Oh the tickets are sold out? It’s ok, I’ll Bribe My Way to Turkistan

I arrive at the train station to find that all the tickets for the train to Turkistan are sold out, except for a sitting seat at 5pm for a 22 hour journey. I decide to bribe my way onto the train and proceed to walk to the train and start negotiating with the conductors.

I reach the end of the train and am offered a lift for five times the going rate. I decline and head back towards the front of the train. One guy offers a lift for twice the price but says I probably won’t fit in the hiding spot and so doesn’t let me on.

The train leaves and I decide to give up on the trains and head to the bus station to go by bus. The twelve hour bus trip, seated next to a crying baby takes only 12 hours by bus and costs half the ticket price of the train. I arrive at Turkistan just after sunrise to begin the grand tour of the city’s sights.

Mosque.

Shrine.

The female groundskeeper at the shrine of Timur’s daughter gives me a tour, tells me that Muslim is the one true faith, that only the Chinese and Kazakh are beautiful women, that negroes are too dark and ugly and that the Vietnamese smell bad. I thank her for the tour and tell her to travel more to open her eyes.

I finish my sightseeing of Turkistan and head to Shymkent within hours.