Khiva to Ayaz-Kala

‘Sunshine of Your Love’ is filling my mind and heart with wonderful images as the music of Jimi Hendrix accompanies us into the desert after our lovely stay in the immaculately preserved old city of Khiva. Ben literally had to drag me away from here after I didn’t want to leave the Tosh-Hovli Palace and it’s tile and gaunch work. To enter the palace one has to duck through a beautifully hand-carved wooden door and walk through a dark passage way. Coming into the light again one is stunned by the many rooms either side of a courtyard, each with an open front and covered from wall to floor with individually hand-painted tiles. Each of the rooms is decorated completley differently. The celing is propped-up with a gigantic intricately-carved wooden column, not unlike the forest of colums one can walk through in the Jama Masjid. They are bulbous at the base and rise heavenward to a fine tapered end.

As Uzbekistan is not high on many tourists’ travel lists (apart from the French, for whom Uzbekistan oddly seems at the top) the travellers we have met have been the most intersting people we have spent time with anywhere in a long while. From the Frenchman Bastian traveling overland from Paris to Thailand, Jonas the Norweigan bloke trekking throughout Central Asia and Ray the vulcanologist from Spain and his partner Stephanie, a dutch chef, on a 12 month adventure across the world, all with inspiring tales to tell. Our paths keep crossing along the way and we trade tips and tricks on working out the quirk that Uzbekistan is.

Out side the taxi window the desert stretches unbroken to the horizon. Then suddenly out of nowhere the ancient Ayaz-Kala fort (4-2nd Century BC) is immense and crumbling before our eyes. We race up the dirt path and survey the ruins of what was once obviously a thriving city. One can still see the foundations of the streets and houses all made from mud-packed earthe and hay, blowing away with the desert wind. Ben, the keen amateur archeologist starts an illegal dig in the wall but comes up with nothing. It doesn’t look as if it has ever been touched.

It could be the psychedelic music we are listening to, or the fact that we are under the middday sun, but everything is kind of surreal here. Or maybe it is just the deliciously fresh desert air. After driving for three hours in this barren landscape we are glad to reach our yurt not far from Ayaz-Kala Fort. Set up on a hill over looking the nothingness and with a lone camel sitting near the door we feel we are home. Paloma is ecstatic and is practically jumping on the camel for a ride. Ben and Paloma mount the bad-tempered camel and disappear over a dune. They come back a while later with Paloma excitedly telling me ‘It was a baddy camel, he went up and down and up and down all bumpy over the desert!’ Ben tells me the camel stood up and sat and stood up again, over and over, then refused to move in the middle or nowhere. If you’ve ever been on a camel you will know that lurching feeling of almost catapulting off each time the camel gets up.

Inside the yurt the softest beds have been laid out on the floor. There are thick layers of handmade felt surrounding the outside of the yurt and beautiful horse hair ropes are decorating the bamboo structure. A feast of chicken soup and fresh vegetables, salad, bread and meat has been laid out for us, and the Uzbek tea which accompanies every meal. Gayrat (yes, indeed) our driver joins us and we demolish the food in no time. It is the best we have eaten our whole trip.

We are told we must see ‘the lake’ and we trek through the dunes and the thorny bushes for an hour to find the fabled lake. On our way I spot a turtle running across a dune. Whoever said turtles are slow has never met one. On arrival ‘the lake’ is more like a stagnant pond. We head back with Paloma trailing through the dust like a little nomad.

As twilight falls we sit outside our yurt watching the stars come out. Our favourite star, the first star we now call our Paloma Star is buring bright. The moon is full but not yet up and as the darkness descends the milky way lights up as only it can to it’s full glory with not one city light to diminish its glow. We watch shooting stars glide across the sky, satelites blink from afar. Our al fresco dinner becomes lively with a bottle of Uzbek vodak which is lovely and sweet. Then the turbaned Uzbek ladies with gold teeth glinting in the firelight bring more delicious food to our low table.

A huge bonfire is lit and some local musicians who have walked hours from some distant village are sitting on stools. A traditional Uzberk dancer is spinning round the fire. Her movements are eccentric and like nothing I have seen before. The few people who are staying here are all up and dancing round the bonfire with Paloma. She loves it and we dance for hours.

Tsunami deja vu!

