Random Rambles

We’ve seen a lots of yurts in the landscape: it’s time to stay in one for a few days. The yurt camp we choose is on the south side of the big lake. To get there, we drive 14 KMs down the Ak Sai Canyon.

It’s wonderfully isolated, not a soul around (almost).

Usually, small groups arrive late in the afternoon, have a meal, sleep over, and depart next morning. So we have most of the days completely to ourselves.

These yurts are almost as authentic in build and appearance as the ones we saw in the National History museum. (There are a lot of cheap versions around.)

A woodstove keeps things warm at night.

‘Woodstove’ is a bit of a misnomer: these are fueled nightly with a mix of compressed cattle dung and coal.

Meals are served in the Dining Yurt. Well-carpeted in shyrdak carpets (as are the guest yurts.)

You can get good info talking with the guides that accompany groups.

If you enjoy seeing small animals ripped to bits for your entertainment, you can arrange to see an ‘eagle show’. We skip this.

Our next stop is a couple of days in the central town of Naryn.

On a whim, we set out for a drive along the Kichi-Naryn Gorge.

It’s a scenic drive to the beginning of the gorge, but partway, we find the road still muddy and not cleared of the winter snow yet. We do the mature thing and bail.

The next day, we head south for a daytrip to Tash Rabat, near the border with China.

The road traffic is almost exclusively large trucks coming in from over the Torugart Pass. Our destination is the Tash Rabat ‘Caravanserai’.

I put ‘caravanserai’ in quotes because it’s not 100% certain what the function of this building was. (A caravanserai was an overnight resting house for traders on the Silk Road.)

Some think it may have been a Nestorian Christian monastery. Or a Buddhist monastery.

Anyway, it has dozens of small, cell-like rooms. It almost looks like a Roman fort we saw once in the Tunisian Sahara.

On the way to Tash Rabat, we see hundreds of creatures that resemble gophers or groundhogs. Turns out they’re long-tailed ground squirrels. It’s fun to watch them scurry to their burrows, their fuzzy tails flowing ‘like a ribbon on a fan’. (Thanks, Jane Siberry, for that image.)

Sight or Insight of the Day

How did we end up visiting Central Asia? We were discussing this the other day while on the road.

Way back in July 2019, we were in Bhutan, attending an activity that included a meal. One of our fellow guests was a well-traveled Hungarian woman named Anita, who worked for a Russian bank. We mentioned that we wanted to go to the Pantanal region of Brazil one day. Of course, she’d been there, and suggested accommodations at a ranch that we subsequently stayed at years later.

She’d also visited the ‘stans (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan), driving around with a companion. Not exactly a prime destination at that time. Admittedly, she spoke fluent Russian, but she thought we’d enjoy its friendly people and interesting history, recent and ancient. She planted the seed and now here we are. Just goes to show how a couple of fleeting hours with a stranger can have reverberating effects down the line.

Thanks, Anita!

…Kyrgyzstan, that is. If Uzbekistan is all about Silk Road cities, KGZ is all about mountains. We are seldom out of sight of snow-covered peaks anywhere in the country so far.

The first night of our KGZ road trip is spent in the jovial-sounding town of Tokmok. Its most visible oddity is an Ilyushin Il-28 bomber mounted in the central roundabout.

But KGZ does have some Silk Road sites. Burana tower, for example.

The day grows overcast. That night, we sleep in a homestay in the remote mountain village of Tegirmenti, in the Chong-Kemin Valley.

There’s always a herd of something crossing the road: sheep, goats, cattle, or horses.

We are pleased to find driving in KGZ is not very stressful – traffic is sparse in most of the country.

Next day, we come within sight of Issyk-Kul, the world’s second-largest alpine lake (after Lake Titicaca).

In the town of Cholpon-Ata is an open-air petroglyphs park. Most are over 2,000 years old.

Some say that the traditional decorations on Kyrgyz carpets are derived from the long horns of these creatures. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

(Incidentally, this method of sewing felt on felt is called ‘Shyrdak‘. Not to be confused with the 70s novel by Richard Adams, ‘Shardik‘. The 1970s, that is.)

A pattern emerges of reserving places to stay on Booking.com that are impossible to find, don’t exist, or are closed for the season. It begins to look like we might be homeless for the night until Maria asks at a five-star resort for directions.

