By Hotter Winds The road to Samarkand Brian Tait (TTXBRI001) Town A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of English in Creative Writing Cape of Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2014 UniveristyUniversity COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature: Date: 1 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Abstract We decided to go to Samarkand. Why Samarkand? No-one was certain, but it sounded exotic, and that was good enough for the four of us. We packed up our lives in London, bought a hardy vehicle, learnt some Russian, obtained letters of invitation from ministries of the interior, and set off. Along the way we ran into some trouble: treason in Croatia; psychosis in Serbia; sedition in Azerbaijan; starvation on the Caspian. And we weren’t even in Central Asia yet. We still had to negotiate desert roads and traverse the Pamir Highway, second-highest in the world. Before reaching Samarkand we’d have lost ten kilogrammes each, seen a hundred busts of Lenin and been harried by a thousand officious border guards and ex-KGB policemen. We discovered a region that is as beautiful as it is mystifying. Stranded ideologically between the Kremlin and the Koran, Central Asia is a baffling league of rival states. Held together loosely by the accident of geography and a common hatred for Russia, the alliance goes no further than that. Turkmen oil and gas merchants, Uzbek nationalists, Kyrgyz mountain folk and Tajik peasants all live in close and unfriendly proximity. Stalin pencilled in their borders on a whim, and with the fall of communism in 1989, many were left stranded, minorities under foreign rule. This is the world of Robert Byron, Colin Thubron, Fitzroy MacLean and Marco Polo; the Samarkand of Omar Khayyam, Timur the Lame, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan; the fantasy of Christopher Marlowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Wole Soyinka and James Elroy Flecker. We wanted to see the land and its people through their eyes, but also through our own. Our journey took us through a land of extremes: over the snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush and through the parched Karakum Desert; across the ancient Amu- and Syr-Darya Rivers, known in the West as the Oxus and Jaxaertes; and ultimately to our destination – the great Silk Road capitals of Bukhara and Samarkand. The last, sad caravanserai had made their final journeys from the turquoise gates many years ago. What would the cities be like now? When the journey was over, and I’d experienced the road to Samarkand for myself, I put my version of it in writing. By Hotter Winds captures the exhilaration and tedium of travel and the shared experience of a journey by car. At the same time it offers narrow glimpses into the history of the faded Silk Road, its cities and its people. 2 Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Departure ...................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 – Hook of Holland to Skradin ....................................................................................... 14 Chapter 3 – Dubrovnik to Belgrade ............................................................................................... 27 Chapter 4 – Novi Sad to Sozopol ................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 5 – Istanbul to Mestia ....................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 6 – Tbilisi to Turkmenbashi.............................................................................................. 60 Chapter 7 – Ashgabat to Khiva ...................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 8 – Penjakent to Karakul .................................................................................................. 81 Chapter 9 – Osh to Samarkand ...................................................................................................... 96 Epilogue – Ashgabat to Shiraz ..................................................................................................... 109 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 119 3 By Hotter Winds We travel not for trafficking alone; By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known, We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. (Flecker, 1922) IT was almost three o’clock and we still hadn’t found a crossing point. Each had something to disqualify it: the river was too wide; there was a settlement nearby; we couldn’t see around the river bend. My nerves were wearing thin and I needed to piss. We stopped the car and I got out of the passenger seat, walking the ten or so metres to the river’s edge. ‘Matt!’ I called up to the car. ‘Nothing wrong with this spot.’ Matt and Beth came down to take a look. Nina stayed in the car. It was about twenty metres across – not too wide. Sure, the current looked strong, but the river didn’t take a turn for at least half a kilometre, so we’d just wash up a little further down. We stood for a few minutes weighing it up. Eventually Matt said, ‘Fuck it, let’s swim.’ We dashed back to the vehicle and stripped to our underwear. My heart was beating fast and the adrenaline tingled in the tips of my fingers. Beth’s adventurous side had won out, and she joined us for a quick photo to mark the occasion. Barefoot, we rushed to the river’s edge. The water numbed my feet. We waded in as quickly as we could, each step causing us to yelp in pain as we disappeared deeper into the dark water. ‘Well there’s no point hanging around,’ Beth said. ‘Let’s go!’ I was so caught up in my desire to swim to Afghanistan that caution was just a distant irritation. It was everyone for himself. I was worried about Beth, but she didn’t want to miss out. I stepped 4 further in so that most of my torso was covered, gasping as the air was forced out my lungs by the cold. Matt’s eyes were a little wild. Beth was further behind us. Now that we were deeper we could feel the current. It was strong, much stronger than we’d anticipated. ‘Three ... Two ... One ... Go!’ Matt shouted. I started swimming as fast as I could. The only thing I heard, coming up for breath, was Beth shouting that she was turning around. I was being dragged quickly downstream. It seemed to be taking longer than it should’ve, and after a while I lifted my head to take a look. I couldn’t believe it – I was still only halfway. Matt was slightly behind. I took another few strokes and quickly realised what was happening. The current was funnelling us back into the middle of the river, where it flowed fastest. There was an invisible barrier blocking us from reaching the other side. I looked back at Matt. ‘It’s too fast!’ he shouted. ‘I’m turning back!’ I thought that was a bad idea – we were closer to the Afghan side now than the Tajik, and I was already exhausted. Fear lending me extra energy, I fought the current and the cold. I looked up again to see how close I was, but still it dragged me. How far had I been swept downriver? I was so exhausted I didn’t care. Fatigue was overcoming me. Consciousness seemed to slow. I looked up again to see the rocky river bank of Afghanistan, just metres away, but out of my reach. Another minute of this and I’d surely drown. 5 Chapter 1 – Departure Away, for we are ready to a man! Our camels sniff the evening and are glad. Lead on, O Master of the Caravan, Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Baghdad. (Flecker, 1922) It felt as though we were preparing for battle. We’d just added the finishing touches to our burdened roof rack. Up there were three empty jerry cans – two for fuel and one for water – and nine full ‘ammo boxes’. Two of them held vehicle spares – various filters and fan belts. Others held our personal belongings. One box for each traveller and another to share. I was sharing with Beth, and Matt with Nina. The ninth box, controversially, held nearly thirty books. Beth couldn’t imagine the prospect of seven months without them. The stand-off resulting from the book-box dilemma lasted nearly a month, with Beth overcoming a three to one vote by sheer force of will. Atop the boxes were two tents, four chairs, a fold-up table, a gas canister, a set of gas-cooking fixtures and a cumbersome gazebo. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever get it this neat again,’ Matt said. We were going to have to improve on the time – three hours was too long to spend packing the roof. Two bicycles were fastened onto a dubious contraption attached to the spare wheel. Their involvement on our expedition hung in the balance – two votes for and two against. Beth and I wanted them, Matt and Nina didn’t. Matt’s mother Ingrid was watching us pack from indoors. Her anxiety had been growing since lunch. The latest we could leave Raynes Park was five thirty. It was a three-hour drive to the port of Harwich. From there we would set sail for Hook of Holland. Although missing our ferry wouldn’t present an insurmountable problem, we all knew it would be a bad omen to miss the very first deadline of a seven-month trip. And Ingrid was our omnipresent prophet of doom. Four thirty saw me still on the roof trying to loop the security cable around our baggage – a sufficient number of loops to ward off thieves, but few enough to make it a practical daily task.