The Language We All Speak

The Language We All Speak

With the aftertaste of Indian spices still lingering, I arrived in my next country:

Uzbekistan.

The capital, Tashkent, has a name that sounds strangely similar to my full name.

I still remember being in junior high school, randomly finding Tashkent in an atlas and feeling some weird connection to it.

I had absolutely no reason to.

It was just a name on a map.

And somehow, years later, I was actually there.

Life is funny sometimes.

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My first impression of Tashkent was simple:

It’s incredibly clean.

The roads are wide. The sidewalks are wide. It’s easy to walk around. There isn’t much noise, and compared with some of the places I had just traveled through, the whole city felt surprisingly calm.

The people felt calm too.

Not unfriendly. Not cold.

Just… quiet.

The only thing that was hard to ignore was the temperature.

Around 40°C during the day.

After growing up with Japanese summers and then traveling through Southeast Asia and India, I thought the low humidity might make it pretty manageable.

And yeah, it was definitely easier than humid heat.

But at the hottest time of day?

Thirty minutes outside was enough.

So my days often became a cycle of disappearing into air-conditioned places and coming back to life again in the evening.

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From Tashkent, I took the train to Samarkand.

Samarkand is one of Uzbekistan’s great historic cities, once sitting at the crossroads of trade and culture along the Silk Road.

Walking around, you suddenly come across these enormous, beautiful pieces of Islamic architecture.

Then you walk a little farther, turn down a side street, and there’s just normal life.

People going home.

Kids outside.

Someone doing their shopping.

Laundry hanging somewhere.

History and everyday life existing right next to each other.

I really liked that.

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Then I continued farther west to Bukhara.

Another historic city, but to me, it somehow felt a little more lived-in than Samarkand.

And this is where the real story begins.

On my first day there, I realized I was running out of cash.

I needed an ATM.

The problem?

The nearest one I could use was about a 30 – 40 minute walk away.

And it was still very, very hot.

So I grabbed a 1.5-liter bottle of water – which basically turned into warm water almost immediately – and started walking.

I got the cash.

Mission accomplished.

Except now I was far away from the main sightseeing area, standing in the heat and wondering:

Okay… what now?

I started running through different options in my head.

But the dry heat felt like I was wandering through a desert, and slowly the weather started making the decision for me.

I needed somewhere cool.

One of my usual travel strategies in situations like this is to find a shopping mall or somewhere similar, sit in the air conditioning for a while, and figure out the next move.

But there was nothing like that nearby.

So I started looking for a café.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

Then I found one.

A small café a little farther down the road.

At that point, I had only one requirement:

Please have air conditioning.

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It was a tiny but clean place on the side of the road, with big glass windows.

I looked inside.

No customers.

Just one guy who seemed to be working there.

Perfect.

I went in, asked him what he recommended, ordered something, and sat down at one of maybe three tables.

Then my iced latte arrived.

I took one sip.

And thought:

So this is what an oasis feels like.

For a brief moment, I felt like I finally understood those travelers crossing the desert in old stories.

Maybe slightly dramatic.

But only slightly.

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While I was enjoying my little one-man desert survival story, the owner came over and asked:

“How’s the coffee?”

I told him it was really good.

We started talking.

His name was Sadri.

He only spoke a little English, so pretty quickly, the translation app came out.

And then we just kept going.

He seemed genuinely interested in Japan.

He was curious too – the kind of person who asks questions that make you realize you actually need to look up the answer yourself.

Little by little, through a mix of English, translation apps, gestures, facial expressions, and whatever else we could use, I felt the distance between us getting smaller.

There was something calm and sincere about him that I liked.

And then other customers started coming in.

Watching the way he treated every single person – with patience, respect, and this almost humble politeness – I remember thinking:

I like this guy.

Not because we could talk easily.

We couldn’t.

But just as a person.

Something felt comfortable.

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On this trip, I’ve been carrying a calligraphy brush my grandmother gave me.

Whenever someone shows me real kindness, or I have an encounter that stays with me, I sometimes use that brush to write them a small message of thanks.

It’s become one of my little traditions on this journey.

And I knew I wanted to write something for Sadri.

So I decided I’d come back the next day.

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The following evening, I returned to my little “oasis” – Elak Coffee.

The day before, I had noticed a lot of people ordering the same drink, so this time I tried it too:

Uzbek-style mojito.

After walking around in the heat, that first hit of mint and lime seemed to run through my entire body.

One sip.

Sold.

I gave Sadri the message I had written for him, and we talked for a while.

Then another man in the café, who told me he was a schoolteacher, joined the conversation.

He started recommending places I should visit in Bukhara and restaurants I should try.

A little later, Sadri’s brother arrived.

And then somehow…

Sadri left the café in his brother’s hands and personally took me to one of the places the teacher had recommended – a sacred site sometimes known as the “City of the Dead.”

After that, he took me to a restaurant.

And then treated me to some of the best lamb barbecue I had ever eaten.

Later, one of his friends joined us too.

And eventually, we all ended up back at the café.

Of course, there was one final coffee.

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That whole day, I kept thinking about something.

Good people seem to attract good people.

One person introduced me to another.

Then another.

A random café I had entered simply because I was hot and tired somehow turned into an entire evening with people I had never known existed the day before.

No plan.

No tour.

No reservation.

I just needed an ATM.

Then I needed air conditioning.

And somehow, that led to one of the memories I’ll keep from this trip for a very long time.

Funny how travel works.

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Sadri taught me something without really teaching it to me.

We didn’t share a fluent language.

Most of our conversations needed a phone between us.

There were plenty of things we couldn’t say perfectly.

But somehow, that didn’t matter very much.

If you genuinely want to know someone –

if you want to understand them,

if you want to show respect,

if you want to say thank you –

you usually find a way.

Maybe words are only one part of communication.

Curiosity.

Kindness.

Respect.

Gratitude.

A smile.

The feeling that the person in front of you actually wants to know who you are.

Maybe those are languages too.

Languages we already know before we learn how to speak.

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Every time I have an encounter like this, I feel a little happy.

Because now I have another reason to come back.

Before, Bukhara was a place on my route.

Now there are people there I’d like to see again.

And maybe that’s one of the things I’m slowly learning on this journey.

Sometimes a place becomes special because of what you see there.

Sometimes because of what happens there.

And sometimes…

the people you meet become the destination.