button or have trouble with my zipper.

Monday, March 11, 2019

Uzbekistan: Frank the Rooster

If you’ve ever felt like you weren’t actually alone while in an empty house, well I have too.  And on one such night, I wasn’t.  I was typing on my laptop in my living room when I heard a commotion coming from the windows behind me.

Not expecting to hear anything, my pulse quickened, and I wheeled around in my chair.  Perched on the window sill and staring me down, there was a rooster.

This was both concerning and fantastic, and I regarded the creature for a moment through the glass.  With his particular countenance and bearing, this guy looked like a Frank to me, and I dubbed him as such.  With introductions finished, I considered his situation.

Take a picture, Frank; it'll last longer.

The area behind my house, where Frank was hanging out, is a useless piece of land.  The space extends about four feet from the back of the house, and it is completely surrounded, on three sides by a twenty-foot-high wall and on one side by the two-story house itself.  It’s a narrow, deep, enclosed area, and I knew Frank wouldn’t be able to fly out.  The roof of my back neighbors’ house comes pretty close to the top of the wall, so I think Frank must have been climbing on that roof and then jumped into my backyard.  No matter how he got inside, though, he was trapped now.

I had seen people walking with chickens tucked under their arms before, and they seemed perfectly peaceful and manageable.  I thought I would give it a go.  My plan was to go outside, catch Frank, and walk him around the neighborhood under my arm until I found his family.  What could go wrong?

As it turns out, plenty could go wrong, especially for a city slicker like myself.  Frank, who had moments before been standing so proudly and almost defiantly in the window, went in full panic mode the moment I opened the back door and joined him outside.  He jumped out of the window and started running around the small yard, shouting and generally making a fuss, as I tried to corner him.  I got a hand on him a few times, but eventually he wedged himself under the back stairs.  In his hiding place, there was a small mud puddle, and his white plumage was now well and truly soiled.  Even if I could have reached him, it would have been embarrassing to walk a filthy rooster around the neighborhood.

It was time to regroup.  Frank was trapped and I didn’t want him to starve, so I poured him a bowl of Cheerios and left him for the night.

Then I moved on to Plan B:  I would walk around the neighborhood, without Frank, and try to find his home.

Unable to speak Russian or Uzbek, I’m unable to communicate with most of my neighbors.  I typed “Did you lose a rooster?” into my translating app, and with the Russian equivalent on my phone screen, I set out.

I knew Frank lived behind me, having heard him crowing pretty much all the time, but I wasn’t sure exactly which house was his.

As I walked to the end of my street, I counted my steps.  Then as I turned down the street where I thought Frank lived, I walked back an equal amount of steps.  This should have put me in the right vicinity.

I knocked on the door of the house to which my step-count led me, and a man answered.

I showed him my phone, and he shook his head.  Then he reached for the phone, and I gave it to him.  Failing to find a Cyrillic keypad on my phone, he opened a translation app on his own phone and showed me his screen.

“I have no cock,” was his reply.

“That sounds like a personal problem,” I thought to myself, and I continued on my search.

After knocking on six houses, I was no closer to finding Frank’s home.  I walked back to my house, and on the way, I ran into one of the people who lives a few doors down from me, who also happens to speak a bit of English.  I knew it wasn’t his rooster, but I told him the story anyway, just for kicks.

“Eat him,” he told me with a wink.

He was half joking, or maybe three-quarters, but I didn’t want to eat someone else’s animal.  And even if I had wanted to, I would still have to catch him, which wasn’t likely.

I checked on his bowl of Cheerios and went to bed.

The next morning, Frank was up bright and early, and since he now lived downstairs, his crowing was more obnoxious than ever.

Running out of ideas, I moved on to Plan C:  I submitted a work order through the Embassy’s Facilities Maintenance Unit for rooster removal.  As my request worked its way through the system, I told some of my Uzbek colleagues about the situation.  They all got a laugh about it, and every single one of them told me it was my right to eat Frank.

My friend Shabada especially enjoyed the part about feeding him Cheerios.

“Such luxury!” she mocked.  “He’s eating better than at his own home, and he definitely won’t want to leave!”

I guess she had a point, but I wasn’t exactly running a rooster Club Med.

When I got home that evening, Frank was gone, and the standard form from Facilities was on my kitchen table showing that someone from the unit had entered my house.  In the comments section of the form it read, “Done finded the owner.”

We don’t have an animal-control specialist on staff, so one of our other specialists – an electrician, a plumber, or perhaps a gardener – had remedied the situation.

My other colleagues were sure that whoever accepted this job from Facilities would just eat Frank, as I had been encouraged to do by so many people.  The next morning, however, I got proof of life.  My former roommate was merrily crowing from his usual location, muffled somewhat by the street or two buffer that was once again between us.

