Salom Inn Bed and Breakfast Bukhara

... to see that these camel drovers were the first men I have ever seen have a genuine bond with their animals. As we are walking and the drover is leading two camels, he is constantly scratching their ears and rubbing their necks and the camels are leaning into to get the attention. That was cool.<br><br> Temperature is dropping when we get back and soon it&#8217;s time for ...

... She is just stunning in her white gown. As she gets close to us, she suddenly bends at the waist and I thought, OH MY GOSH, she&#8217;s going to pass out! It was rather warm and she looked tightly corseted into that dress. But rather than passing out, she was bowing to us. For some reason, she has to recognize that we are there. She bowed three times and then they went on into the palace. We ran into ...

Inevitably at some point on every part of the journey, language fails me. In fact, I could spend the next decade searching the English language for enough superlatives to be able to give Samarqand it's due praise, and I would still come up short. Words like 'magnificent', 'awesome' and 'spectacular' sound so trite and cliche at the footsteps of the domes and facades that ornament this ancient city. I don't even know how to describe the exquisite beauty of it's ...

Bukhara, another stop along the Silk Road, is famous for its many medrassahs and pools. The centre of old Bukhara is the Lyabi Hauz, roughly translated to 'round the pool' or &#8216;banks of the pool&#8217;. Although much more commercialized than I expected (it&#8217;s chock-full of vendors selling tourist trinkets, as well as some life-sized camel statues strategically located for tourist pictures in place of the old men who proportedly played chess and drank tea for ...

... of the day and the minute we stepped out of the taxi we were encapsulated by an envelope of warm air. We were later told it was 43 degrees in the shade, which made the temperature in the sun sweltering. We disappeared off from the main square into a myriad of back alleys and mudbrick houses and eventually arrived at K Komil Guesthouse. This was a pleasant 19th century house with two stories of rooms perched around a small courtyard. Our room had some ornate historical features ...

Hi All,<br><br>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!<br><br>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 ...

... a rich Turkmenian merchant from Bukhara. There we sat absorbing the atmosphere and listening to the low tones of Behruz explaining in intricate detail the history and architecture of this site. <br><br>Thankfully I was starting to feel human and on Behruz&#8217; advice we decided to buy some Emir&#8217;s bread and tomatoes for our evening meal. Together with our trusty Viola cheese, this sort of dinner was to become common for us with our Bukhara Belly hanging on for the duration of our travels.

From Bukhara to Khiva<br><br>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 ...