So we end up staying at the exclusive Baytur Resort & Spa at a severely reduced rate, thanks to Maria’s innate ability to charm, and a manager with a soft spot for Canadians.

It’s kind of like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining: luxurious but virtually empty, at this time of the year.

Maria goes for a walk along the beach and makes friend with some locals.

On our journey, we come across a team of men erecting a yurt.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In most of the Islamic world, graves are very simple affairs. Even the most eminent people end up under a plain, unadorned slab. (In Oman, we came across places where people just put a randomly-picked-up stone over the interred person, so that a ‘cemetery’ looks like a walled-in field of rocks.)

In contrast, Kyrgyzstan cemeteries are full of fancy tomb structures.

Some villages seem to have more defunct people in residence than live ones.

This is a brief entry about settling into a new country.

Besides immediately making you think of the OshKosh B’gosh line of kiddie clothes, Osh is the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan. We end up here by default, as it’s the nearest destination after departing Uzbekistan where we did.

As far as the physical environment goes, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are very different.

The most obvious difference is that Kyrgyzstan is much more ‘Russified’ than Uzbekistan. Kyrgyz is paired with Russian everywhere, and the language is still written in Cyrillic letters.

Whereas in Uzbekistan, most sad communist-era infrastructure has been torn down and replaced with brighter, modern streets and buildings, there is more of a cultural hangover of Sovietic decrepitude and drab grayness here.

Kyrgyzstan is more Russified and less Islamified. Uzbekistan, like many Muslim-majority countries (Turkey, Malaysia, and Indonesia come to mind), tries to tie its national identity to a greater Islamic influence. This can be a bit of a tightrope-walking act – nobody wants to encourage young male hotheads to reach for their martyr’s crowns either.

Kyrgyzstan seems much more secular. It’s also an interesting mix of Asiatic and Caucasian people.

It doesn’t help that the weather is rainy and gray in Osh. In spite of these differences, we’re happy to report that Kyrgyz people are as friendly towards us as Uzbeks. Lucky us!

We opt to fly to Bishkek, the capital, rather than undergo a twelve-hour bus ride. At first we think we’re getting onto a Russian-built aircraft, because we don’t recognize the model as anything we’ve seen before.

It turns out to be an old McDonnell Douglas MD-80 (since taken over by Boeing, I believe).

Bishkek is a much different kettle of fish than Osh. It’s way more lively and modern. And way less depressing. There are still a lot of bedraggled Soviet-era flatblocks around, but in Bishkek, they add to the general interest.

We spend most of our time here attempting to amass enough cash to rent a vehicle. (The company we deal with only accepts cash. Preferably US dollars.) This means multiple visits to different ATMs.

At least one afternoon is enjoyed at the extraordinarily excellent National History Museum of Kyrgyzstan.

Unfortunately, we can’t find a link that does justice to this recently-revamped museum and its wonderful exhibits.

This is a Kyrgyz specialty – Ala Kiyiz carpets, with colourful patterns dyed into the felt with which they’re made. We’d love to bring one of these puppies home.

Sight or Insight of the Day

At last, our vehicle is delivered and we’re ready to hit the road.

We are hopeless anthropomorphisers. Our 2002 Toyota 4Runner is dubbed Sergei.

From Termez, we fly back to Tashkent – the train is booked solid – and spend a couple of days there. Among other things, we visit the Railway Museum.

In a pleasant gentrifying neighbourhood, we find Ming Uruk, an ancient settlement in the middle of Tashkent.

On the train again, from Tashkent to Kokand. We spend 15 minutes in darkness passing through the Kamchiq Tunnel and emerge into the fertile, often-turbulent Fergana Valley.

We stop in Kokand overnight, a quiet medium-sized town. Its claim to fame is the palace of Khudáyár Khán.

Remember I complained that people want a photo taken with Maria all the time? Finally, some kids want a photo taken with me.

A white-knuckle Yandex ride takes us to Margilan, 76 KMs away, in record time. Wikipedia informs us: ‘Margilan has been renowned for its silk goods as far back as the 10th century.’

There is a crafts development centre in an old madrassa, where they sell finished silk products.

We visit a couple of producers ‘in the old style’. Each silkworm cocoon is a single thread, from 600 to 900 metres long (or more!)

