The cafe/house we had eaten lunch in yesterday had done exactly what we had been talking about while eating it - given us both a case of the squits. We had both been sat on the toilet for quite a long period of the evening - of course we had done this in separate stretches to avoid making an unpleasant situation even worse. In the morning nothing was any better than before, but breakfast was free and things needed to be done. We had to get local currency sorted for our time in Uzbekistan, we had done the whole black market thing so now we were going to do the whole legal thing and go to the bank.

 

The hotel reception had told us there was an ATM in the bank, there was no ATM in the bank. What there was was a man in a room with a pile of paperwork. The bank was quiet the first time I went, but "ATMs" need passports in Uzbekistan apparently. The second time I was prepared with my passport, but  I was not prepared for the packed room with my food poisoning. After a long stand, one of the desk-men took my passport and bank-card and started filling in paperwork, then he asked how much I wanted to withdraw. Apparently I'm not allowed to have Uzbek currency so the choice was either dollars or nothing.

 

When I left the bank an old man with golden teeth, who I had spoken to (in charades) inside the ATM, came running up to me. He knew I had gotten my money in dollars and was really looking for Uzbek Som, so I assumed he was going to swap some currency. He started running/limping off down the street gesturing me to follow him, still in Iran-mode I instantly started chasing him. He waved down a tiny little mini bus, the Uzbek equivalent of a taxi, and we clambered inside with all the other locals. The taxi stopped at the market to drop off people, and allow the man to find the next mode of transportation for this trip. We stood on the kerb of the taxi drop off while the man shouted and waved his arms. Eventually a younger man emerged from the crowd and gave the older man a set of keys. Like an old Uzbek Usain Bolt he was off running again down the street again. I chased him down some side streets to a car; whether it was his or not I don't know, but the key collected from the market worked. We sped down some more side streets to a new shop, where a shady man was waiting with a shopping bag full of cash. Some shouting in Uzbek happened between the two before I handed over $150 to a sketchy stranger, there was no need to worry as the stack of cash was gathered from the plastic bag and handed to me. Apparently I was given a good rate  because the older man gave me a thumbs up - which was comforting.

 

Uzbek Som is one of those weird currencies with 1000s to the pound, the problem is the largest note is  1000 som. My two crisp notes were replaced with 475 tatty notes bundled into a few thick wads. Once the deal was done there was the minor problem of getting back to Chris - who I had abandoned without telling him where I was going, mainly because I didn't know myself. The old man had a plan for the return trip too, which once again involved chasing. Now I don't know if you have ever chased an old man with a limp through a random Uzbek neighbourhood while clutching four large bundles of cash, but I can tell you that doing so leads to an awful lot of confused stares. Back in the car we sped back towards the bank, but we were not going back to the bank. After trying for many minutes to convince him to return me to the bank, he took me to every hotel instead until he found the one I said I had stayed in.

 

Upon being dropped off at the hotel we had already checked out of I walked back into the reception with confidence so as to not offend my new friend, then walked back to the bank to collect Chris and the car. With a glove box full of cash we set off towards Bukhara for an uneventful drive along a desert road. The drive was interrupted by a police checkpoint where the policeman-officer came over and asked for something in Uzbek, so we started handing him a whole bunch of documents one at a time hoping to satisfy his demands. The process was definitely improved by a man leaning in my window shouting at either us or the officer, eventually they both gave up and waved us on. Well the policeman waved us on, the strange man made revving noises and demanded we floored it - I did up until the point when the petrol ran out. We managed to find a petrol station by the side of the road, a common place for petrol stations, which looked like it had been closed for years. There didn't seem to be anyone around, Chris looked around the station while I wondered about the deserted town. All the houses in the village were decrepit apart from one which had a large broken metal gate blocking the entrance. We regrouped at the petrol station to discuss selling one of us to a truck driver for petrol, when we heard voices coming from the village. I walked back to the gate and shouted a bit until four burly men came out. Since they didn't speak English and I don't speak Russian all I could do was repeat "benzene" in different tones hoping they would understand eventually. If a foreigner went up to a group of random men in Glasgow and kept repeating petrol it would end badly. Here they came back to the petrol station to wake up the man sleeping inside, who was hiding from the foreigners. With a full tank of petrol we made good progress until the sump guard and exhaust came loose, with the sump guard only supported by the bolts at the front of the car. We didn't have any spare bolts and cable ties wouldn't solve anything this time, so we limped the last 30km to Bukhara scraping metal along the tarmac as we went. At least everyone was well aware we had arrived when we pulled up in the old part of the city to find a hotel. We immediately noticed a fellow rally team, since their hotel had their seal of approval it must be good enough for us. After a shower (or two) we headed across the street to a pub to meet a few other teams we'd noticed in town for a drink and compare tales from the rally.