Adventures in Asia: Moynaq, Uzbekistan

After our stop at the Mizdakhan Necropolis and a rest stop at Kungrad, we arrived at Moynaq just before noon. 

Until the 1960s Moynaq was a fishing town, but as the Aral Sea retreated that industry died and literally left fishing vessels high and dry. Some of these have a second life now as a morbid tourist attraction in the "ships graveyard." 

In fact, with the rusted out boats and a little museum, many of the Aral Sea tours simple come here and no further. The photo below was our view when the SUV dropped us off. At this point I am already on what would have been the seabed, but you can see that this is all desert now (although, I did find numerous sea shells in the sand).

We clambered around here for about half an hour. It is all quite interesting both to see in person and to photograph, or at least I thought so.

Up on "shore" above the ships graveyard is the museum. There is also a platform up here to look out over the former Aral Sea. It is an odd feeling to imagine this as sea instead of desert.

The museum is kind of a sad place, to be honest, but all part of the experience. There are some outdoor exhibits . . .

. . . and then a small indoors with some artifacts and photos and such.

I thought this photo below gave a good feeling for how much things have changed in 60-70 years. 

After the museum tour we headed across town to a local lady's house, and she serves lunch to tour groups in her home. There were maybe a dozen tourists total around a table, and we ate numerous courses of salad, soup, dumplings, and chicken and rice. It was quite the meal, very good, and felt like a nearly-authentic experience. In a town where the dining options are surely very limited, I thought this was a great feature of the tour; in my head, I was paying to see the Aral Sea, so a homecooked meal in a local lady's home was a nice bonus!