Product Description

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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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #626688 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 356 pages

About the Author
Tom Fleming grew up in Salinas, California, and attended California State University, Fresno, where he received a BA degree in journalism. Fleming has lived in Los Angeles, London, St. Petersburg, Russia, and currently resides in Austin, Texas. Taxi to Tashkent is his first book.

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Customer Reviews

well written and interesting
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.

Is this a midlife crisis?
"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".

Eyewitness to History
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.