Sunday, March 03, 2019

Uzbekistan: Circus Shenanigans

The first rule about the circus: You don’t talk about the circus.

Wait, that’s not it.

My actual first rule of the circus is to never sit on the front row.  To do so exposes oneself to all sorts of audience-participation traps.  Even the second row can be risky.

As my friend Jack and I were purchasing tickets for the show a day in advance, Rule 1 was on my mind while Jack zeroed in on the “VIP seats” on the front row.

“Wait,” I interrupted before the sale was final, “if we sit on the front row, won’t the clowns harass us?”

Jack put the question to the ticket agent, who laughed it off.

“You just have to say no,” she coyly answered.

I had my doubts, but we bought the front-row, VIP tickets – two for us, and two for our friends, Chloe and Rod.

When we arrived the next day, the big top was a hub of activity.  We found our seats and purchased popcorn (full of sugar which Uzbeks seem to prefer), and Chloe and I took a photo with a monkey.  The monkey’s diaper smelled slightly fragrant, but at least she was well behaved.

After the photo, Chloe rounded up some hand wipes so we could demonkify, and then the lights dimmed.  Show time!

The full cast of characters welcomed us to the show, and then everyone scattered, leaving the clown behind.

Clowns are creepy, as everyone knows, so it was unfortunate that this particular clown took a shining to Chloe.

Chloe was flanked by Jack and Rod, and the clown kept pushing them aside as he pretended to woo her.  He gave her a balloon, which she batted into the crowd behind her.  Frankly, clown, she was just not into you.

Chloe’s disinterest morphed into repulsion when at one point the clown wiped her face with a handkerchief, and... it happened to be wet.

He offered her a plush heart.  He begged for a kiss on the check.  And she rebuffed him time and time again.

The whole bit was entirely overplayed, although whenever the clown would reappear over the next two hours, he would continue in his pursuit.

After the clown, a trainer with four monkeys put on a show, and he was followed by a fit man without a shirt.

The fit man started by doing a handstand on two small blocks of wood he had placed on the floor.  Then from the handstand, he shifted his body into a variety of poses to highlight his strength and control.

He continued with some contortionism, forcing his entire body through a reinforced tennis racket frame, and then he pulled out an old-school circus staple: sword swallowing.

His final trick was to insert the six-inch spinning bit of an electric drill into his nostril.  There was some debate in our group as to whether the sword-swallowing and nose-drilling were the result of physiological manipulation or trickery (I thought the former), but the results were cringe-worthy in either case.

when a finger won't do, you have to bring out the big guns

“This is a great example for the children!” Rod remarked, and his point was valid.  Probably two-thirds of the audience members looked to be twelve years old or younger.

After the fit man wrapped up, some of the circus workers started rounding up people for an audience-participation moment.

One guy beckoned to me from the ring, and I politely waved him off.  He persisted and came over to my seat.  I was still reluctant, but after a moment I relented.  I realize the circus is interactive, and since I was sitting on the front row, I felt a certain sense of obligation to participate.  Trying to be a good sport, I stood up and joined the five other people who had been similarly recruited.

I assumed that I had been selected to participate in some clown skit, but I wasn’t exactly sure.

The ring was empty except for the six of us and a carnie or two.  Then the ringmaster lady (the ringmistress?) came out and set a bottle of champagne in the center of the ring and said a few things in Russian.  I recognized the bottle as a three-dollar specimen of local rubbish bubbly, but still I had no idea what was happening.  People in the audience were clapping, hooting, and having a good laugh about something.

I didn’t have long to ponder the situation, though, before the curtains opened and a monster horse came bounding out.  That stallion was ten feet tall if it was an inch.

As he raced around the circle, I stood in the center with the others, and I was still clueless.  I noticed the ringmistress had a long whip, and I naively thought this was the name of the game:  We would each take a turn whipping the horse.  Oh, if only that had been the case.

The first contestant started, and I finally realized what was actually happening.  We were competing for the bottle of rotgut champagne in a game whereby we had to stand up on the back of the monster horse as it raced around the ring.

This was so wrong for so many reasons, not the least of which included the facts that:

  • I’m afraid of horses.
  • I’m afraid of being in front of a crowd.
  • This was way too physical, and, dare I say, dangerous.

Chloe would later tell me she was able to pinpoint the exact moment when I realized the nature of the “game” that was afoot.  I wasn’t a happy camper, and I’m sure it showed.

The first guy climbed onto the horse, and he only got to his knees before falling.

He was followed by a lady who wasn’t quite able to hoist herself up on the horse.  A carnie gave her a boost, though, and she rode around the ring a few times before crashing out.