In another factory, a man is doing the same thing on a larger scale.

This silk is turned into textiles using the ikat dying process. The ikat process comes from Southeast Asia originally.

According to Wikipedia: ‘Ikat (literally “to bind” in Malayo-Polynesian languages) is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs resist dyeing on the yarns prior to dyeing and weaving the fabric.’

The dyed threads are then woven by a roomful of old ladies with a good sense of humour.

We go to the Kumtepe bazaar, almost exclusively the haunt of locals. I’m looking for a camel bell, but no luck.

Some samsas baking in a tandor oven. The freshly-made samsas are slapped onto the sides of the oven and peeled off when done.

Uzbeks love plov as their national dish and swear up and down it’s the gift of the gods. It’s not for everyone, though. We find it way too fatty and kind of bland. Sorry.

Getting back to our distant hotel turns into a comedy. The internet isn’t working on my phone, and Maria’s phone is dead. Our efforts to call a non-Yandex taxi is a challenge. After a few minutes, we are being helped by two schoolgirls, a cafe owner, and two random passers-by.

Sight or Insight of the Day

After approaching the end of our 30-day limit, we head for Kyrgyzstan. This means one last train ride to Andijan, then a crowded minibus to the town of Dostyk on the Kyrgyzstan border. A few formalities, a brief walk in the pouring rain, and voila! – we’re in a new country.

We’ve really enjoyed our time in Uzbekistan. It’s a very calm, welcoming place. The world needs more of these.

Our plan is to fly back to Tashkent and take an overnight train to Termez, far to the south. Economy seats are sold out, so we’re forced to fly Business Class.

The last time we had to fly Business Class out of necessity was with Royal Brunei Airlines. <Sigh> On both occasions, they are short hops on the airlines of Islamic countries, so no free champagne.

We book an overnight train to Termez.

We now have most of a day back in Tashkent. In our first entry for Uzbekistan, we mention the Islamic Centre. It’s now open, so we spend a few hours there. It’s very popular – we have to wait several hours for entry.

I complained when we were in Shakhrisabz that there was so little left of Timur’s summer palace. I’m happy to see at least an imaginative model of the place.

Also exhibited are a showcase of letters purported to have been written by the prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Sorry, I have to call BS on this one.

It’s back to the Southern Station for the night train.

Because of our late booking date, only top bunks are available. These require the skills of an Olympic gymnast to get into or out of. But they’re comfortable enough, and clean.

Our cabinmates are at first a mother and daughter. They get off in Samarkand and we are joined by a pair of ladies who treat us very well. They kindly share their breakfast with us.

In the morning, the landscape is much greener than it has been up in Karakalpakstan.

On arrival, we soon learn that Termez seems to have the most aggressive taxi drivers we’ve experienced so far. And not just taxi drivers – anyone with a car slams on the brakes, rolls down the window, and tries to inveigle us into hopping in, for a price. Sheesh.

Termez is on the border of Afghanistan. We hear about a free trade zone where Afghanis can buy and sell stuff. We hire a driver to take us there.

There isn’t much here for the souvenir-seeking tourist. It’s mostly cheap wholesale goods. A small rug in a window catches our eye, a sort of roughly-made, folk-art-y kind of thing.

The proprietor is puzzled why we would want such a trifle and tries to interest us in real (not very nice) carpets. We convince him to part with it.

Here we seal the deal, Afghan style: I place the payment cash vertically between my hands and the seller places my hands between his.

Here is our prize on display. The Afghanis find us just as exotic as we find them.

On the way back to town, we stop at the Archeological Museum. It contains finds from the places we want to visit.

For the next two days, we hire Mahsud as a driver and guide. He has a white Chevrolet, of course, as did our driver of the previous day.

We climb to the top, which is fun crawling up the dark, narrow staircase.

On the agenda is the Sultan Saodat mausoleum complex.

We are let into the structure by the guardian and clamber up to the rooftop.

The Kyrk Kyz fortress has quite a story behind it involving forty girls holding off a siege by Ghengis Khan.

Mahsud goes into great detail about this story and believes it implicitly. (The idea that the army of Ghengis Khan – slayer of millions – could be fended off by a handful of girls is, um, highly unlikely.)

