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When I was little I would flick through travel magazines, captivated by the rich colours. I would say to Mum: “what is that country like, have you been there?” and more often than not she would reply yes. I would sit opposite her, listening to every word of every story, in awe of her ability to recount all the little details about the countries she had been to. When Scouts put out an application for an expedition to Uzbekistan, my curiosity was piqued, those far off and forgotten places from the magazines flickering before me like a mirage. I remember going home and teenage, excited me, ran up to Mum and told her all about this amazing opportunity. Mum, to my dismay had her qualms, obviously aware that it was in a “dangerous” part of the world and somewhere where she had never been. After many talks, training camps and setting tents on fire, two and a half years later I stepped off the plane in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. When anyone asks me, what do you remember most about the trip? I always reply with how we managed to fit ten Explorer and Network Scouts into a van no larger than a Volkswagen Camper. We had to have another van completely separate for our kit, and miraculously when halfway up a long winding road in the Chimgan Mountain Range, the van with our kit broke down. It was the Uzbeks who we were working in tandem with that managed to fix the van with a bit of cardboard. We then realised quite how practical the Uzbeks are, a makeshift roadside garage was all that they needed. The mountains were spectacular too, a truly forgotten part of the world. You would wake up in the middle of the night in your tent to the noise of goat bells tingling. I would laugh and tell my teammates that it’s the song of the Uzbek nights. Fast forward ten hiking days later and fourteen exhausted Scouts more, we all hopped on board a rickety overnight train that swept us through the Uzbek countryside towards Bukhara. It must have been early morning, when we were woken with a glass of hot coffee and a sunrise over the fields. I greeted my cabin crew with a good morning, the pungent smell of coffee mixed with sweaty socks is something that I will never quite forget. Bukhara was my first taste of traditional, off the beaten track Uzbekistan. Camels with technicolour blankets astride their humps, cheerful old men selling you hand painted plates and tea sets. You would walk into a restaurant and you wouldn’t be able to identify the meat served to you. You would take a traditional “obi-non” loaf, break off a chunk and eat it with tomatoes, onions and cucumber salsa, something served with every meal. You could look anywhere, and see deep blue domes, Arabic scrawled across the necropolises, mixed with red hues and vibrant yellows. It was like the colours from the magazines that I used to read had jumped off the page and come to life right before me. The beautiful city of Samarkand bustles at night. These women dressed from head to toe would come dancing out of nowhere pirouetting across your path and disappearing into the crowds of Uzbeks. One of my fondest memories was joining up with a few of my friends who had befriended some of local Uzbek youth, and in the middle of the town square, outside this mausoleum, we sung karaoke. By the end of the night they had learned the Cha Cha Slide, and the lyrics to the A Team by Ed Sheeran. Looking back on it, whenever someone asks me, where is the most inspiring place you’ve been? I always say, this country in the middle of Asia which hardly anyone knows about. I say it’s Uzbekistan and they look utterly confused. And that’s completely okay as Uzbekistan is one of those places where it’s completely unspoiled by the tourism trade, and that is what makes it so unique, so bewitching and a country that stays with you for a lifetime.