Samarkand where the streets are paved with gold. Well, not really, but they are paved with tourists instead. On our trip from Vladivostok we have seen nary a tourist. The odd one perhaps. Now here in Samarkand here are suddenly hundreds of them, a babble of different languages, tour guides with flags on sticks, tacky souvenir shops and three different currencies in the shops - US dollars, Euros and local Uzbek thingamegigs. I find I have forgotten the name of the local currency as every Stan has a different one.
I go to take a photo and I can’t get one without tourists in it
We remind ourselves that of course we ourselves are travellers, not tourists so there is no inconsistency here.
But the buildings of Samerkand are magnificent
We have a guide too ( just like tourists do ! ) That is our young guide with the hat and me looking intelligent
A very very brief history lesson of Samarkand. The city of Samarkand is about 2,500 years old.
When Ghenkis Khan ( and his son who was also a right wing zealot ) came through here then being Nomads they had no respect for old buildings and heritage protection and all of that and they largely destroyed all the buildings of Samarkand. Then early in the 15 th century a local leader called Amir Temur said “We have had enough of the extreme right wing ideology of G Khan and son “ So he kicked the Khans and their Mongol hordes out of the region and built the Uzbek empire that also extended to Constantinople, Persia ( now Iran/Iraq). and China and Russia. He died in about 1405 a.d. However during his reign he also built most of the fancy buildings in Samarkand which was the capital of his empire. Today he has his mausoleum in the middle of the city and is revered as the architect of modern day Uzbekistan even though the country today only had its modern day borders finalised during Glasnost and the departure of the Soviets in 1993.
The ceramic decorations on the buildings are superb
So it was a good day in Samarkand. However the road beckons and now it is off to Bukhara. The road was rough and clearly had not been repaired for the last 500 years since the days of Amir Temur. . I apologise dear reader if you are a bit bored with pictures of road surfaces Howeve bthey are the subject of some intense focus by me for a big chunk of my every day existence as a professional motorbike chauffeur so bear with me. I promise I won’t blog comment on the road surfaces of Europe or post pictures of European potholes I have met.
I do however show the locals how a 72 year old gentleman can still lift his leg. Does that look like expressions of admiration on the local faces?
They are big on cost saving cardboard here. Perhaps we could get some cutouts of the New Zealand Minister of Transoort to use in New Zealand.
And now we are in Bukhara. We have three days here before we cross into “Stan No 5 “ - Turkmenistan - on our allotted day
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