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Taxi to Tashkent: Two Years with the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan
Average Customer Rating: 
List Price:
$23.95
Asia Trips Trips Price:
$21.55
Your Savings: $ 2.40 ( 10% )
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780595429974
ISBN: 0595429971
Label: iUniverse, Inc.
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 356
Publication Date: 2007-08-30
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Release Date: 2007-08-30
Studio: iUniverse, Inc.
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Editorial Reviews:
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This is a police state This is a democracy This is rot-gut vodka This is $2 prostitutes This is Peace Corps This is good intentions This is Ramadan This is loyalty This is power outages This is corruption This is the Silk Route This is the former USSR This is Uzbekistan Tom Fleming went to Uzbekistan as a forty year old Peace Corps volunteer. He was a fish out of water, an infidel in a Muslim land, teaching AIDS prevention and sex education in the most conservative region of Central Asia. With humor and poignancy Taxi to Tashkent portrays a land little known in the West. Instead of a nation rife with Islamic extremists as portrayed in the Western media, Fleming discovers a land of Korean discos, where blue eyed Muslims listen to Shania Twain, and where shop owners break into applause at the mention of America. Fleming travels throughout Uzbekistan, from the ecological disaster site of the Aral Sea, to the ancient Silk Route cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Taxi to Tashkent describes a little-known corner of the world where nothing appears as it seems.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down
Comment: I have known Tom for many years. I followed his adventures on his blog while he was there in Uzbekistan. The book really made clear a lot more of what was going on. There were a number of things he just simply couldn't cover on his blog for fear of pissing someone off. In Uzbekistan, you don't want to piss off the wrong people.
The book is written in a great narrative style. As if we were sitting over a few beers (maybe Vodka would be more appropriate) at a local bar and someone was telling me this. A very easy to follow and engaging style.
It took me just over a day to read. I really didn't want to put it down.
The down side: Too short. I'd have liked a bit more expansion on some of the narratives; maybe I'll get it a bit more on the 2nd read through.
I got a definite idea of what it would be like to be dropped in to this country and told 'get on with it'. So different, so alien and somewhat oddly peaceful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Yakshee!
Comment: As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan myself, I have more than a passing interest in the subject matter of Taxi to Tashkent. However, I think this book would appeal to a wide audience. For one thing, it's a very entertaining way to learn about an area of the world that most of us know very little about. It's also a well-written memoir of what it was like to serve in the Peace Corps in part of the former Soviet Union.
Customer Rating:
Summary: well written and interesting
Comment: Being someone who has not traveled much, but who is interested in knowing about other cultures and parts of the world, I found this book to be an interesting first-hand account of the author's experience. He describes the surroundings and the culture very well from his perspective as an American. I enjoyed meeting the people he met through his descriptions and experiencing something of what it was like to be in the Peace Corps for two years. Well written and enjoyable to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Is this a midlife crisis?
Comment: "Taxi to Tashkent" dovetails over two growing genres of writing: Central Asian studies and Peace Corps memoirs. Harboring vast potential for interest, both genres are fast becoming cliche, even while not yet reaching greater audiences. Such is the fate of niche writing. But here, Fleming offers hope.
In general, books coming out of Central Asia are either chock-full of the same regurgitated travelogues (Silk Road, Great Game, KGB, Taliban) with which one quickly grows familiar. Or, they offer contemporary observations of a troubled region with much to tempt the foreign investor into dreaming and much to dissuade the international corporation from acting. In other words, everyone wills himself a TH Lawrence. Fleming doesn't waste our time with any such pontification.
Equally monotonous is the ever-expanding library of the returned volunteer memoir, in which we witness as a young idealist slowly learns what 'dirty' means while playing catch with village children. These are just modern spins on "Innocents Abroad". Fleming also spares us from such repetition.
In "Taxi", we meet a volunteer who finds much to report around him, while resisting the temptation to evaluate his observations for us. Fleming doesn't feel the need to explain it all; he's comfortable with the ambiguity of the surroundings. The reader will feel the same humorous, depressing and frustrating reactions to life-as-fish-out-of-water as do many individuals who have experienced life as an outsider. Further, Fleming doesn't fit in with the average age demographics of volunteers (fresh out of college or retired), so he's somewhat isolated even among his familiars.
Don't worry; you'll still gaze at Tamurlane's crumbling azure domes and the shrunken Aral Sea. But your usual choice of arrogant or naive company will have been replaced by a Toastmaster. It's like riding around with Stephen Colbert out of character. If you want a shelf reference, keep buying Central Asian studies. If you want neo-Victorian missionary diaries, check out yet another returned volunteer memoir. However, if you want hilarious and thoughtful reportage brought raw and unfiltered from two years of awkward situations (a much more honest account of life since globalization), grab "Taxi to Tashkent".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Eyewitness to History
Comment: Taxi to Tashkent is a terrific eye-witness account of a Central Asian country. More than a introduction to the food, customs and daily life in this blue-eyed Muslim country, Fleming shows with honesty and humor the challenges of living as a fish out of water. Not only does he give a genuine account of his host country, but is honest about the challenges of being a Peace Corps volunteer. This is a must read for anyone with romantic notions of travel.
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