Earthquakes are common here. Cities in the region seem to get destroyed either by earthquakes or marauding invaders. Supports are needed to keep things together.

It’s a short drive to Fayoz Tepe. In the early days of Buddhism, the faith spread throughout Asia, including around here. Fayoz Tepe contains the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. Its prominent feature is a restored stupa.

Inside the stupa is a much-eroded smaller stupa. Japanese visitors still leave small offerings.

Nearby is Kara Tepe. This is a series of Buddhist caves. You can still see the remains of ancient wall paintings. (Mahsud peels some away to show us before we convince him to stop.)

The caves were also visited by many bored Russian soldiers during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war. They left behind many inscriptions carved into the soft limestone.

They also seemed to have let off steam by firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The ground is littered with old bullets.

We take a break. In the background is the Amu Darya river – known as the Oxus River in classical times. On the other side is Afghanistan.

Another day, we visit Kampir Tepe. It has been identified (but not conclusively) with a city founded by Alexander the Great.

Mahsud regales us with tales of Alexander, and points out a nondescript square as being ‘Alexander’s bedroom’ with complete certainty.

The last few hours of our tour, we are hit by a violent sandstorm, with heavy winds and limited visibility.

On the outskirts of a small village, we visit the remains of Talitogora, an off-the-beaten-path site. It’s a small mound, mysterious and virtually unexplored.

Personally, I’m fascinated by these not-yet-unearthed sites around the world. The only info I could find is here. There must be thousands of these sites, waiting patiently for the archeologist’s trowel.

Lastly, we visit the Zurmala stupa. This is another Buddhist ruin, made up of 1.2 million bricks (according to Lonely Planet). These bricks now need iron bands around the structure to keep it from falling to bits.

One word in Russian I remember from my teenage reading of A Clockwork Orange: ‘Moloko’. that is, ‘milk’. In the novel, ‘Moloko Plus‘ was imbibed in preparation for a night of mayhem.

Plain old moloko is available everywhere for less than two bucks a litre. We drink a lot of it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Hey! I’ve created my first-ever AI image! Now it really feels as though I’ve joined the modern age.

Where the heck is Karakalpakstan, you ask? We had the same question. It’s a theoretically autonomous region of Uzbekistan. As usual, the history of the region is kind of complicated. (Come to think of it, most history everywhere is kind of complicated.)

We hire a car and driver to take us from Khiva to Nukus, a distance of about 270 KMs. We make four stops to visit some archaeological sites.

Our first stop, by special request is the Koi Krylgan Kala.

From the first time we see it in Uzbek tourist material, we wanted to visit. Mainly because of the dramatic aerial views taken when the foundations were first exposed.

It sort of resembles the Millenium Falcon.

It’s also featured on the 20,000 sum banknote.

It no longer looks like this. It appears to have been filled in again. Or the locals have pilfered the material to be re-used in modern buildings.

That’s OK. It leaves a lot of scope for the imagination, as Anne of Green Gables would say.

There are many fortresses in this region, known as Elliq Kala, meaning ‘fifty forts’. We also visit Jampik Kala.

Our driver – with a white Chevrolet, of course – takes us down some barely-there desert tracks to get to these places.

Next is Gyaur Kala

‘Tell me what you’ve seen, in faraway forgotten lands, where empires have turned back to sand.’ – The Moody Blues, Lovely To See You

Last place is Chilpik Kala, which is in fact an old ‘tower of silence‘, that is, a place where Zoroastrians would expose their dead so that the bodies could be picked clean by vultures.

The bones would then be placed in ossuaries. Zoroastrians were at one time dominant in this part of the world over two thousand years ago. Difficult to imagine, considering the overwhelming presence of Islam since that time.

The forts are the ‘ancient’. Now for the ‘modern’. We arrive in Nukus. The chief attraction for us here is the Savitsky Museum.

The story of Igor Savitsky and his efforts to preserve endangered art from the Soviet times is fascinating and inspiring. It’s been made into a documentary, ‘The Desert of Forbidden Art‘, available on several platforms, including Dailymotion.

This is my personal favourite. I like that neither the canvas nor the frame are square.

Many paintings showcase local industries, past and present.

Besides being a collector and archivist, Savitsky himself was an accomplished painter.