Contestant 3 was another woman, but she was carrying a bit more weight than Contestant 2.  She needed two carnies to hoist her up.  She didn’t last long, and her demise made quite an impression on me.  As she fell off the horse, barely one lap around the ring, her shirt lifted up.  The safety belt slowed her descent to the ground, but gravity caught her stomach with a vengeance.  As she was prone in midair, her stomach stretched downward probably a good twelve inches and then, reaching the limits of its elasticity, rebounded and rejoined her abdomen with a shudder.  It all happened in slow motion and reminded me very much of the blobs of wax inside a lava lamp.

As Contestant 3 was exiting, one of the carnies came over to me.

“Are you OK?” he asked me.

I guess he also noticed that I looked miserable.  I was surprised that he spoke English and also by the fact that he realized I didn’t speak Russian.  He could surely sympathize with the fact that I had been in a fog for most of the game.

“Not really,” I responded.

“OK,” he answered, “you’re up!”

Since this incident, several people have asked me why I did it.  Well, once you have committed, even unwittingly, it’s kinda hard to walk away.  To slink off stage left, in front of the jeering crowd, and then go back to my seat on the front row like nothing had happened would have been equally uncomfortable in my opinion as playing the game.  I just wanted to disappear, but as that wasn’t an option, I stepped up to the horse.

A carnie cinched the leather safety belt around my waist and said something in Russian.  Then it was go time.

I grabbed the handholds on the horse’s harness and pulled myself onto the beast.  I had crossed the first hurdle: I had mounted the horse under my own power without any carnies boosting me up.  Once I was on top, the ringmistress started whipping, and the horse started careening around the circle.

I worked my way onto my knees, and after a lap or two, I managed to stand up.  It was a squatty stand-up, like you might expect from someone learning to surf, but it was a stand-up nonetheless.  Just like a middle-aged Toby Tyler!

this is the kneel, not the stand-up :)

“That shouldn’t have worked,” I told myself, and a few meters after I stood up, I tumbled off.  Thanks a lot, inner voice of self-doubt.

Luckily my shirt didn’t open up to reveal a lava-lamp stomach, but that doesn’t mean I came down gracefully.  I was discombobulated as I descended toward the mat, the safety belt uncomfortably squeezing my guts, and when my feet touched the ground, I felt like I should kiss it like a shipwrecked sailor rescued after long weeks at sea.  Instead, I stumbled back to my seat.  Jack, Chloe, and Rod were highly complimentary of my attempt, but I was just glad it was over.

The next guy who went was a ringer.  He climbed on the horse unassisted, but after a few laps, he fell off.  Conveniently, he was the only person given a second try.  On his second attempt, he managed to stand up, but then his pants split open, apparently without his knowledge.  This gag was another indication that he was a circus employee.  When he finally fell off for a second time, the ringmistress declared him the winner and presented him with the champagne, after which he exited through the employees-only curtain.  I didn’t need the champagne, of course, but it was a pretty low move for the circus to cheat in order to avoid paying out a $3 terrible bottle of booze.

Coincidentally, Contestant 6 never got a turn.  I guess we ran out of time.

As I told others of my experience over the coming days, a few people replied nonchalantly, “That’s the Russian circus for you.”

That hasn’t been my experience at all, though.  I’m a big fan of the circus, and I’ve gone to dozens of shows in several countries.  I’ve been to the Russian circus in Russia, and I’ve seen Russian circuses in other countries, including Uzbekistan.  In none of these shows have I ever seen them involve an audience member in such a physical stunt.

In any case, the horse game was followed by a strongman.  His act consisted predominantly of carrying around several kettlebells at once (topping out at 5, I think), and his grand finale was getting run over by an SUV.  After he was mowed over, he laid on the ground moaning and writhing for a minute before triumphantly jumping up.

merry-go-round compliments of the strongman

“I think he was genuinely hurt,” Chloe remarked.

It seemed like showmanship to me.

The strongman was the last act before intermission.  As we left the tent for some fresh air, the workers set up the photo ops in the ring once more.  Eager circus-goers could take a pic with performing monkeys, bears, horses, and dogs, or with the strongman himself.

After twenty minutes or so, everyone shuffled back to their seats, excited for the second half of the show.  The excitement faded, though, due to a technical delay.  In preparation for dangerous animals, the workers started erecting fencing around the ring, and it was not a speedy process.  Curiously (and alarmingly) a strong smell of gas also filled the tent around this time.  I eyed the exits in case something should happen to explode, but an escape wasn’t necessary.  The smell passed after a few minutes.

Twenty minutes later, the cage was ready and three lions were released into the ring.  The lions, two females and one male, were quite young, and based on my extensive knowledge of lions garnered from a visit to Lion Park in Johannesburg, I’d guess they were 2 or 3 months old.  While all wild animals can be dangerous and unpredictable, these cubs didn’t really inspire fear.  Quite the opposite, I had the urge to scruff their furry heads.

