Our Last Day in Uzbekistan, a Town called Rishton

On our last day in Uzbekistan, I wanted to stop in a town called Rishton. It took us two shared taxis to get there from Kokand. There is a ceramist who lives and works there who happens to be Tatar, and he is famous throughout the region for his work. In fact, while we were there, a man arrived from Russia and bought stacks of large pieces from him to sell back home. When we first walked into his courtyard, there was a massive tour group from England sitting around the table eating lunch. Both Basar and I were starving - our luck in finding a really good proper meal in the last two days had all been but nil. I introduced ourselves to the owner, Roustem, and asked if we could join. He seemed taken aback when I spoke to him in Tatar and told us that we couldn't join this group; that we would have had to reserve a place ahead of time. But then quickly he added that we should join them, his own family, for lunch after this tour group leaves. It turns out that his wife was also Tatar, from the same region that my family is from, and they spoke in the exact same dialect and accent that we do. They had similar stories as well; having been born here to a family who had left Russia during the early 20th century. It was the most amazing lunch we've had, with boiled squash dumplings, mushroom, barley and dill soup, pickled salads and cherry wine. Afterwards, his son Demir, drove us to the local bus station where we caught a taxi to the border town, where we caught another taxi that drove us to the actual border. That evening at 9pm, after three hours of filling out customs forms and lots of questioning, we walked across the pitch dark border into Osh, Kyrgyzstan. 

When we arrived on the other side, the patrol men took one look at our passports and said our visas weren't valid until the following day. We looked at it ourselves, and indeed we had made a mistake; with sweat pouring down our brows, we realized we had crossed the border one day early.....