Emir Hotel Bukhara

... turquoise domes, leaning minarets and hallowed halls of medieval medrassahs, mausoleums and mosques. This is where the magic and mystique of the Silk Road truly comes alive.

Being at a loss for words, I might better use this time to give you a bit of history on Samarqand. One thing that all tour guides in this region could learn is to precis. I have stood in the hot Central Asian sun for a few too many hours listening to some very long winded ...

... it still invites the weary traveller to find some space on a tapchan, in the shade of a 500 year old mulberry tree, and sip green tea at one of it’s many chaikhanas (tea houses), as it probably has for centuries. I have to say, I had the most devine roasted aubergine salad I have ever eaten (and I supposedly hate aubergine) sitting at one such chaikhana at the Lyabi Hauz.

Bukhara was once covered with over 120 such pools, but many of them were destroyed in 1920 ...

... the ghanch-work, which was popular in Uzbekistan during that era. Ghanch-work is carved and painted plaster – it forms small little alcoves in the walls that fall like waterfalls from above. Often the little alcoves are filled with small collections of antique knick-knacks.

We started our tour of Bukhara at the Lyabi Hauz, where a small collection of outdoor restaurants were nestled around a hauz (a man-made decorative pool). One hundred years ago Bukhara had over 200 of ...

... a flight to the USA. They looked like they were having a great time but I'm not sure that I would want to be shepherded around to the extent these guys were - they were given details of exactly where to go each day and traveling in such a large group can also be a pain. Better to just wing-it I think!

Bukhara looks an interesting city, another of the ancient Silk Road cities with plenty of ...

... magnificent 47 meters high Kalon Minaret, the covered bazaars and numerous medressas, mosques, mausoleums and museums. Needless to say, we did not avoid visiting the horrendous former jail – now a museum - with its depressing range of torture chambers and dungeons.

Our day finished with a long walk along the back lanes of Bukhara in the shadows of the afternoon to Chor-minor, a quaint small medressa dominated by four minarets that was constructed in 1806-07 by the order ...

... de petites remuntes i cases que cauen; cases caigudes, cases que creixen i que es vesteixen, piles de grava i ombres precises molt retallades son els grans edificis collectius. Geometries rectangulars que clouen un mon en ordre; demostracions de control compositiu, de simetries manifestes i jerarquies, i series i successions, i matrius i centres i cantonades. Mesquites, madrasses i karavanserais es reparteixen la gestio de l ordre projectat ...

... Grand Nodirbek Hotel. They provided me with everything like guided tours to uzbekistan's historical cities samarkand, bukhara, khiva and others...and for the first time i was on the camel. i travelled to bukhara, samarkand for a week. and my boss called me to go back. The hotel located in the old part of Bukhara. i found it's website on google, but i realized that it's hosting was on russian domain ...

UZBEKISTAN Uzbekistan is another country we knew little about. By the start of the 19th century the entire region was dominated by three weak, feuding Uzbek city-states - Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand. Later in the century all the khanates had fallen to the Russians. Russian domination continued until independence in 1991, with Islam Karimov elected as its leader. However parties with ...

So far, little has been said about the amazing "sights" we've seen along the way. With two days each in Samarkand and Bukhara now, we've rumbled through some of the world's most historically, architecturally and archeologically significant places.  The places of the silk road. It's all been a bit overwhelming. For starters, here's a nerdy editorial note for context: we in the States typically view history behind a glass case of some sort. Seeing anything of significance often requires ...

... our stamina for the 24 hr rides we are planning in Western China. The other three spent most of the ride watching "The Saint" on Josh's spiffy portable DVD player, Kate leaning forward to watch between the crack in Scott and Josh's seats in front of us, and three of them wired in with three pairs of headphones. I'm not so good with the movie trivia, but I think this one took place in Moscow, hence the interest in watching it so soon after our time ...