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Denav (Uzbekistan) to Dushanbe (Tajikistan)
Well we were right royally rodgered today! The Uzbek customs took literally thousands of dollars off us because we hadn't declared them on entry. I've never seen anything like it; customs often have a go at tourists and usually a "bung" gets over the problem but not this time none of the usual ploys worked we threatened to report them to the embassy we filled in the forms thinking they might just fine us but no, any money we hadn't declared they took. It was really odd, I can only guess that there must be some edict from the government that these guys were not prepared to override. I dropped lucky being at the back of the group the lads at the front warned us of the problem so we could stash the cash somewhere it could not be found. Even then I nearly managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; being the "experienced traveller" I thought they won't be that fussy about a few hundred dollars so I didn't bother to hide any of my cash but in fact they were checking every dollar and confiscating anything over the thousand dollars we'd declared. Luckily, for me, they were having a serious go at the Major at the same time as starting on me and as he's carrying so much cash there was no hiding it - "member of society etc mustn't be seen to be short of the "readys" old boy" - I suspect the amount must have frightened them so after flashing a few credit cards and much "Harumping" about withdrawing money from ATMs in Samarqand - a clever trick because there are none - they let him off. So when they turned their attention back to me I said "same as him" and they just gave in and waved us through - nice one Major. The only other guys/girls who managed to get away with it stored their cash in some strange places, there "penguin" walks were classic. In Arrons case he managed to secure it so well that they didn't find it even though he was strip searched - I'll leave it to the readers' imagination as to where he had it stored but suffice to say I won't be borrowing any dollars from anyone for the remainder of this trip.
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