This is a police stateThis is a democracyThis is rot-gut vodkaThis is $2 prostitutesThis is Peace CorpsThis is good intentionsThis is RamadanThis is loyaltyThis is power outagesThis is corruptionThis is the Silk RouteThis is the former USSRThis is UzbekistanTom 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.