Drive 200 Kilometres to take a Shower

Leaving Shaqrisabz, we head for Amon-Xona, a legendary place in Uzbek culture since their hero Amir Timur had once stopped there to drink with his armies.

We reach Guzor with a driver that chucks a tantrum, and accept a lift with another driver for half the distance from Guzor to Boysun. We end up spending the night at the family of the driver.

The driver’s sister on the left, myself, his nephew and his mother on the right.

When the driver is passing a lit cigarette to his niece to pass to his mother (her grandmother), we all laugh as the little girl takes the cigarette, takes a big drag and passes it to grandma.

Grandma smokes a lot, she probably drinks a lot too. When they setup beds for us outside, she tells me that if I do anything with either of the two girls, she’ll kill me, then take me to the police. For extra security, she sleeps outside with us.

When we eventually arrive at Amon-Xona the following morning, we laugh at the hilarity of the situation. Amon-Xona, similar to Gulcha in Kyrgyzstan is tacky and boring. The place is crowded with locals, all carting several bottles of Amon-Xona water back home. The water smells like sulphur and we can’t believe that people come this far and spend the day picnicking by the water and lining up to take a shower.

Uzbek pilgrims bottling the Timur Holy Water.

We’ve come so far, we decide to join in the ritual. After lining up for half an hour, it’s finally my turn to take a shower in Amon-Xona’s healing waters. It’s a shame that I have no photos of the experience, so words will suffice.

Imagine standing in line for half an hour with a large group of smelly dirty Uzbeks carrying towels. When the last woman leaves, the attendant says that now the half hour shift for men’s showering begins. Everyone charges at the door to get a spot. As a guest from overseas, I’m exempt from the fighting for a spot and am ushered into the room.

I enter the white room, reminiscent of a swimming pool change room and am greeted by a man in a doctor’s coat and gloves. Since I’ve only paid for a shower, I’m put in the only stall with a shower, the other men have gone the whole hog and opted for a bath.

The stalls are separated by short walls and everyone disrobes and climbs into their baths, the bathwater from the previous occupants has not been drained. They turn on the taps to fill their baths with cold smelly water and my shower stops flowing and resorts to nothing more than a trickle. As I stand and shower under this cold water, I think how the pilgrimage would cost a small fortune to the locals, start shivering from the cold and decide that the pilgrims are idiots.

The baths fill up and one by one, the fat Uzbeks turn off their taps, restoring my shower to it’s former glory of freezing cold tap water. The water is supposed to have healing properties, so despite the rusting pipes, bad smell and sheer stupidity of the concept, I start drinking as much of the water as I can handle. Peeking over the wall, I see my neighbour simply lying in the bath, supposedly letting the healing process begin.

Several minutes later, the doctor in gloves opens the curtain to my shower and tells me my shower time is up. I turn off the water and begin to dry off. Every few seconds, eager hands pull open the curtain to find that yes I am still in fact naked and drying off, depriving them of their shower time.

After a minute, the hands give up waiting and they walk inside, almost knocking me over while I’m trying to put my undies back on. It’s irrelevant to them (yes, two men have decided to shower together, probably to live out some sick fantasy that involves rubbing each other with holy water) and they’re stark naked and showering before I’ve left the stall. I wish them a fun shower.

All in all, the Amon-Xona experience was pathetically hilarious. At least the view along the way was nice. To add to the hilarity, work is currently underway to build a mega resort at Amon-Xona so bus loads of pilgrims can come and experience the fun.

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