Uzbekistan Trip

If you have Windows XP SP2, click on the title bar blocker and select "Show Active Content" to view the flash slideshows.

September 16-26, 2004
 
 Thankfully, all the details of the trip and project worked out. I traveled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan (24 hour flight) and then took a four hour taxi ride down to the city of Samarkand. I stayed with an Uzbek family and worked at the Samarkand Institute of Foreign Languages for a week. The goal of this trip was to build, configure, and secure a wireless network and link the main campus buildings together. I worked with the director of the Computer Science department and his assistant. In order to bridge the network over long distances between the buildings, I brought antenna extenders made from Pringles potato chip cans and Folgers coffee cans. The homemade antennas boosted the signal and connected buildings 800 yards apart. A 6MB file made two hops across 1.5 kilometers of airspace in less than 20 seconds. The wireless network connected the German and French foreign language faculty offices, the American Center, and various computer learning labs with the main administrative building and the internet. In addition, we networked the accounting computers together with cables and wireless network cards. They keep all the student accounts by hand on paper and want to move to Microsoft Excel.
 
 While there, I stayed with an Uzbek family in Geofizik Shi-Chasi, a suburb of Samarkand. They had two houses...one with a sink/shower/kitchen/outhouse and another with living and bedrooms. I stayed in the parlor with Frank (from Australia...designing a class schedule database). For breakfast, they milked the cow and we had warm bowls of milk with chunks of bread. We also dipped fresh baked bread in a side dish of thick cream paste. Watermelons and sugar melons were served for both breakfast and dinner. An assortment of nuts and grapes (green and seedless currants) were in little side dishes. Uzbeks like to cover the table completely with little plates and side dishes (that means we had a good meal). At night, we had rice pilaf. For lunch, we would go to local restaurants...with an average bill of $2.60 for four of us.
 
 On the first day, the rector of the school met with us and discussed our project in a special international reception room. It was a formal affair over tea and coffee. The coffee was extremely strong...I woke up from my jetlag. He discussed the current network setup within the administration building and we talked about bridging all the computer centers together. His assistant was interested in linking the accounting computers together. USB thumb drives are catching on over there...the floppy disks wear out too fast in the extremely dusty conditions. The next few days were spent putting together the antenna materials and configuring the routers and access points. I worked with some of the local network administrators and showed them how to build the antennas. When configuring the routers, the operating systems were in Russian...thus it was difficult to debug the applications through a translator. Thankfully, everything came together.

 

Click here to watch a slideshow.

 

Later in the week, we traveled to Bukura, a city towards Turkministan to the west. We visited many large mosques and medrassas (Islamic seminaries). One had an imam preaching in Uzbek to the Muslims during Friday prayers. Many of the mosques had been turned into bazaars with local souvenir shops. I bought a colorful traditional coat in one of them. Many of the women were selling savannas...large hand made quilts. Others were peddling hand-painted pottery and ceramics. Still others peddled mink and wolf fur hats. Some young peddlers knew some broken tourist English: "Tall man, come and see my stuff. Tall man, my ceramics change color as you wash them. Tall man, how much did you pay for that? Tall man, how old are you? Tall man, please take my picture."
 
 Travel was done mostly by taxi. You would stand in the middle of the road trying to wave down passing cars. If one had an extra seat, it would stop and you would pay the driver 15 cents to drive anywhere in Samarkand (a city of 200,000 people). Outside the city, it would take about four hours to get to Bukura or Tashkent by taxi ($30). I took the train back to Tashkent (capital of Uzbekistan) to catch my plane. I went business class on the train for $3.00 (200 miles). Back in Tashkent, I negotiated with the taxi drivers and had to give directions on where to go in Russian. Taxi and train was better transportation than many people had...a donkey cart was a common sight...along with a broken down bus every few miles along the open road.
 
 I am grateful for the opportunity of going to Uzbekistan...not to many Westerners have been to Samarkand or Bukura. I am thankful the project came together successfully. Most of all, the Uzbek people were the most interesting part of the trip. It is entirely a different culture and way of living. I am grateful for having a taste of it.

 

Homemade Mega Yaggi Antennas

 Click here to view antenna details