Advertisement
Published: December 18th 2012
If only the bike would run on watermelons!!
Watermelons are not necessarily the first thing you thing of when Uzbekistan is mentioned but they are everywhere. Every road is lined with stalls selling them, every vehicle we pass is crammed full of them - I never knew there were so many watermelons in the world. What isn't everywhere is petrol. You have to check out at least 6 petrol stations before you find one actually selling petrol. Most of the local cars run on gas which makes for some very weird looking gas station with big blast barriers between all the pumps. The trick in towns is to loiter with intent in the first petrol station and wait for a local car to turn up, you then stick to it as it drives round town trying all the other petrol stations – at least they know where they are going and its much easier than trying to ask directions. Also they seemed to find it quite amusing that they helped us find petrol.
We're headed to Samarkand. The map shows a nice straight motorway heading south-west from Tashkent direct to Samarkand. And its true it does, its just that
the middle 13km go through Kazakhstan. Not a problem in Soviet times when borders didn't matter but now we have to take a 60 mile detour round the edge of Kazakhstan.
Detour completed we enter Samarkand on the high road which gives us an amazing view of the city. Laid out before us are all the mesmerising tiled buildings & domes of Timur's Silk Road capital. Its a great way to enter the city and instantly brings back lots of memories of our last visit.
Having explored just about every tiled edifice last time we were in Samarkand this time we're off to delve deeper into the past and discover the original 5
th century BC city of Markanda. The cosmopolitan, walled, hilltop capital of the Sogdian empire, captured by Alexander the Great (329BC) who described it as “more beautiful than I ever imagined”. It remained a great Silk Road city until destroyed by Genghis Kahn in 1221. Now its mostly a pile of rubble but walking along the original cobbled streets really gets the imagination going – Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan may once have walked here too!! Inside the little museum are some beautiful finds from
the ancient city. The highlight are the 7
th century frescos from King Varkhouman's palace depicting hunting scenes, a bridal procession and visiting foreign dignitaries: silk bearing Chinese, long haired Turks, Pamiri nomads & pigtailed Koreans.
You can't be in Samarkand without going to see at least 1 ornately tiled Silk Road building so we drop in at Ulugh Beg's observatory. Grandson of Timur and inheritor of his empire Ulugh Beg was more famous as a scholar and mathematician than as a ruler. He built 3 famous madrasas (universities) in Samarkand, Bukhara & Gijduvan transforming the cities into cultural centers of learning for Central Asia. His observatory was one of the finest in the world at the time (1424) – from here they determined the length of the year to within 25 seconds, drew up an accurate catalogue of over 1000 star positions & determined the tilt of the earth with an accuracy that wasn't surpassed for hundreds of years. There's not much of the observatory left, just the small underground portion of an 11m sextant but its still an amazing item to look at and ponder how they figured it all out with such basic equipment.
From Samarkand
its onwards to Bukhara and even through we've travelled this route before there's still plenty of new things to see. Like Sarmish-Say a gorge in the foothills of the Nuratau Mountains decorated with 4,000 ancient petroglyphs. Its well off the beaten track along lonely dirt roads cutting through gently rolling hills, it's really good riding country. Suddenly the hillsides get much steeper and the road deteriorates but a small car full of at least 10 locals appears out of nowhere and waves us on to follow it. They lead us to a large metal gate at the entrance to the gorge. If we'd been by ourselves we might have turned round at the gate but there's a small gap to the side and they insist we squeeze the bike through and carry on down the gorge. Not far from the gate is a mining hut where, the very sensible locals, are sheltering from the 40C mid-day sun. They don't seem too worried by our presence and wave merrily at us as we go past and disappear into the depths of the gorge.
Now with 4,000 petroglyphs in here you'd expect to be seeing them left, right & centre. Not
so, we have to get the binoculars out and scour the cliff faces but when you do eventually spot one you get a real buzz – its just like being a real explorer. The scenery, the isolation of the gorge, the enthusiasm of the locals and the dozen or so petroglyphs we do eventually find make it all a very worthwhile detour. It feels special, its our own little find that we had to work for and no-one else in the group has seen.
Back on the main road there's one more detour into Gujidon - yes the town where Ulugh Beg built one of his 3 madrasas. We saw the ones in Samarkand & Bukhara last time so now its time to tick off the third. Its a town not often frequented by tourists so the locals are helpful and engaging and invite us inside the madrasa for a look. It all so peaceful and pleasant, surrounded by a large rose garden, a great place to sit and relax.
Finally we roll into Bukhara well after the rest of the group but having had a wonderful day of exploring. We are just in time to enjoy an
evening meal lounging under ancient mulberry trees in Lyabi-Hauz plaza, the heart of the old town. A relaxing end to an amazing day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
