Samarkand's secrets

Samarkand has a gazilion sites not too dissimilar from the Registan. There's complete beauts, rustic ruins, and some restored numbers; there's a bunch of archeological sites too. Serene courtyards and ornate decorations, really stunning stuff.

Me and some internals of a mosqualeum. Hello mother!

The outsides are all mosaics, and the inside are part mosaic part delicate paint and gold leaf. But, as beautiful as they are, it still doesn't take long to become immune to nice, old architecture. So I went in search of some normal things. Below is a collection of monuments to dead people; but in the foreground is the 'old town', walled off from the tourists; I was curious so dipped in through a rare door in the wall and found quite a maze.

Background: old things; foreground: normal things

The streets are thin -- just wide enough for a Lada to squeeze down -- and they feel like back streets because everyone lives in courtyards, so there's no front gardens. I quickly got lost in the maze; there's very few ways 'out'.

I enjoyed wandering round and using my three words of Uzbek to say hello to people as I walked. It soon got dark and a power cut meant no street lights; I couldn't see more than a metre ahead.

I needed some help.

I continued saying hi to everyone, and a group of jolly people in the street spotted the foreigner and started shouting at me ... CHAI CHAI! HELLO HELLO! And so I joined them for some chai on the street; we had a good old friendly 'international' natter, where the meaning of the words is unknown and irrelevant but the sentiment carries just fine.

Chai club, LtoR: Me, girl, man, man, imam, Baxodur

Baxodur, on the right, arrived later with fabulous English. It's hard to describe how charming it is to find a group of friendly strangers offering you tea when you're lost in a pitch black maze one evening in Uzbekistan.

So after some chai and chat, Baxodur and I went off to find a way out of the friendly dark maze, because I was genuinely lost. On the way we stopped off at a mosque, which the local Imam showed me around. I was standing there in my socks when the unanticipated conversation came via Baxodur, who was translating from Uzbek; I was balancing my conscience with my manners:

Do you believe in god?
No.
Why not?
Ummm. [long, slightly uncomfortable pause]
God created everything, therefore you should believe in him.
Ummm. [slightly shorter but still quite long pause]

Anyway, we shook hands and walked on, discussing how many mosques there are in Uzbekistan, and whether people go to church in England. Before I left the old town maze we stopped off at one more place, but that's another story.

Registan benches

On to Samarkand then, Central Asia's former city of glory. It's nice to see the thing that's on the cover of the guide book -- even if the book itself is worth less than a pile of dung -- so I went straight for the Registan, a public square surrounded by three magnificent medrassahs.

A 16th century Mad Russian

This is blue chip tourism, but I know you only came here for the bench reviews, so let's get on with business.

A stunning sight, with wrought iron body and varnished wooden seat, seen here near the Registan.

Above I can be seen relaxing on this fine long-wheel base multi-seater, taking in, frankly, a stunning view. Seen in the background are the other two mad cappers, the left one being 600 years old and covered head-to-toe in mosaics, as are the other two young ones (merely 500 years old), and they all contain a serene courtyard meeting all the needs of casual hat shoppers.

Mad hatter?

Anyway, I digress, back to the benches and on to one of my all time favourites, winner of the contented bench competition in the quiet courtyard of a fifteenth century kepassah, this lovely lurcher is sitting silently, humbled by its stunning surroundings but it keeps its integrity, matched by its elegance, and the tea set combo just tops it all off!

Tea time.

No room at the Shinkansen

Ignoring the advice of guide books, including such priceless mindlessness as 'in Central Asia trains are late, noisy, and dirty', I left Tashkent fairly quickly to find Uzbekistan's jewels.

There was no room on the bullet train, pictured above, so I had to watch as this Spanish wonder departed to Samarkand (clean, on time, and without a whisper) as my ride to the same city was due twenty minutes later. It was worth the wait.

 

Enter the S H A R Q. Absolutely beaut and generally in a different league to a Virgin Pendalino.

What a load of Toshkent

Pipping Kabul to the post by a few thousand peeps as Central Asia's largest city, Tashkent, or Toshkent in the Uzbek language, is the capital of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's little brother: smaller, more corrupt, and with oodles of treasure.

Tashkent is charming in a subtle way. That's the kind of thing a guide book would say. It's got a subtle pace; an underground heartbeat with the rhythm of a frog; not just a place to pass through; the more curious traveller will be rewarded by some hidden gems. The quietly confident nonchalance of a modern laid back central Asian capital.

Classic hotel; standard Daewoo.

What a load of crap! It's a typical Soviet city. Big boulevards; loadsa concrete; plenty o' trees; and the odd loveable monstrocity such as the hotel Uzbekistan above; and everyone drives a Daewoo.

Uzbekistan's answer to the £50 note

Bekzod and a m-m-m-m-m-...mosque?

The currency is bizarre, not just because it's cheaper to buy at a bazaar than a bank, but because the most efficient way to carry fifty quid is to stash your combat trousers full of toilet paper; the largest note is worth 30 cents.

Anyway I was hosted in Tashkent by the wonderful Bekzod, host extraordinaire, and we enjoyed cruising around Tashkent taking in the sights, not least the big mosque (or is it? More on that later ...) and the grand Soviet chorsu bazaar (below).

A stunning setting for a bazaar, which I hoped would fulfill my high expectations; in Astana everything good seems to come from Uzbekistan; fruit from Tashkent is always marked up a bit more. Ooooh Tashkent, the cradle of civilization; Tashkent the great exporter of fabulous fibrous fruity goodness; Tashkent the France of central asia. In reality Chorsu is less Bordeaux bazaar and more Calais Carrefour. Grubby, tough, tasteless, grissle disguised as dried apricots; and possibly the cause of my food poisoning later in the week.

Chorsu bazaar.

Neverthless, I had a week to visit Uzbekistan; oh the places I'd go.