Wild tulip hunt

Both the tulips and the hunt were wild!

In our guidebook I had read that there are fields of wild tulips in the Chimgan Mountains. Tulips originally growing in Turkey (and Iran, Jordan, and imagineably also here) have only been exploited by the Dutch. Last week, when we were in Chimgan,  indeed along the road youngsters were selling tulips that seemed torn from the earth, and already wilting in the warm sun. Then, they couldn’t tell us where to look.

Luckily, upon my request, my Uzbek teacher Muqaddis organized a family outing. The deal being that we paid for his efforts and the transport by minibus (the driver happened to be a student

in irrigation) and that his family would come along, and would prepare Plov (like Pilav) , the national dish, and ...that he would help us find the tulips.

It was lovely weather and in a week’ s time the hills had turned all shades of green, lovely.

We stopped at a roadside honey seller, who was looking rather vagabond, living in an old  trailer that wouldn’t have misstood at the north-eastern shore of Hawaii; the guy had a leathery face from the sun and from living outside and bore alcohol on his breath. We had tea there (chai or choi as they call it there) from the only two cups available, with honey! Made in a real samovar.  Lesson learned: to rekindle your samovar, take off the chimney pipe, put a rubber boot over the outlet and pump it up and down so that it functions as a billows, ash blows out at the lower end, your coal start glowing and within no time there is fresh tea.

We started out on a grassy hill that reminded me of " the sound of music" , the location where they start learning the do-re mi. families picknicking under a tree, and children trying their kites.

But soon we came to a steep edge and yes, the tulips were visible deep down the gulley’s.

We made a move around, but it remained steep and slippery in the heavy red clay.

Sweating in the strong sunshine and diving under thorn bushes we managed to get there and discovered at least 6 different types of tulips and some other interesting species.

After 1,5 hour we were back and the plov was ready! We had a real Sunday lunch on a picknick cloth under a big tree, the way it should be! (and we had brought a 1 liter bottle of beer).

Continued on a winding road to the chair lift (especially for the 12 and 21 year olds) and made the obligatory pictures. On the way back the lake showed itself quite differently from last week, with a clear sky and reflections. Then to the tea house (with the clean toilet!), all very relaxed.

Home at 8:30 pm, but the 9-11 supermarket on the corner sold some still warm French bread, so with a glass of good local red wine and some real Dutch Emmentaler cheese J we relaxed at the end of a great day.