Three Hours on the Sharq Train

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  Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Friday, June 6, 2008

Only three hours. Only three hours....

I'm usually pretty good with high temperatures. Samarkand is hot, in general, this time of year (mid to upper-90s I think); we'd taken long walks around town with smiles.

But five minutes after sliding into the airplane-style seats on our train from Samarkand to Bukhara, the temperature in the second-class car was rising, sweat was drying on my temples, and drops of condensation were visible on my arms. I looked around--the Uzbek couple to our right were fanning themselves with a purple handkerchief. One young girl on the other side of the divider at the center of our car (wrapped in fake flower garlands, below the TV showing Uzbek music videos) had started pacing, waiting for the train to gain speed out of the station so the small windows at the top of the car could bring some movement to the air.

My shirt was soaked. With my big backpack stuffed between Kate and I, and my small backpack across my lap, things were a bit tight. I grabbed my spiffy new hat (a straw cowboy hat with "Marlboro" written across the front band acquired at the Samarkand outdoor market) and started fanning. Transit police paraded through the train. We bought a few samsas (meat, onion, and potato samosas) and cold Fantas from Samarkand-based sellers, who ran efficiently through the train while it was parked in the station. Then--quietly, and not a second too soon, the Sharq pulled out of Samarkand.

Luckily, two things: 1) we did pick up speed, and soon we could use the teal silk window drapes to funnel the window air down to our laps. After about an hour, a transit policeman ordered the windows snapped shut, and air conditioning came on. 2) I love train rides. I think all four of us do. We'd better--this three-hour, high-speed ride (aboard the "Sharq" train) was a good baby-step to build our stamina for the 24 hr rides we are planning in Western China.

The other three spent most of the ride watching "The Saint" on Josh's spiffy portable DVD player, Kate leaning forward to watch between the crack in Scott and Josh's seats in front of us, and three of them wired in with three pairs of headphones. I'm not so good with the movie trivia, but I think this one took place in Moscow, hence the interest in watching it so soon after our time there.

I spent the ride stared out the window. Amazing how a train ride provides a moving snapshot of so many separate lives. The boy on the bicycle: I saw him ride along a dusty path next to the train tracks--back straight, grasping his high handlebars and grinning--for maybe 15 seconds. There he was; there we were. Then we were gone and he was still there. As he probably had been for his 14 rural years. As maybe he would be for the rest of his life (or not).

The shiny, old sedan parked 15 meters back from the tracks as we crossed. Locals going to a friends house? Taxi full of travelers? A farmer on his way to the market with fat melons? The biggest move of someone's life? I can only speculate.

Apricot pickers were a constant for the first 1.5 hours of the ride: red boxes stacked 15 feet high in dense orchard shade. The diverse glow of flowing Uzbek outfits (like salwar kameez--with a long slitted top and loose matching pants underneath). Lounging for lunch on shaded grass. Using pickers to gently grab stick-high fruit. Packaging the fruits.

Backyard gardens zipped by, thigh-high corn waving mightily and squash leaves fully wilted in the mid-day heat. A large gas or oil refinery. A lake large enough to appear on our map of the country, and milky blue enough that it might have been fed by a glacier (if it hadn't been in the middle of a vast scrubby desert). Powerlines. Donkeys. Dirt roads. Adobe houses.

So many quick peeks into different lives, different structures, different ways of spending the time between 12noon and 3pm on Thursday, June 5, 2008. So many untold stories. An entire region that never makes it into our press--maybe something about Tashkent or the receding Aral Sea, but not the stretch between Samarkand and Bukhara. (Does that make it invisible? Does it matter?) So many questions...

Zoe

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