Nukus has a reputation as being a dull town in the middle of nowhere, but we have a good time here.

While strolling the streets, we come across some ladies whipping up a batch of sumalak, an activity with a lot of folklore attached. Maria is invited to stir the pot while making a wish. As is tradition.

People dress well here. And are well groomed. Everybody seems to have someplace to go, as opposed to the sidewalk-dwelling inertia of many places elsewhere in the world.

There’s a lively market.

(Incidentally, our hotel has a film crew in temporary residence. They’re filming a segment of The Amazing Race here. We speak with a hopeful Dutch participant.)

You can find just about anything here. Except sunscreen.

Many people do their regular shopping in markets like this. There aren’t many supermarkets around.

A pair of local girls want to have their photo taken with Maria. This happens regularly.

One activity that we do NOT pursue: usually if visitors come this far, they book a multiday expedition across the desert to view the last sad remnants of the Aral Sea. Yeah, no – we’re not interested in an expensive and uncomfortable excursion simply to witness the brutal fallout of yet another man-made catastrophe.

Speaking of man-made catastrophes…

Sight or Insight of the Day

One good thing about traveling where we are: we hear very little news about Donald Trump’s continuing lurch into global Dystopia. As Trump and his minions drag the rest of the world down into a swirling vortex of imbecility, people here are simply going about their lives. So are we.

Sometimes I almost – operative word being ‘almost‘ – feel sorry for the president’s inner circle. I imagine being cooped up in the Oval Office with Donald Trump must feel like being locked in an enclosed space with an agitated chimp wielding a fully-loaded assault rifle.

I’m not the first to think of this analogy. I remember hearing it on a late-night comedy show. (Probably Stephen Colbert.)

As we’ve said in previous entries – May God have mercy on our souls.

We take a slow train – six hours – from Bukhara to Khiva.

Two things we can say about this part of Uzbekistan. It’s very flat, and it has a lot of canals.

Kind of like the Netherlands? Not quite. Minus the canals, it looks more like Australia.

Khiva was at one time a major centre for the slave trade in Central Asia. Much like Oman, which until very recently ruled a trading empire based on the commerce of human flesh, it’s not really mentioned in the present day.

On arrival, we find a broad avenue leading 1.5 KM down to the Old Town. This is a not-uncommon feature of Central Asian cities: gargantuan roads flanked by brand new (largely empty) buildings.

We haven’t really described our positive impressions of Uzbekistan so far. So let’s talk about what we like about the place.

Besides the many interesting historical places, the human element contributes a lot to our visit. We’re really enjoying our time in Uzbekistan. People have been very kind and generous to us.

It’s extremely safe here. A high-trust society. People often leave valuables and merchandise unattended without fear of it being swiped.

And they’re scrupulously honest. They make a point of counting out exact change when they see how puzzled we are by the multiple zeros of prices in Uzbek sum.

It’s very clean, for the most part. Marble-tiled public bathrooms, spotless and free. No graffiti. None of the casual vandalism that is so common at home, people no longer notice it.

Tourism from Europe is increasingly common. Lots of Russian visitors, too. Very few North Americans.

Uzbeks seem delighted and surprised when we tell them we’re from Canada. On at least three occasions, when we tell them, they’ve responded, unprompted by us, ‘Ah, Canada. Ottawa!’ So Uzbeks are more aware than probably 90% of Americans which city is the nation’s capital.

If we have one gripe, it’s this: both Uzbekistan Railways and Uzbekistan Airways have English-language sites that let you purchase tickets, reserve seats, and so on. But after half an hour or so of filling out info, when it comes to payment, the site WILL NOT accept foreign credit cards, even though they claim they do.

Uzbekistan is a muslim-majority country. People seem observant, but not fanatical. Women and girls don’t seem to be overly oppressed, free to be as covered or uncovered as they like.

All in all, the niceness of Uzbekistan comes as a pleasant surprise. In books as recent as ten years ago, the place is described as a somewhat paranoid, xenophobic police state. It’s certainly not like that now (as far as we can tell).

We hope the other places we plan to visit have progressed as much.

Sight or Insight of the Day

You’ve got to hand it to Big Chip. They really cater to the tastes of their international customers.

Of course, I have to try a bag. They actually taste like shish kabob.

