I had been looking forward to visiting Samarkand since the beginning of the rally. I had read a lot about it as a teenager, my anticipation had built for weeks and I had convinced Nick and Bob and Olov that it was something not to be missed.
It didn’t take us long to drive there – only 4 hours on relatively bad roads, but mainly hanging back because Bob and Olov were still not feeling great and so wanted to take it slow. They also wanted to find a workshop in Samarkand and get their front springs fixed, since there was no hope for the shock absorbers. To this point they were driving on two different length springs, and so on each bump they were bottoming out on the left and weaker spring.
When we got to Samarqand, we asked for directions to a workshop and were directed to what looked like car repair heaven. It was a workshop the size of a warehouse with around 60 mechanics working under, over and alongside 10-12 cars. We pulled up and it turned out that the ‘Master’ or head mechanic spoke fluent Russian. Little did I know that this would be the crunch point for my Russian skills as well.
I explained to him that BobOlov had different length and strength springs and that they wanted to replace either the shorter one with the same length spring as the stronger one, or both.
He sent across 6 of his apprentices and they winched the car up and took the wheels off. Looking at their car, they told me that since the shock absorbers were broken on both sides, it would be better to insert a plate at the top of each suspension that would raise the car up by around 3cm, rather than put new springs in, since the increased pressure of larger springs would make the car bounce even more. The inserts on the other hand would give them the height that would stop them bottoming out all the time.
Bob agreed to the plates but insisted on changing the springs as well. They made the discs from molds taken off the top of the suspensions and the head mechanic again advised that not only would this stop them from bottoming out, but inserting stronger springs would additionally slow them down, since the car would be so unstable.
Bob put his foot down and insisted that they put new springs in as well. We went across to the adjoining spares shop and Bob found the springs he thought would fit. The head mechanic looked worried and said that they were too narrow at one end and therefore wouldn’t fit.
Bob said they should cut them to the point where they were all one width and then insert them. The master argued that they wouldn’t be flat and so there would be a danger that they would push through the rubber top bit of the suspension and possibly into the engine, but Bob said he didn’t care and that they could be bent straight with some heat.
The head mechanic soon realised that there was no point in arguing with Bob, once he’d made his mind up. They looked at the springs and made some calls to speak to some welders and metal workers, who could cut and bend the springs to the right length.
Unfortunately, by the time they got through to the right people, it was too late to do the work the same day, so the head mechanic organised a hotel for us to stay and told us to return in the morning.
By this time, I was exhausted not only from translating into a language that I hadn’t used in years, but also using vocabulary that I had never used in that language and that I was producing out of a mixture of memory and Russianised Bulgarian.
Although tired, when we got to the hotel, we decided to visit at least some of the sites of Samarkand.
The water wasn’t working in some of our rooms and the toilet didn’t flush in others. Since the hotel was quite close to the workshop, the price of the rooms was low and the hotel manager assured us that he would get it all fixed within the couple of hours that we would be out sightseeing, we agreed to stay.
We caught a taxi, haggled for a price and he drove us to the central square that was flanked on three sides by very old temples. These were very similar to the temples we had seen in Bukhara, but much more polished and touristy. All three buildings were fenced off and visitors were allowed only to sit and take photos from a few rows of benches, positioned around 200 metres away from the temples. There were guards patrolling between the three buildings and they had unwillingly increased the interest of the site multi-fold by screwing up the lighting of each building.
It seemed that all three buildings were supposed to be lit up from below to give them the most dramatic look and feel. Unfortunately, one of the lighting systems always seemed to malfunction at exactly the point when they got the other two working. And so, one guard kept patrolling, while another two guards frantically kept running between the three buildings seemingly turning on lights here and simultaneously turning off the lights there, much to the delight of the visitors, who couldn’t have expected this much action if they had dreamed about it. After 25 minutes of frustrated running the guards seemingly gave up and shut off the light to all three buildings, this way ending what was quite an unexpected but amusing show.
At this point, we had reached the end of our energy levels and decided to have a bite to eat. We found the first pizza place and although the pizzas were mediocre, even the semblance of familiar food tasted very delicious. This is a good point to mention that pretty much since the border of Uzbekistan, easily available and attainable vegetarian friendly food was becoming more of a mirage every day and I had to custom order my food everywhere, each time explaining that chicken and fish still constituted meat of one variety or another.
After our meal, we decided to grab another cab home but got more than we had bargained for when we agreed the price and got into a lada jigula. Our driver was a youngish guy, who as a first step called over an even younger guy in his twenties with a small bag of green dust, took a generous pinch of the stuff and stuffed it up his nostrils. He then speedily took off, before any of us had the chance to think better of it.
Swerving wildly, then randomly opening his door only to swing it shut again at what seemed like 40 miles an hour, he took a swig of some neon yellow liquid and then promptly drove by the road our hotel was on. By this time I had already asked him whether he was sure he knew where we were going and he confirmed. Another 5 minutes later, and in the meantime on roads that seemed more village-like rather than capital-like, I asked again and he seemed to get annoyed at the continuous questioning of his directions, but by this point we were so far away from our hotel, we were getting worried he was driving us to get mugged somewhere.
We all repeated the name of the hotel a couple of times and this seemed to finally get through to him. He started waving his hands about angrily and turned into another street. 8 minutes later we stopped outside of our hotel and happily got out. We handed the driver the agreed sum, but he insisted that we had changed our mind half-way and so wanted double the agreed price. I argued with him until he agreed to take the equivalent of another 1.5 dollars. Relieved to be rid of him and in one piece, we walked into our hotel only to find that of course our water issues hadn’t been sorted out.
We slept anyway, and in the morning checked out demanding a 50% discount on the room price. 30 minutes of haggling and discussing the problems, and admittedly, some threatening with Health & Safety by Bob, we walked out of there each having paid only $10.
We got back to the mechanics and after a few hours of Bob supervision, BobOlov had their equal springs and their raised inserts all done and dusted.
While waiting, we had realised that our roofrack had come out of its sleighs and got the mechanics to bolt it to the frame of the car. This they had done and when we all went to pay, we were positively surprised to receive a price tag of only $50.
Although they advised us not to drive along the Pamirs, they all waved us on our way, inviting us back at our earliest opportunity. A good end to a lot of discussions, insistence and two long days of arguing about technical mechanical issues, we finally drove away looking forward to driving along the second highest road in the world.
Posted from Ulaanbaatar, Tov, Mongolia.
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