Malika Samarkand

... that are there.<br><br>There are minarets on the corners of the Ulug Bek Madrassah that all seem to lean and they do a bit so that if there is an earthquake, they will not fall on the Madrassah but will fall away. However it seemed to me that they leaned in and would definitely fall on the school but I am not an engineer. One of the minarets is available to climb, for a bribe to the policeman. Marat had told us ...

... So we got kilims as well. And something that I forget what they were called but had rug bits, embroidery bits and weavings all together. They were all quite expensive so we eliminated them rather quickly. We went back and forth between the two rooms. Abdullah threw out the first rugs and carpets then went off to other business and we were left with a young girl who threw out some and then also with a ...

... we had walked through some doors that said in Arabic, something like all believers are welcome in paradise. Nice thought. The door was made of carved wood and had also had ivory on it at one point but now the ivory was gone. That thief will not be getting into paradise.<br><br> There is a small back room behind the mosque in this building and there are tiles around the ceiling but painted walls which have mainly been ...

... 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 &#8220;Whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I&#8221; - this happened on the 21st of June, the day before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.<br><br>The tiled ...

... Holland, Belgium, UK and even El Salvador. (she was really lovely!!).<br><br>On to Bukhara tomorrow!<br><br>Cheers, Rick<br><br>Hi Pete here - Yes, the Hotel Antica in Samarqand is a lovely green oasis where we can hide from the 40 degree heat of the day. It was an extremely hot ride to the hotel and I was most happy to find working showers in our rooms - a rare commodity over the past weeks!<br><br>On our way to Samarqand, Rick and I got ...

... don&#8217;t need no stinking budget. It&#8217;s funny even though the prices are low, you still get annoyed at paying three times street prices for beer in restaurants. The local approach here is to add on lots of extras to the bills so it pays to check carefully. Fiona the accountant writes down what we have in her trusty notebook so we can get the bill kind of close to what we have. The difference is only a few dollars but bit gets annoying. Still that&#8217;s ...

... was a brilliant astronomer, mathematician and general scholar, and probably best known for the latter skills. <br><br>Our first visit on our tour was to the ancient remains of Afrosiab where we visited the excellent Afrosiab Museum and the remains of Ulugbek&#8217;s Observatory. The observatory was extraordinary. Built in the 1520&#8217;s it was the largest observatory in the east and was designed to observe the star positions. All that remains now is the bottom section of the huge ...

... or so would do us no harm. What we didn&#8217;t realise was that electricity is rationed at night time as so there are no street lights. And as no-one eats until at least 9.00 pm in summer, we faced long and very dark walks home along the tree lined footpaths flanking the large Samarkand parks. While we encountered no problems at all, it was very threatening to be walking alone in such dark and lonely areas. And it was probably pretty stupid to do so too.

... Before going to our hotel we stop for dinner, as it's getting late, at a traditional Uzbek restaurant, a largish building with a central courtyard, downstairs there are a number of seperate dining room of different sizes for private parties, while upstairs is a more open arrangement with low divans and carpets everywhere, the side facing the courtyard being open, all in all a most relaxing environment. After dinner it's on to our hotel for the night.