Samarkand. Day 15
Another day in Samarkand. looking at the map, most of the places so far have been in a fairly small area. So old buildings and narrow lanes (usually no footpaths and deep, leg-breaking drains). So it was good to go a bit further into the suburbs, if only to see that they look much like suburbs everywhere else (often small shops and clearly not wealthy, but not dirty or rubbish-strewn either). All our stops today had a steady flow of buses, so are clearly on the standard tourist circuit. First stop was a 'tourist village' where they demonstrated silk paper-making. Something I had never known existed and so have never been interested in. The most entertaining part was that it was mostly water-powered, with water wheels and related thing. Essentially it's not silk, it's mulberry bark which is scraped into thin sheets, soaked and pounded, then pressed and dried like felt. It was a pleasant and unremarkable hour. Assorted paper things Second stop was the observatory of Ulug...