Uzbekistan: Sometimes It's the Little Things... (part 2)

While there are formal taxis and local taxi-hailing apps in Uzbekistan, every car is a potential taxi.  Some drivers use their cars as taxis full-time, and others only occasionally.  Basically, though, Uzbeks have been ubering long before Uber existed.

To hail an unofficial taxi, one needs only to stand on the side of the road, arm outstretched, and wait for a friendly motorist to stop, usually in a Matiz, Lacetti, Nexia, or Spark.  After a moment to discuss the destination and agree on a price, you’re on your way.

People of all stripes use unofficial taxis, from frail grannies to desk jockeys to little kids.  In the case of the kids, they get taxi money from their parents and make their ways independently across the city.

As I was riding in an Embassy car one day, I was talking to my driver about this.

“How old are kids when they start catching street taxis alone?” I asked.

“Well,” he replied, “I think eight or nine is normal, but some even start as early as seven.”

“As for me,” he continued, “I won’t let my kids ride alone until they are 20!”

No matter the country, no matter the norm, never count out an overprotective father.

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It’s an Uzbek wedding tradition to gather on the morning of the big day to eat plov, the national dish.  No one is supposed to be turned away, so the numbers often swell as friends of friends start showing up.  In the case of a VIP wedding, you might end up with literally thousands of people eating the oily mixture of rice and meat.

Back in the days when everyone woke up at the crack of dawn to work in the fields, wedding plov was served at 4:30 or 5 AM to correspond with the work day.  Now that people (at least those living in cities) tend to start working later in the morning, the timing for wedding plov has also fallen back to around 7 AM.  This often means that a wedding hall will have cars spilling out into the street right during morning rush hour.

One day when I was on the way to work, my driver and I encountered an intersection that was thrown into complete chaos by a wedding-plov gathering.  On a three-lane road, cars were parked on two of the three driving lanes, leaving only one lane through which traffic could actually flow.  Actually, flow isn’t the right word; it was more of a trickle.

I was the one on track to be late for work, but it was my driver who was fuming as we crept up the street.

“Me eat plov!” he shouted as we passed the wedding hall.  “Me park in road!  Me big man!”

I don’t like a traffic jam any more than the next guy, but this cave-man rant somehow made it worth it.

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Thanks to the language barrier here, I often miss the nuances of daily life, including at the supermarket.

The procedure at the check-out counter is pretty familiar and routine, and thankfully it doesn’t require much communication.  I put my items on the belt, and the cashier scans them.  Then I flash my bonus card and pay.  At the end of the transaction, however, there is often one final step before the old “spasiba/dasvidaniya” exchange: The cashier hands me a few pieces of candy.

For weeks, I thought this was a freebie treat like getting a lollipop from a bank teller.  Then one day, my cashier was less smooth than most.  I noticed she was counting out a specific number of candies, and then it dawned on me:  Part of my change was being paid in candy.

The candy component was equivalent to only a few cents, but still I found myself singing a modified version of P!nk’s “U + Ur Hand” in my head.

“Keep your candy; just give me the money!” I sang, and when I realized what I was doing, I had to laugh.

Sometimes, you just have to say it.  "Good one, brain!"

Uzbekistan: Massage at the Hyatt

Long overdue for a good massage, Eitan and I booked appointments at the Hyatt’s Arya Spa.

We showed up a few minutes early and were seated in the spa’s reception area on the seventh floor to wait for our massage therapists.  I half-browsed a tourist brochure I had picked up in the hotel lobby while I looked out the window, but I didn’t have much time to kill.  After only a few minutes, our therapists arrived and escorted us to our treatment rooms.

My therapist, Gloria, showed me to my room and gave me a minute to change.  Then we got started.

“Sit here and put your feet here,” she instructed.

I took a seat and put my feet in a basin full of hot water on the floor.  Gloria sat on the floor and began rubbing what felt like coarse salt on my feet.

“Wow!” she exclaimed.  “They are so big!”

My shoe size is a U.S. 10 ½ (42/44 European), which isn’t exactly one for the record books.

“Perhaps,” I thought, “your basin is on the small side.”

I didn’t make any actual comment, though, and she continued washing.  Once my feet were scrubbed, rinsed, and dried, Gloria laid out my slippers.  I put them on and walked three feet to the massage table.

“Lay down on your stomach,” she told me, “and loosen up your towel.”

I did as instructed, and Gloria unceremoniously pulled the towel away.  Laying on the table naked, save for the see-through paper underwear she had given me, I felt a bit exposed.

Gloria took a moment to look me over.

“Nice!” she remarked.  “Do you play football?”

“Three or four times a week,” I lied.

“And your friend?” she asked, referring to Eitan.

“He doesn’t play football,” I told her.  “Bad knees.”

Then she covered me up with a fresh towel and began the massage, exposing each area of my body as she worked on it.

With two unexpected comments from Gloria in the first five minutes of the treatment, I wondered what else might be on her mind.  She didn’t offer any more observations, though.

I had booked a 75-minute Swedish, and she kneaded and oiled me up, front and back, head to toe.

She ended by massaging my neck, and then she excused herself while I changed back into my clothes.

As I took my clothes out of the locker, I noticed something I had initially overlooked.  Toward the back of one of the locker’s shelves sat a pair of grey boxer-briefs – Calvin Klein, to be exact.

I was unsure of what to do about these mystery briefs.  Initially, I was inclined to ignore them, but then it struck me that Gloria would probably check the room after I left and finding the underwear, she would likely think they were mine.  This didn’t appeal to me.

I got dressed and met Gloria in the hall.

“Sorry to be a bother,” I told her, “but there are some underwear in the locker that aren’t mine.”

She followed me into the room, and I pointed them out.

“And what should I do with them?” she asked.

She clearly had not understood what I was telling her as I’m quite sure she had not intentionally given me a room that wasn’t fully cleaned.

“These are not mine,” I repeated.

I pulled my jeans down a bit, exposing the waistband on my own underwear, and then she got it.

“Oh, my goodness!” she replied, clearly flustered.  “I don’t know who these belong to!  I’m so sorry!”

I told her it was no big deal, and she placed the briefs in a plastic bag.

As we walked back to the desk, Gloria articulated the very thing I had pondered myself.

“Who would leave the panty behind?” she mused.

The way I see it, there are three possible scenarios.  This man either left wearing the paper underwear or he decided to go commando or he had brought extra underwear to the session.  The motivation for any of these options, however, escapes me.

Gloria was equally flummoxed, and we had a bit of a laugh over the whole situation.