Neither Ben nor I are much into Teddy bears, but somehow Paloma has become obsessed with them. Try as we might, we can’t even distract her with a battery operated hula girl. Any time she spies a bear we hear her yelling ‘Teddy! Tedda! TEDDY!!!!!’ Luckily Honolulu they has a Teddy Museum where a child can see mechanical teddy displays acting out various moments in history. We thought the Elvis teddies and Cleopatra teddies would entertain her enough, but the most fun Paloma had was delivering near total destruction to the gift shop and its countless shelves of teddy bears.

Ben gets some time off work and we hire a car for a road trip round Oahu. Walls of monsteria climb up the sides of the highway, vines of Liana hang down from the majestic tropical trees that seem to grow everywhere in Honolulu. Bright hibiscus flower in abundance along side other exotic plants and the delicious fuchsia coloured ginger lily rocket flower. It’s the best place to take references for our planned home jungle! We stop at a cute little bay where Johnny Depp once stood while filming ‘Pirates of the Carribean’ and I wonder out loud if we will see a whale flipping out of the ocean. Seconds later, as if hearing my thoughts, an enormous whale does indeed rise gracefully out of the sea and crash back in! Spectacular!

Ben has put together an atmospheric hawaiian play list for us and it enhances our road trip experience listening to ukulele’s and the gentle Les Baxter exotica as we watch the ramshackle little wooden beach houses, roadside coconut stalls, shrimp stands and the sea shores of many pretty bays pass our window.

Stopping at Turtle Bay we arrive just in time to see a beautiful ancient sea turtle plod onto the shore and snuggle between two rocks on the beach, posing for photographs. Paloma goes ballistic yelling ‘Dut-dle! Dut-dlel!!!!’ part of her ever increasing and hilarious vocabulary. In the waves behind the creature we see many little heads and fins poking out of the water. We visit a fellow film producer friend Michelle who lives on the glorious Lanikai Beach. She babysits the sleeping Paloma while we sneak off for an hour of honeymoon bliss down at the beach and a burger at Buzz’s Steakhouse where tiki-tune legend Martin Denny used to play.

An Hawaiian holiday is best when one doesn’t know, and one doesn’t care, what day it is. Days and nights merge, you take the same photo of the same palm tree not remembering if it was here or there you sat yesterday and your hair becomes a matted mess of mermaid tresses. I never want it to end. We belong here!

Caught up in the bliss it is easy to think of Hawaii as totally removed from the world’s turmoil and danger. And then comes a tsunami. ‘Your mum and Karsten just texted saying a Tsunami headed for Hawaii darling.’ It’s two thirty in the morning and I turn over wondering if Ben is talking in his sleep again. But no, he’s serious. It not our first tsunami and in less than a minute we have a bag of nappies, passports and Paloma’s teddies packed and are heading out the door to the tallest Waikiki hotel nearby. An eerie wail, the tsunami siren, echoes like the sound of underwater whale song through the streets. In the lobby of the neighbouring hotel we are informed the tsunami is going to hit in under 20 minutes. Once he has made sure we are settled safely on the 15th floor, Ben races out into the night armed with his camera. Sitting there with Paloma on my lap I recal the tsunami wave we ran from on Koh Lanta beach in Thailand on Boxing Day 2004. That experience was scary enough without a child in my arms, and the thought of running from a wave carrying a baby isn’t one I want to have. By the time the waves reach Hawaii they are only 3 feet high and not dangerous at all. We sit glued to the television back in our hotel room in tears as the disaster, trauma and magnitude of the devastation in Japan becomes evident in all it’s horrific detail. Feeling almost guilty we return to our nice clean sheets, safe and sound, while millions of people are cold and homeless and experiencing the worst moment of their lives.

Some people are quick to make a buck out of disaster and tee shirts printed with ‘I survived the Tsunami 2011 Hawaii’ are selling quickly on the street corners of Waikiki the next day. We decline the offer to purchase one.

Fourteen month old Paloma has really taken the whole toddler thing to the next level. Finding self assurance in her walking skills she happily turns in the opposite direction from me any time I call her name. In seconds after her little feet touch the ground she is off and running, either in the direction of road traffic or into the alluring blue of the ocean or the hotel pool. Like Ben and I, Paloma runs toward danger, not from it. But her joyful screams of rebellion and independance make me proud, at least for now!