Hovli Poyon Bukhara

... said it would not be safe to go over there and look at it. Just after he said that, a private tour screeched to a stop in front of it and two tourists got out and wandered into the caravanserai. Hmmm. We never saw them come out so maybe it wasn&#8217;t safe.<br><br> We stopped in Nurata for lunch and this is in someone&#8217;s back yard basically but they served good food and ...

... the square and see what was up.<br><br> A group of older men got up and came over to some of the tour members and organized a photo shoot of themselves with the Ark entrance in the background. These people love to have their photos taken.<br><br> Gulia gives us the history of the Ark as she guides through the ruined and half restored rooms. In each of them are ladies guarding the treasures which might be ...

... of Uzbekistan, so I have decided to trail-blaze a bit and do something rather radical, and perhaps somewhat blasphemous to a history fiend: I am going to summarize. <br><br>So, in short, the Arab invasion in the 9th century brought Islam to Central Asia. Then that big bully, Jenghis Khan kind of decimated the entire region (okay, that's a seriously abreviated history, but work with me here...). A century later, a ruthless Amir Timur (a.k.a. Tamerlane) rose ...

... so the afternoons are full of students sleeping in the cotton fields, storing up their energy for a night of dancing and drinking vodka in the nearest dance clubs. As for the farmers, it is almost considered a burden, as they can usually harvest as much cotton, if not more, in the time that it takes them to properly instruct and oversee the students.<br><br>Our yurt camp in the desert was 7 km from a small town. To get there, we boarded what was referred to as &#8220;unique ...

... and directed us to a rickety ladder that lead up to the rooftops. With our cameras around our necks and the sun setting we were delighted with his tip. The panoramic views from the roof were breathtaking. We couldn't have found a better spot to admire Bukhara's wonders if we'd tried. <br><br>We caught the very end of the sunset from the rooftop of the fabulous Minzifa restaurant. Minzifa was an absolute gem of place and one of our favourite restaurants on our travels. By day the place ...

... with a beautiful rendition of Sanchez, one of the songs written on the Caspian Sea ferry. <br><br>Uzbekistan! Again a fairly complex procedure to get in, but the big difference is that it is all delivered with a smile and some interest in us and our trip. A few of the customs officers even spoke good English, and we spent some time lamenting the loss of Ronaldo and the dubious ...

... that dominate all other Islamic buildings. <br><br>The Mosque to one side of the Grinder has room for 10,000 people, the other side of the square contains yet another Medrassa, off limits to heathens. <br><br>More Mosques and more minarets, some really nice local people, wallet emptying trips for embroidery and we left for Samarkand, hopefully for a more modern city. The appeal of ancient Islamic cities had firmly run its course for us.

... official corruption in Uzbekistan. It was our first introduction to "bakeesh" or bribes to officials. At the first Bukhara bank we were told that we were not allowed in. &#8220;Why not?&#8221; we asked. It was a very large bank and there were numerous tellers open everywhere. Well, we just couldn&#8217;t. The police were stationed at the entrance of the bank and would not let people in. Well, of course with a little bribe they would... But we resisted and moved on to yet another ...

... strange pale claret coloured pigmy palmate plants tenaciously hung onto the endless flat dry red sands and occasionally donkeys with their foals could been seen along the roadside. On several occasions Naim pulled over to show us some desert life. From numerous tracks we saw it was alive with small reptiles and other animals. <br><br>Lunch was at a small settlement plonked right in the middle of the desert. As we dined on laghman (mutton soup with noodles ...

... i could luxuriate in my solitude. Nic and I used to upgrade to 2 rooms occasionally to stave off the need to garot someone but no such luck since Kashgar. Anyway we arrived here today having slept 4 to a yurt last night and i was praying tthat my name would come out of the proverbial hat for the single room. No such luck!!! There's also an odd number of men so Bex asked which one of us would share with one of the men. It went down like a lead balloon. There are a couple of blokes ...