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A 2 hour drive from Khujand and we were at the Tajikistan - Uzbek border. Fairly standard process now. Processed out of Tajikistan, walk about 300 metres to a midway checkpoint, walk another 300 metres to the Uzbekistan immigation point, and then walk about another 100 metres to the final gate that gave us entry to Uzbekistan. Of course all of this came with the usual "Australia!" and "Kangaroo!" greetings. We are simply traversing across Uzbekistan this time to reach Kyrgyzstan and will only be in Uzbek territory for 1 day. At Kokand where we stopped for lunch a group of school students dressed in brightly coloured T shirts were involved in an some sort of activity. I stopped to take a photo and was quickly besieged. About 5 selfies later i was allowed to go and join the rest of my group for lunch. This has become a common practice that practically every member of the group has been caught up in on more than one occasion. I have wondered what they do with this random photo of a complete stranger, whom they know nothing about, other than they are not a native of the country. In the afternoon we stopped at Rishtan Ceramics. This is a workshop and training centre operated by a Japanese master. He himself has won awards and accolades worldwide and now takes in young boys and teaches them the art of pottery and ceramics. We also visited a silk factory and saw the whole process from extracting the silk thread from the cocoon, to dying and finally weaving. Our stopping place tonight was Fergana. Dinner by the pool at Hotel 777 was a pleasant way to spend the evening.
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