Domina President Palace Samarkand

... it IS a different region!!! Local police will come and investigate, I will be examined by experts. All the statements will be taken again. I will sign my life away again. You would think I had been shot!!! I say I had an accident - vaguely. This is not totally altruistic. I really don't want to spend perhaps months waiting for a prosecutor and judge to decide on a trial. I am again discharged.
We return to Rustam's ...

... but as snow then blocked the passes to the village he was buried in the mausoleum he had built for his descendants instead. Timur's remains lay undisturbed for over 500 years until his crypt was opened in 1941. According to the local guides an inscription was found on his tomb that read “Whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I” - this happened on the 21st of June, the day before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

The tiled ...

... the unmentionables with such startling speed and ferocity that I had to make a dash for the nearest hotel. What happened next is best not published, needless to say it was not pretty – matters were made worse by somehow managing to lock myself in the smallest cubicle of all time.

I should point out at this point that I'm not the only one suffering, the toilets of Central Asia are taking quite a battering from Dave and Damien also as our stomachs struggle to adjust....

... culture so sophisticated in music and mathematics and many other fields including medicine, did not mange to make it into the 20th century as world dominating culture I just do not know. A worthwhile research topic when we return to somewhere for a while.

The last stop for the day was Timurs Tomb. He died on his way to a battle and was returned to Samarkand. His original modest tomb was not used and he was moved into the Guri Amir mausoleum, originally built ...

... out and we bought a beautiful suzani, or embroidery. The women market sellers wore brightly coloured long loose fitting gowns, some with head scarves but no-one seemed to be very much covered up and bare arms were very common. Similarly, men wore short sleeved shirts or t-shirts over trousers or jeans, some with traditional pointed caps. It all looked very casual.

Interestingly, we found that many of the local tourists did not bother to cover their heads when entering mosques ...

... in days and thoroughly enjoyed a meal at the lovely restaurant Staraya Arba. The next night we tried Platan and the following night the Venezia. We agree that the first and last restaurants were our favourite places to eat, with great atmosphere and fine food.

We understood that it is difficult to negotiate a taxi in Uzbekistan so we opted to walk there and back to these restaurants. After, we had been walking all day and another four or five ...

... So I guess my tent was a nice place to hide their dung balls!! Trina woke up in the morning to find a small scorpion under her tent...mmm DAY 90 "More desert and headwinds... (129.5km) The whole day long we had headwinds, it was not fair and made you go so slowly... The terrain today was sandy with dunes everywhere and the occasional hill. Tough going, also for the mind as all you could see was one road and desert all around you. Not sure if I could do this kind ...

... en transport urba col lectiu) ens apropa al Magasin Dustlick, miscel lanics baixos comercials d un dels centenars de bloquets sovietics de l extraradi de Samarcanda; un colomar i una adrogueria entre d altres. Rebotem per uns quants veins comunicatius que es relleven per saber de nosaltres, fins que, exercint discretament la seva autoritat, ens guanya l aksakal de la mahalla, que ens convida a dinar. Les Mahalles son ...

... dot the interiors of mausoleums, madrasahs & mosques across the country. To understand why in the olden times this place was considered to be the centre of Asian trade, one needs to just visit the Chorsu market. I am blown over by a floor overflowing with dryfruits of all kinds - almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, dates, apricots, melon seeds, figs, raisins... unbelievable. Now we head to Samarkand towards the south, four hours drive from Tashkent.

... At the bus stop in Bukhara, I met Claudia and we started to travel together to Samarkand (we paid 7000 sum for a hot bus ride without air conditioning). Samarkand Samarkand is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, prospering from its location on the trade route between China and Europe (Silk Road). At times Samarkand has been one of the greatest cities of Central Asia. It even was capital of Uzbekistan for a short while until Tashkent took ...