The sign outside the hotel promises 'High Quality Service.Well, still no wifi and the decor could be improved but let's see how breakfast goes.We get downstairs to find no breakfast, literally.We do find lots of empty plates with a cockroach doing his utmost to squirrel away the last surviving crumbs of cheese and lots of tables covered with used cutlery, crockery etc from the group that obviously beat us to it.Bankers!!!We tell the staff, receptionist and housekeeper that there is no food, plates, cups, jam, coffee, the works, and they dive into the kitchen to frantically rustle something up.More guests appear to find, well, nothing, and we decide to walk out as we can't be arsed with it.Especially since Charlie (nickname for my cockroach friend) has probably been joined by his work gang mates to help with the cheese by now.

Maria decides to take things further, as she often does, so goes to reception wanting to speak to the manager.The cleaner, observing that a West meets East international incident is about to go down, plonks her crossed arms onto the counter and waits in expectant anticipation of the pending carnage.When the cleaner is fully briefed in Uzbek from the receptionist, she speaks no English, she looks up at Maria, pounds her fist on the desk and nods in enthusiastic agreement.'Yes, yes, call them, call them, nothing gets done around here', Maria translates.Maria hovers over the poor chap as he tries, and fails, to reach the manager, so is left with strict instructions to put her through to our room as soon as he makes contact.We're still waiting 2 hours later!Well, it is a Sunday!

Having given up all hope of resolving our issue now we head on off to the internet cafe, buy a SIM card for 5000 Som ($2.50), texts to Europe costing 8 Som, and Maria experiences none of the finger dipped in ink rigmarole that I had to endure in Syria!Typical.Whilst catching up on vital web-based issues ie Facebook, we are approached by a local chap touting for tourist business.He speaks impeccable English so Maria spots her chance to get the Russian web text and Skype labels translated.We spend 10 minutes idly chatting before he has to go and meet his German client but arrange to possibly meet up later in the Kontinent, a local shopping mall that he tells us has free wifi.His name is Mr Avazkhon Khaydarov and we only know this because he quickly gets the internet cafe to print a copy of his Uzbek business card in English.

We head on down to the Kontinent where we are pleased to find a tidy little food hall with burgers, pizzas, chicken, a juice bar, cafe and...free wifi.We sit down to munch on our burger meal (11,000 Som) which took a bit of effort to order as we tried to explain that Maria didn't want onion and I didn't want cheese.Pointing at the pictures to make doubly clear which bits we didn't want, we figured it wasn't going so well when the attendant went out back and brought out a jar of Gherkins; the piece of cheese I was pointing at in my picture was in fact a pickle!We were helped out by a language student who spoke good English but spent most of the time conversing in German, his principle subject, and he then loitered for an age, wanting to chat we guess so that he can practice his English.

We spent hours in the food hall, netbook plugged into the power socket, sipping our once hot coffee looking for all the world like our smelly vagrant counterparts in London sheltering from the rain in Starbucks.We don't smell though!Maria sent a text to Avazkhon and before you could flick your wand and say windardium leviosa he arrives and we're all chatting like long lost friends.Before you know it he's telling us about his divorce and that he now has all his family, their family, their family and friends looking for a new suitor.'She has to be pretty and obedient' he tells us, forgetting that obedient is a word that does not exist in Maria's vocabulary.I watch on curiously, wondering if Maria is going to take this poor defenceless soul down the obedient road but before she does I instead offer to find him a wife on Filipinobride.com.He tells us about his nascent travel business, tourism in Uzbekistan, religion etc and we while away another couple of hours talking business before going our separate ways with a promise to catch up at the end of our tour of Uzbekistan.

When we got home Maria had the great of idea of paying only to dry the laundry that was still sopping wet in the bathroom.A quick call to reception confirms the price as 2,000 Som.