Best (and worst) of 2010
Best book I read: The best new book was Zeitoun, Dave Eggers' novel-like account of one man's decency and resilience during hurricane Katrina. I also hugely enjoyed a book I was assigned for class last fall, North and South. Elizabeth Gaskell had Austen's gift for character, and Dicken's eye for social injustice.
Best movie I saw: new: A Single Man; old: Two BBC miniseries from the '80s: Traffik, the clearest depiction I've seen of the folly of the war on drugs, and First Among Equals, which follows the careers of four politicians vyying to become Prime Minister - not a masterpiece, but I really enjoyed it.
Best song of the year: Neither are new, but I spent the year obsessively listening on repeat to Sodom, South Georgia (here) by Iron and Wine and The Loneliness of the Middle-Distance Runner(here) by Belle and Sebastian.
Worst song of the year: I spent three hours in a Tajik taxi whose driver only owned one song, and, just my luck, it had to be Moscow Never Sleeps (here, if you really want to subject yourself to it).
Best restaurant: While I love Bologna's Osteria dell’Orsa, the most unexpectedly wonderful place was the Korean Restaurant on Rudaki Avenue in Dushanbe. It is also conveniently across the street from the Uzbek embassy, and served as a peaceful, air-conditioned refuge to refuel on jasmine tea before facing the bureaucracy.
Best meal: fish stew, cuttlefish risotto and a sorbet trio at a small italian restaurant in Bled, Slovenia.
Best thing I ate: Tajik fruit – Ishkashim grapes, Shahristan pears, Khorog cherries, Vrang plums.
Worst thing I ate: Tajik ice cream. Comes in many neon colors but has only one flavor: plastic.
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| Hangumar displaying the bread dough |
Best educational experience: bread baking in Tavildara.
Best museum: tie between the British Museum, which feels like it was designed for archeologists and adventurous children, and where all mysterious objects are labeled as "origin not yet known", and the Fra Angelico cells at the Chiesa San Marco in Florence.
Worst museum: the Hulbook, a questionably reconstructed ancient fort in southern Tajikistan; interesting from a propaganda perspective, but would make an archeologist weep.
Best church: Basilica di San Antonio, Padova. I loved its blue-grey domes and the combination of frescos from the 1300s and 1930s.
Best beach: the endless public beaches of Latvia - where the beach cafes also win the competition for best borscht. The "anti-imperialist" Tajik borscht doesn't use beets, though, so its not a fair competition.
Best hotel: Muminjon’s guest house in Bukhara, in a seemingly-unchanged 18th century merchant's house, with a shade tree, harbuza melon and a friendly cat.
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| Lonely Planet in action |
Best Guidebook: The Lonely Planet guide to Central Asia. Pretty useless for Tajikistan, but we followed it religiously in Uzbekistan with good results. Plus it served as toilet paper, a fire-starter, and a useful child-distractor while interviewing harried mothers.
Most useful thing I brought: my Naot "Scandinavian" sandals - suitable for the Italian riviera or a Tajik village, and didn't give me a blister in 3 months of constant wear, not even when I hiked in them.
Least useful thing I brought: the ankle brace my mother made me take - but I never sprained my ankle, so maybe it was preventative.
Best bargain: Couch Surfing; also, though I couldn't have predicted it, the extra $50 to fly home from Gatwick, which saved me getting stuck in the Heathrow weather cancellations.
Worst not-a-bargain: £100 train from Edinburgh to London cost more than all the Ryanair flights put together - but the view of the rainbow over the North Sea might have been worth it.
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| me sketching in Bukhara |
Best tourist cities: Bukhara and Ljubljana - beautiful and accessible without being crowded or kitschy.
Worst tourist cities: Kulob or Florence - Strange comparison, I know, but Kulob, Tajikistan may have never seen a tourist in its life, while Florence has seen far too many. It doesn't stop either from being good places to visit, but finding the best stuff takes more work.
Most unexpectedly wonderful thing: Ieva, Rob, Nazira, Mehri Niso, Hangumar, Laura, Shanbe, Matine, Nikita, Uri, Lola, Feli, Veronyka and all the other new friends who I don't have space to list.
Plus the Wakhan corridor (see above).
Plus the Wakhan corridor (see above).
Obvious thing totally not worth it: the Registan in Bukhara was bombed by the Red Army in the '20s - there's not much left of the Emir's palace.
Obvious things totally worth it: punting on the Cam, climbing Bologna’s tower, Edinburgh castle, the reclining Buddha at the National Museum of Tajikistan, Venice.