For their part, the ringmistress and her male counterpart cracked their whips, compelling the cubs to lazily get up and walk across planks.  All the while, the tamers slipped meat snacks to the cubs to keep them happy.  Then for the big finish, one of the cubs jumped through a flaming hoop.

Then the workers materialized and took down the protective fencing.  Luckily, disassembling the structure went much faster than assembling it had.

After the lions left, the damn clown returned, and he was on the hunt for audience members.  He started with Chloe, and when she refused, he went down the line asking Rod, Jack, and then me.  He spent a little time playfully trying to bribe Rod to participate offering Uzbek soum, Russian rubles, and U.S. dollars, and he hardly talked to Jack at all.  By the time he got to me, however, it was no more Mr. Nice Guy.  He grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the ring, quite aggressively.  I held tight to my chair.

“Just stand up!” he muttered angrily under his breath.

“Wow!” I thought, “more English.”  I hear it so rarely in Uzbekistan.

Despite the English, I wasn’t going with him.  No, sir!  I had already played along once, and that turned out to be a doozey.  Anyway, once was enough.  There were hundreds of people in the arena, and I should do two skits?  Was I on staff now?

I guess he was drawn to the weird foreigners on the front row, but all around the tent, Uzbeks were jumping up and down, hoping he’d select them to participate.  Eventually, he released my hand and did just that.

He picked a young woman, a man, and then for his last pick, he chose – wait for it – lava-lamp woman.  She was more than happy to participate, but what was with this clown and double-tapping the same people?  This would be the last audience-participation moment, and another thing that struck me was that not a single child had been called to participate during the entire show.  This was unusual.

In the final skit, the clown conducted his three participants in a pretend band.  The young woman was assigned to play air violin; the guy, air guitar; and lava-lamp lady pretended to do vocals and shook her bosom.  I was quite happy with my decision not to join them.

The show wrapped up with dancing bears and a couple of acrobats, and then we spilled out of the tent into the refreshing night air.

Later that evening I reflected on the day.  I had survived an interesting experience; I had a photo with a monkey, and one more souvenir was coming into focus – some throbbing broken ribs.  It must have happened when the safety belt squished my abdomen.  I had to laugh about it, though.  My track record with ribs here in Uzbekistan hasn’t been good.

If you want to run off and join the circus, I recommend doing it before you turn 40.  As for me, I’ll be keeping my day job.

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Uzbekistan: Dining Out: Key Town

A moment after our waiter had placed a dish of sliced, raw steak on our table, I leaned in with the tongs to select a piece of meat.

“Stop!” the waiter instructed.  “I will give you a demonstration.”

Then he placed a slice of beef on the domed cooking surface over the burner in the center of the table and walked away.

Eitan and I, along with our friend Chloe, were trying a new Korean barbeque place, and our evening started off on a puzzling note.

“Should I do something with this?” I wondered aloud.

“No,” Chloe responded, “he’s giving us a demonstration.  I’m sure he’ll come back soon.”

The meat was only a few millimeters thick, and it turned into a crispy, black curl in a few minutes.  The demonstration was a bust, but I ate the meat scrap anyway.

I leaned in with the tongs once more to add fresh meat to the grill, and our waiter magically appeared.  This time he was accompanied by the owner.

“Let me do that for you,” the owner said as he reached for the tongs.

He loaded up the grill, coated the meat with marinade, and unlike the waiter, he didn’t disappear.

As the owner was tending the meat, a different waiter delivered some banchan (small complimentary side dishes including kimchi and other salads), a grilled mackerel Eitan had ordered, and some vodka.  Unfortunately, soju wasn’t on the menu.

This second waiter who had delivered our food and drink spoke English.  He was self-taught from watching movies, and despite his apologies for his skill level, I thought he spoke very well.

It was difficult to see much of the dining room from our booth, but at the few tables I could see, people were merrily cooking their own meat.  I wondered if we were getting the services of a personal chef because we were clearly foreigners or if we were deemed to be incompetent.  Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

Whatever the reason for the royal treatment, we were soon enjoying bites of tender meat wrapped in lettuce with all the trimmings.

Eventually the owner hung up his tongs and switched off the grill, and the three of us renewed our memberships in the clean plate club.  When we finally pushed away from the table, the only thing left was a three-pack of ferocious garlic breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bottom line on Key Town:

Food:

    Tasty ü
    Average
    Bad

Service:

    Attentive ü
    Average
    Lacking

Overall Experience:

    Memorable ü
    Enjoyable
    Passable
    Forgettable
    Regrettable