SeriesWell, when it's not supposed to happen, there is not much you can do about it. I am giving up on going to Uzbekistan... The visa situation is so complex that its not worth the trouble.
It starts out with my RTW plane ticket, which goes Dubai-Tehran-Dubai. To get to Uzbekistan with minimum difficulty I would need to fly either Tehran-Tashkent-Tehran, or Sharjah-Tashkent-Sharjah (Sharjah is in the Emirates, very close to Dubai).
The first option, while cheap, forces me to come back into Iran. This means that I must apply for a new Iranian visa as soon as I get to Uzbekistan. This is a risky proposition at best, and if I can't get the visa I will have to make my way from Tashkent to India by purchasing a new ticket.
The flight from Sharjah is just as expensive as going from Europe, but has the advantage of going twice a week rather than just once as from Iran. So I could spend 10 days in Uzbekistan rather than cramming everything into a single week. This was my preferred option, but I still need to get a visa to get into Uzbekistan...
Getting that visa takes 10 days once you have managed to get a letter of invitation from someone in the country. The letter can be arranged — for about $200 — through a bogus company in Tashkent. But if I wait 10 days before I go and then spend 10 days there I will miss my appointment with my friend Narayan in Mumbay on Dec 15.
Really, I should have applied for the visa earlier, but at the time it was possible that my friends Shahriar and Isabelle would join me for the trip; and we wanted to wait until we were sure of who was going before purchasing the letters of invitation. All in all, its just not working out, whichever way I look at it... But can anyone tell me why a country who is not at war with anyone doesn't want to give out tourist visas?
I give up, the dream will live on... The blue domes of Samarkand, the brown domes of Bukhara and the slave market of Khiva will have to wait. Unfortunately I will not be able to follow the trail of Islamic art through Central Asia, but will pick it up in a few weeks in India. In the meantime I will explore North and Western Iran, where Turkish, Kurd, Armenian and Azeri culture blend into something very different than what I have experienced so far.