Approach: The Uzbekistan Airways flight lasted 6 hours from Paris to Tashkent via Amsterdam. It took off at 5:30 pm from Paris to arrive 2:30 am (Paris time) at the international airport of Tashkent. The time lag is three hours.

Tashkent: The city is modern. It was visited when we returned from.

Approach: The way from Tashkent to Och was made on a bus to the border of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan then by two vans to Och. It lasted 10 hours including stops for approximately 360 km. The road runs through the mythical Ferghana valley where according to the legend "the celestial horses sweated blood". It is divided into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan! As of 140 BC, the Chinese Emperors of the Han dynasty sent embassies to get these horses in order to equip their armies.
We had lunch at Kokand, the capital of eponymous Khanate in the 18th and 19th century.

Och: The city is located in Kyrgyzstan a few kilometres away from the border. The Uzbek community is very large. Ethnic clashes occurred in 1990, before the independence of the Central Asia Republics.
The city was visited when we returned from the expedition. It looks modern and with Soviet architecture.

Approach: The way from Och to Achik Tash was by truck, ex-military off-road truck of the Soviet army. A cell with wooden seats was set up on the dumper of the heavy vehicle. The way lasted more than four hours for an unknown mileage.
-- the first part was by an decent road in the dramatic landscape of Pamir,
-- the second part, more than one hour, was off-road with crossing over fords.
The roughness and the rusticity of the vehicle made this trip particularly painful.

Achik Tash: The base camp is located 3,600 m high. It is managed by a travel agency, Asia Travel of Tashkent. It set up tents and cooks the meals in a Yurt. The camp has a medical department, in a white tent, any candidate to the Lenin Peak ascent must imperatively have a medical examination after the three-day acclimatization. The doctor or male nurse maintained in operating condition a sauna whose stones are heated by a rudimentary oil-burner supplied with a drip! I did not know that I was spend a number of days there.

Approach:  The trip from the base camp to the intermediate camp was in four sections.
-- the first to cross over the Puteshestvinikov pass 4,150m high,
-- the second to go down towards the left moraine of the Lenin glacier,
-- the third to go up the Lenin glacier,
-- the last to move towards the intermediate camp on the moraines.
The ascent took five hours and the descent to the base camp took three hours. The purpose of an expedition is to make outward trips and returns to the various intermediate camps to convey the material. Two outward trips and returns were made and finally a rest day.

Intermediate camp: It is set up on the lateral moraine crest of the Lenin Glacier. It is between 4,200 and 4,300 m high. The infrastructure is the last managed by Asia Travel, the meals are included in the fixed price of the ascent permit. Moreover a high mountain guide of Asia Travel ensures the safety, the monitoring and certification to have reached the top of the Lenin Peak.

The fourth day at the intermediate camp consisted in achieving the acclimatization phase by climbing a part of the track to reach the altitude camp n°1 5,300m high. It had snowed a lot. The objective was to go up as far as the turn right towards camp n°1 5,100m high approximately, that is to say the first two sections of the trip.
-- the first, along the glacier, has many crevasses to reach the slope,
-- the second, the slope about 40 to 45%, has very wide and deep crevasses.
The ascent required to fit the crampons in a deep snow up to our thighs. A rope was set up by Asia Travel.
The difficulty made the ascent painful, I stopped around 4,800 m high admiring the Lenin glacier. The return to camp n°1 was terrible.

Approach: The trip from Achik Tash to Och was made on the same truck as for the outward and under the same conditions of painfulness compensated by the dramatic landscapes of Pamir. The road crosses the Kyzyl-Suu valley from west to east with the snow-capped tops of Pamir in the south. The valley is from 30 to 50 km wide.
Many police checks point were made as we transported a clandestine young Fin going back to his country.
We arrived around 7 p.m. at the same hotel before. The temperature was 30°C.

Osh: One day of relaxation was devoted to the visit of this city in the Ferghana valley that the nonsense of Stalin's policy divided between the three Republics, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. This valley is mainly populated by Uzbeks. Osh is located at an important crossroads of the Silk Road, there was nothing to see. Nevertheless it preserves its statute of crossroads thanks to road M41, Pamir Highway, with Tajikistan, then from Sary-Tash and the Irkeshtam border post with China to Kasha.
The few sights we visited were:
Solomon's throne, located on a jagged hill overhanging the city, is a Moslem pilgrimage place supposedly prophet Mohamed prayed there! In 1497 14-year-old Babur, who was to found the Mogul dynasty of Delhi, had a mosque built but it was destroyed several times. The promontory offers a beautiful view on the oasis occupied by Osh.
The market in the open air is one of the vastest of Central Asia. The three main ethnic groups are present here, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Tajik.
The park, along the river, offered one moment of rest at the foot of a Yak-40 carcass on its pedestal: Not so restful due to the crowd of the accompanied children and the many carousels.

Approach: The trip from Osh to Tashkent was made on a Japanese minibus and lasted nearly nine hours including lunch at Kokand, the same restaurant as for the outward journey. Ten kilometres away from Osh, the Uzbekistan border and police control did not require less than one hour, so much the number of vehicles of any kind was large. After Kokand, the crossing over a pass 2,130m high under a pouring rain on a road made marshy by widening work was made in an indescribable disorder due to the number of vehicles overloaded and stuck in the mud.

Tashkent: The city has remained the most important crossroads of Central Asia. It knew many names during its long history, Shash, Shashkent then Toshkent in the 11th century. Now it has became the "Central Asia's Hub" to all the world destinations. It was visited at the time of the journey in 1993, Tashkent.
The new city, as I had already noted, is Soviet style. Broad avenues, large spaces, many parks give the city its modern aspect, but unfortunately all is neglected without maintenance, for lack of financial means or disinterest. The tram cars, the trolley buses which we used were wobbling. There are very few private cars.
The subway, that we also used, was the occasion of one of my jokes. I took a photo, unfortunately the flash worked. At once two police officers fell on me and I was taken to the police station of the subway where I remained more than one hour during which the police officers controlled my passport, gave many phone calls, and finally let me free berating me in a language that I identified as being Russian. I was afraid that they would confiscate my camera or remove the film, but not at all. I must admit that the photo is bad!
The old city was visited again. It does not have anything comparable with Samarkand.

Approach: The time assigned to the journey left two free days which we decided to use to visit Samarkand. The trip from Tashkent to Samarkand was made on a minibus and lasted a little more than four hours for 300 km on a road with four lanes most of the time but terribly bumpy.

Samarkand: The arrival was around 12 noon at the "Zeravchan" hotel not as well located as the "Samarkand" hotel of the previous journey. We visited the same monuments, Samarkand. Between these two journeys, the city council did a lot to improve the city. The restoration of the monuments has made a lot of progress. At the time of this visit, Music Festival was inaugurated with great pump by the President of the Republic.

Gour Emir: The Timurid mausoleum was built by Tamerlan at his grandson's death, Mohamed Sultan. Completed in 1409, it contains the bodies of Tamerlan and Mohamed Sultan. The mausoleum was closed due to restoration in 1996. the works being completed, the monument was opened to tourists, I could admire the inside of this sumptuous building.
The inside panels are in onyx, the handrail of the tomb stone is in alabaster, the tomb stone is in jade. The cupola is covered with gold sheets and lapis lazuli.
In 1941, Mikhail Gerasimov opened the crypt and noted that indeed Tamerlan was lame in the right leg and right arm. Moreover, it was 1,7 meters tall.

Bibi Khanym: The works of restoration of the large mosque were almost completed. I think that now at the end of 2003, there are.