Buchara city of the silk road

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Or as they say in Uzbek - Buyuk Ipak Yoli

Am in Buchara, Uzbekistan, an oasis in the Kyzyl kum desert, a sbopping place for camel caravans carrying exotic wares, for thousands of years.... There are camel statues round the ornamental pool which is one of the centres of the old town, Lyabi Hauz. Lined with old willows and choikhanas under the trees where dogs, cats and ducks live pretty much in harmony (it was two cats I saw fighting)! There should be a fable in that somewhere.... There are turquoise blue mosaiced iwans (mosque entrance) opposite eachother across the pool, which were glinting in the the sparkling light of the setting sun as I drank my one beer... so shanti and pretty perfect.

Getting here was not so difficult for me, luckily, I have not risked my life so far in reaching food and shelter! It was all very easy on the early train from Tashkent... I got there with 45 mins to spare (I am getting like my mother)! as I thought the police were going to check passport, go through my bags, ask awkward questions and probably impound any dodgy literature (I had half said goodbye already to my book the Reluctant Fundamentalist). But it was all easy, as I said before, found the Sharq train by asking someone in a uniform where it was (trying to look like I really should not be stopped), I then showed my ticket to a guard who directed me to my seat! All very prosaic...! I had been stopped on the metro system, which I was expecting, but luckily I did not have to pay a bribe, just show my papers.


In the country women wear traditional clothes, for the older women this is a loose brightly coloured and patterned dress often with headscarf tied at the back, Russian peasant style. Younger women tend to gather their dresses and shorten them, wearing them with matching capri trousers. A Central Asian version of a salwar kameez. Great seeing all the different colours and patterns together...

Bukhara has the most amazing mosques and madrassas including one monument which have stood for a thousand years, this being the one I am interested in built by the Samanids as a mausoleum to their first ruler. I spent hours there today...

The people are friendly, certainly not unfriendly, compared to Iran however, they seem less open to talk to. Certainly less willing to talk about their government than the Iranians. Young women might say hello to me in the street, (a few men do too, but maybe different motivations)! but they don't want to talk more. Nor do they seem to go out of their way to help you so much.... The positive flip side is that you can walk down the street in Tashkent (more tourists in Bukhara) and not be stared at or anything... I could be a blonde Russian babushka (except I wasn't flashing nearly enough flesh, and looking pretty hippified) and so can just slip on by a bit more incognito. So that is good!

Am staying at Nasruddin Navruz as it seemed cheap - single bargained to $ 15, which isn't bad once I had asked them to give the bathroom a good disinfect! It is in an old house set round a courtyard, where the family congregate and eat their food.

The family is pleasant, he is Uzbek and she is Tajik, and in this case certainly they look different, he is always smiling but would say that he has his eyes on the money he can make out of you... fine - that is his thing, ripping you off with a smile! But he is eager to help and sort things out for you....

Location was great though, heart of the Jewish quarter, there are so many B&Bs round here that you could def check a few out. Looking into their courtyards was quite inviting...

One day I went to the archaeological site of Paykent as I heard that it was an important city during Sogdian and Samanid times, so I went on an explore... There is also an excellent museum if you are into that sort of thing... It is about 60km away so hired a car. Luckily the driver spoke excellent English - having spent lots of time in the States - as the archaeologist/ curator at the museum only spoke Russian. He gave me a guided tour which included alot of Samanid pottery and showed what a fine town Paykend would once have been. Once it was destroyed by Genghis Khan however, it was never reoccupied. I wonder when his last visitor was, as it really was at the end of a dirt track.... ?

The weather had changed and the wind was whipping up the dust and sand. We passed many donkey carts on the road their owners wrapped in scarves round eyes and mouths to protect them from the sand. Many of these remote houses had no gas, as the government had not got round to supplying them. The driver was the first Uzbek I met who was at all negative about his country, the constraints to freedom and the difficulties living there.

Am sure paid over the odds, however - must learn to bargain travel agency more. Mental note to self.

Phone nos in Uzbekistan are a nightmare to understand, unless you phoning a local landline... depending on where you phoning from and if a mobile, what network, you seem to have to put a different combination of numbers together...!

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