One rainy morning, we take another high-speed train to Bukhara. These trains are Talgo models, from Spain. We like the platypus-esque snout on the engine.

Bukhara is another Silk Road city, bristling with mosques and madrassas and bazaars.

There’s usually a cat around that likes attention. Sometimes tourists from China take videos, as if they’ve never seen anyone pet a stray cat before.

We visit the house of Fayzulla Khojaev. Actually, the house of his his father, a wealthy merchant. It’s a popular place for photo shoots and wedding pictures.

Poor comrade Khojaev ended up being liquidated by Stalin, along with a few million of his fellow Soviet citizens.

Magok-i-Attari, one of the oldest buildings in the city. Before the Arab conquest, it was a Zoroastrian fire temple, acted as a synagogue, and was eventually a mosque. Ancient-looking outside, the interior is now a modern exhibition space.

One interesting activity in Bukhara is simply wandering the many backstreets of town.

Believe it or not, motorists here (including our Yandex drivers) think nothing of venturing down these incredibly narrow alleyways. .

We come across a bakery hard at work producing loaves of non – cognate with ‘naan‘ – bread.

Maria, of course, has to sample some.

A main feature of the town is the Ark, a fortress and former residence of the emirs of Bukhara, including the unfortunate last one.

A morbid tale often told about the Ark is how the emir at the time tossed a pair of British emissaries, Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly, into a bug-infested pit for three years before making them dig their own graves and beheading them. Not very diplomatic.

The fortress has footpaths around the archaeological work being done in the area.

Linguistic fun fact: the Russian word for train station is ‘вокзал’, pronounced ‘voksal’. I wonder if this is related to the well-known Vauxhall station in London. According to Wikipedia, my surmise may be correct:

‘The name Vauxhall is phonetically similar to the Russian word for a railway station, вокзал (vokzal). One theory for this similarity is that Tsar Nicholas I visited Britain in the mid-19th century to study the railway network. At the time, every train on the South Western Railway called at Vauxhall as a ticket stop. From this, the Tsar concluded that Vauxhall was a major transport interchange, and the word was introduced as the generic term in Russian.‘

Sight or Insight of the Day

While strolling the back alleys of Bukhara, we come across this on the lintel of an abandoned house.

It’s a mezuzah. A cheap plastic one, but still a ghostly reminder of a departed population.

According to Lonely Planet, ‘Jews made up 7% of Bukhara’s population at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Only about 100 remain.‘

After acclimatizing for a few days in Tashkent, we take the high-speed train to Samarkand.

I remember rainy afternoons in the fourth grade learning about Marco Polo and his travels to places with magical names like ‘Bokhara’ and ‘Samarkand’. Our teacher made it come alive in the telling. (Thanks, Miss Legault!)

Samarkand is closely connected to the deeds of Amir Timur, known in English as Tamburlaine. That still won’t ring any bells for most people besides those interested in Asian history and fans of Elizabethan theatre. (‘Tamburlaine the Great‘ was a big hit for Christopher Marlowe.)

Tamburlaine ruled over a vast empire from Egypt to India, ‘spacious in the possession of dirt’, as Shakespeare says. Lots of bloodshed involved. Samarkand was his capital.

This is the Bibi-Khanym mosque. Bibi was one of Timur’s 18 wives. You can judge the size of the place by the pedestrians walking in the square.

In the the courtyard is a giant Koran.

If you’re wondering why Maria looks so bundled up, it’s because we have a few days of bone-chilling cold.

Everyone else in town is also trying to stay warm.

This is another view from afar. On the left is the Bibi Khanym mausoleum.

Taken from the balcony of the Hazrat Khizr mosque. This is where the remains of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first president, slumber in eternity.

In the vicinity is the Shah-i-Zinda, a necropolis of brightly-coloured mausolea for highly-placed people, including several of Timur’s relatives.

In search of more Timur sites, we hire a car and driver for a day trip to Shahrisabz, Timur’s birthplace. We drive over the snow-clad Tahtakaracha Pass.

The top of the pass has many restaurants specializing in tandori BBQ. The small sample we tried was delicious.

Shahrisabz is a bit of a disappointment. This is all that remains of Timur’s once-extensive summer palace after being destroyed in the 16th century, along with the entire town, by the forces of Abdullah Khan II, a fellow autocrat.

