It has been three days that i've been feeling a dull and persisten though often bearable stomach pain. Bizarrely I have't had a fever and have been functioning perfectly normally but it was getting ridiculous and showing no signs to going away. The medicine I had bought rather blindly at the Pharmacist was no help either. Still I had organised a short meeting with Zoya from Mercy Corps in order to set up some project visits in the Ferghana valley. And she has now organised an amazing series of visits starting on Monday, all I need to do is to get better!

From here I took a taxi to my next meeting with Marat who works for and set up the Silk Press in Tashkent, whicð was one of the first free press magazines since independence (though actually registered in Moscow). This travel magazine has been a real success story and the company is growing as Central Asia is coming out of the dark age percieved in the West.

Marat proved a most valuable source of information and also gave me a reason for why I was not allowed to visit the region near Termiz. Part of it is its proximity to the Afghan border but the other half is due to the military activity occuring down there. The Russians and German allies presently occupy the territory, but after September 11th the Americans used it as a base for excursions to Afghanistan. It has, for a long time, been restricted. The Uzbeks initially welcomeâ the US presence, feeling that they might leave behind them a positive effect on the infrastructure and would help the local community. But ultimately the Americans preferred to import all their materials and foods from America and companies like Haliburton. Soon the initial warm welcome turned sour and the locals realised that the only people gaining in Uzbekistan were the corrupt government officials. Indeed even now the government have forced the US army to leave seeing that it's alliance with America was not proving the results that it had hoped. The Great Game is back in the region in earnest and one wonders how long it will be until the Chinese move in.

I returned to the office to meet a formidable Swiss woman, Andrea, who is helping the tourist industry realise its potential as well as working with Silk Press and a series of other handicraft organisation. She explains the current yet rather naive mentality to tourism and the things that she is trying to do to change that. She takes me ot one of the crafts houses promoting Uzbek crafts and organises a meeting for tomorrow to see a new and exciting project that she's involved with.

I was due to meet with another guy, Donyol, who works with the Uzbekistan history museums, but by 4.30pm my stomach is really beginning to hurt. I had to cancel my meeting and rushed to the American Medical Clinic where even if the cost of treatment was high, they might understand me. They saw me straight away, but my case rather baffled them. A very efficious and rather patronising Dr Jan dahsed me around various rooms taking X-rays and blood tests to see what on earth might be wrong. It seemed not a lot other than a mild elevation of my white blood cells, so she gave me a whole load of medicines and told me to see how I felt in the morning. I took them and returned ot the guesthouse exhausted.