Forty Wives, the Afghan Border, pool parties with the President and a quick dip of our own.

We head out to see the sights of Termiz with Tolik, a half Tajik, half Uzbek driver who’s way too laid back to rip us off. First stop, the Uzbek/Afghan border and a quick chat with the border guards.

Me: So how many checkpoints between here and Afghanistan?

Uzbek Border Guard (UBG): Five.

Me: Can I go there?

UBG: It’s a shit country, you don’t want to go there.

Me: I just need an hour.

UBG: No visa, no go.

Me: Do many tourists cross here?

UBG: Fifty or so a day. – No one crosses the border in the time we chat, most of the guards are asleep in their car and it seems no one has crossed in some time.

Me: Can I take photos for memory?

UBG: That, my friend, is categorically not allowed.

Me: Have any Afghan refugees made it here illegally?

UBG: That’s not your business.

The conversation ends there and we make our second stop, President Karimov’s Termiz holiday house (дача).

Me: Is it cool to take photos?

Tolik: Yeah, no problems.

Me: Have you ever been inside?

Tolik: I live just around the corner, we always go over to swim in his pool.

The next stop is at a mosque where a faithful Muslim tries to convert me. He casually says that all non-Muslims are going to hell. I leave him to his thoughts.

Stop number four is the house of forty wives. Legend has it that a man who had forty wives was slain by his enemies. The women lived together in the house, fending off attacks from sex-craved nomads. In other words, Termiz had the world’s first sorority house.

The party house.

The next stop is Old Termiz.

Old Termiz happens to be situated right next to the Amu Darya river, separating Uzbekistan from Afghanistan. Because of this, photography of the river is forbidden.

Taking this photo can lead to you landing in an Uzbek prison.

When we’re done, Tolik asks us if we want to go for a swim. I ask him if it’s in the President’s holiday house. He says it’s better.

After driving for fifteen minutes, he pulls into a driveway of what appears to be an abandoned building and tells us we’ve arrived. A rope is strung between two trees to prevent us from driving further. An Uzbek groundskeeper comes out, after some chat, we bribe our way in.