Still, the drive is scenic, and it’s interesting to see Uzbek life out in the countryside.

Mulberry trees line the road everywhere. Later, their leaves will feed the silkworms that supply Uzbekistan’s silk industry.

Back in town, we visit a carpet factory. Some attractive carpets, but no gotta-haves.

Lastly, we visit Gur-e-Amir, Timur’s final resting place.

Samarkand may be a household name – sort of – but we’d never heard of Afrasiyob before coming here. We see the name on hotels and businesses. Even the high-speed train that whisks us here is named the ‘Afrasiyob’.

Afrasiyob was a Sogdian precursor of Samarkand. Alexander the Great dropped in for a visit.

This recently-discovered mural dates from pre-Islam Afrasyob.

So there you have it – a populous, vibrant city until the arrival of the Mongols, who razed it to the ground. (I’ve always thought it’s ironic that ‘razed‘ has the meaning of ‘utterly flattened‘.)

Reminds us of our visit to Enkomi in Cyprus. Another bustling city-of-the-world, now just ruined foundations in a field of grazing sheep.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Normally, we don’t make a big deal out of being Canadian. However, in this day and age, we feel it’s a good idea to make plain that we are not Trumplandians.

So our luggage is now prominently labeled with maple leaf luggage tags.

It’s been a while since we returned from our South American trip last year. Spring, summer, fall, and most of winter have gone by. President Trump continues to spread peace and prosperity throughout the globe. Uncharacteristically for us, we spent the winter at home, enjoying time with family and friends.

But inevitably, it was time to dig the travelling shoes out from the back of the closet. First stop on this trip is Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia.

This unassuming little building is the home of one of the world’s oldest Korans.

Tashkent contains a mix of Imperial Russian, Soviet-era, and post independence buildings. People are very friendly and relaxed.

Coming soon: the Center for Islamic Civilization. It is enormous. It’s scheduled to open later this month.

Our accommodation is near the Chorsu Bazaar. Run by a nice family. Close to a Metro station, but on a quiet side street.

Lots of the usual commercial hubbub in the market. We track down the Consumer Electronics sector, because somebody forgot to pack a power bar.

Typical of people in Muslim countries, Uzbeks are keen on sweet things.

They also eat a lot of meat here.

True story: on our flight from Warsaw to Tashkent, the flight attendant passes out sandwiches, which she says contain ‘meat’. ‘What kind of meat’, someone asks. ‘I don’t know. Not pork.’

Uzbekistan produces excellent ceramics. Too bad they’re bulky, heavy, and fragile.

Besides traditional designs, people also come up with unique pieces. I would buy this in a heartbeat if I had a way to get it home.

Like markets everywhere, there is always merchandise being freighted by unconventional means. This vintage Lada is delivering its weight in wood furniture.

On our first day, I make a new cat friend. We were just taking a rest when this kitty decides to climb into my lap for a snooze.

There are very few stray dogs around. People are generally nice to cats. We pass this cat hotel in the swanky embassy district.

In the same diplomatic ‘hood, we visit the Museum of Applied Arts.

Nice house. It used to belong to a Russian diplomat.

A Yandex (local Uber-type app) ride takes us across town, where we begin a self-guided walking tour at the State Art Museum. Cost of a 20-minute ride: less that $3.00 CAD.

The Romanov Palace was the home of exiled bad-boy Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. Not coincidentally, he provided the original collection of paintings for the nearby Art Museum.

Many men here like to wear black clothing – like, A LOT of men. Maybe it’s some kind of Johnny Cash/ Steve Jobs thing. We ask a local if he can tell us why. He says ‘Really? I’ve never noticed. And I have no idea.’

On our last day in Tashkent we get a dump of snow. The previous day, we were lounging in a sunny park in our shirtsleeves.

Note the Soviet-era network of gas pipes in the background. Just like the Caucasus, as noted in earlier entries.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Tashkent is well known for its elegant Metro stations.

It’s the best way to get around town. Tashkent is mostly made up of long, wide, grandiose boulevards, a Soviet city-planning habit. Not very good for walking, though.

Each station has a theme.

The price for a ticket anywhere on the extensive system? A princely 19 cents Canadian. Just flash a Visa card at the turnstile and go. Beats the pants off the O Train in Ottawa.