Salom Inn Bed and Breakfast Bukhara

... older ladies just laughed and dumped more food on our plates. Meanwhile, Michael had been beckoned to the other end of the table and was being more or less doused with vodka. As it turned out, it was the birthday party for an Aunt, and we had unwittingly crashed it. We danced and drank the night away, using sign language and smiling a lot. The family invited us back to their home, but Lynne's husband was back at the hotel, feeling under the weather, so we had ...

... wide person-made reservoir) en route to Samarkand seemed to trigger the ‘beginning of the end’ for me. At some point near the end of the journey, you accept that it is coming to an end, and you start to think of home. Your brain, to prepare for the sudden drop in adrenalin that occurs when a jetliner cruelly spits you out into an airport at home, starts to conjure up sweet thoughts of home, and fantasize about what your first meal at home will be (figs, yoghurt ...

... again the next night for another round of the same.

The next day we decided to head out early to avoid the blazing midday heat and we were off exploring not much after 7am. We found the Bolo-Hauz Mosque with old colorfully painted columns and reflective pool at its entrance. We wandered through little parks dotted with old men sharing their morning stories and meandered through Bukhara's tiny back streets before returning to the hotel. Breakfast at K Komil Guesthouse was a ...

Hi All,

Rode/drove across to Bukhara yesterday from Samarkand. Uneventful trip, very hot here now, in the low forties, Uzbek roads so much better than Tajikistan. There is actually more tarmac than holes - a real change!

Met a huge group of British bikers going the other way on an organized "round the world" trip, traveling across to Vladivostok in Siberia, then ferry to South Korea ...

The boss came round this morning to get some money for our Plov and vodka. 34000 som. Pretty outstandingly expensive compared to the local restaurants. We went for a wander around town to look at the sights and it is pretty cool. There are a few westerners around, but the town doesn't seemed to have changed much in the face of increasing tourism. The key sight was the Kalon ...

Even leaving Turkmenistan has turned out to be a massive hassle – countless forms, signatures, interrogations, officials, declarations, offices, inspections and confusion – just to leave the country. They clearly didn't want us to get in the first place, so why are they so reluctant to leave. In fact, I'm not sure we'd have been allowed to leave at all if Chris hadn't wooed the ...

... and another. Later that evening while talking with other hotel guests, we were told that it is not uncommon for locals to have to try ten or so different banks before they would be allowed entry. The young local people were openly disgusted with the practice.

Similarly, bakeesh is a common practice with the police. There are frequent road blocks throughout Uzbekistan. While we had no problems thanks to Naim calling out “tourists!” at every point we were told over ...

... and with glowing red faces and increasing loud voices were with great gusto into the third. Perhaps that is what we should have done.

Nearer to Bukhara we passed through farming areas, mostly cotton but we also saw fields of what looked like wheat and barley. The more extensive farms were using tractors and mechanised harvesters but there were still many donkey carts and hand weeding and hand harvesting of crops. Naim drove up to a young boy driving a ...

From Bukhara to Khiva

Leaving Bukhara we travel through an area of fields, surprising since Bukhara is surrounded by desert and many of the historic buildings have been dug out of the accumulated sand deposits over the years. The fiels are in cultivation for the production of cotton, and are irrigated with water taken from the Amu Darya, the Oxus of ancient history, so much so that the river is now little more than a stream, a distant memory of its former size ...

Ok, I think I'm going to start this entry in bullet form, since it has been intimidating me and I need to get it written in some form. Maybe it will evolve into something more coherent as I go on. Let's see... - Went with Karen and Anna to the Places Where the Cars Leave for Bukhara near the Samarkand TsUM (Soviet Central Department Store that has evolved slightly to keep up with the post-Soviet times... I think there's a TsUM and a GUM [GUM is roughly the same ...