Samarkand. Day 13

 Today was essentially another transit day - a bus trip from Bukhara to Samarkand (the second largest city in Uzbekistan).

But you may (or may not) want a bit more detail than that. To start the day we were walked around the the Kalan Mosque- part of the mosque, minaret and madrassa complex Lynn and I visited in the evening a couple of days ago. It was quiet and cool in the morning, so we got in and out efficiently and then boarded the bus for the drive to Samarkand.

Kalan Mosque

By 11am we were at G'ijduvan. Which was inconvenient because this was our lunch spot and just happens to be located a lot closer to Bukhara than to Samarkand. We stopped at a pottery business and they gave us a demonstration of how to make bowls etc on a wheel, paint and glaze them. Then took us to the showroom where Lynn and I were the only people to resist the lure of Uzbek pottery. Then a standard lunch. They always go salad, then soup, then a meat main course. The dessert, which we'd had before, was grains of fried dough put together in a kind of slice and held together by honey. All fine and we were back on the bus by midday.

Several hours of travelling through the scrubby desert. But this is the silk road, so even this was broken up by a stop at an 11th Century water reservoir, with an equally old caravanserai on the other side of the road. The reservoir was actually in decent condition, so presumably has been renovated periodically.

We got to Samarkand about 4pm. Our hotel is very nice, built around a courtyard as usual and with the standard rooftop bar and restaurant. It seems to be a short walk from Registan Square, the historic centre of town, but by the time we'd eaten and drunk on the terrace we decided to leave that for tomorrow.

Kosh Havuz Hotel


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