The Golden Road

So I safely arrived in Tashkent Tuesday morning and jumped straight into a shared taxi (4 people and driver) to Samarkand 3.5 hours away. Perhaps not quite so Romantic as poetry would have us believe, but many things along the way reminded me I was in Uzbekistan, including:

- Its 40 degrees Celsius outside
- I paid about 5 times the going rate for my ticket
- We had to stop at police checkpoints every 30 minutes
- Loud, turkish pop music the entire way
- Cows being grazed on the median of a 3 lane motorway
- When the woman next to me smiles, I see she that all her front teeth are gold.

Things that are different from before include the fact that everybody has a mobile phone. When the driver couldn't understand where I wanted to go, he called his english-speaking sister in Tashkent who spoke to me then looked up directions on the internet for her brother. Brilliant.

Driving in, Samarkand reminded me a lot of Rome or bits of Istanbul, with ancient monuments springing improbably and at unexpected moments out of an otherwise thoroughly modern city. You turn your head and all of a sudden, there is a towering blue dome or brink minaret behind roads and cars and shops.

I managed to get one of the best rooms in Samarkand. It is in a little family-run B&B in the old town. The courtyard is full of flowers and fruit trees and my room has a private balcony that looks over the Gur-i-Amir Mousoleum where Tamerlane is buried.

Tamerlane. who claimed to be the grandson of Geghis Khan is the founder of the Timurid dynasty and had his capital at Shakhrisabz just south of Samarkand. He and his descendants are responsible for most of the momuments in Samarkand. The big ones are the Registan (a sqaure
made by three large medrassahs) and the Bibi Khanum Mosque (built by Tamerlane's wife Bibi Khanum). These are impressive, but more by virtue of being absolutely huge then because of any elegant architecture or intricate tile work like you see in Iran. I went round visiting them all again today and its interesting to see how they have changed over the last 6 years. A lot of reconstruction has been done. In some cases this is good (more information, more areas open) but some sites now have a somewhat disney-ish feel to them caused by the overuse of gold leaf and brand new brickwork.

This afternoon I went to see a carpet factory where they are using only natural dyes (from walnuts, madder, pomegrates etc) and silk. The owner, Abdullah, showed me around and it was clear he took a huge amount of pride in the good working conditions there. All the employes work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and get a month paid holiday a year. All are over 18 and have finished high school. It seemed like he was constantly trying to make improvements to the factory, his philosophy being that the happiness of his workers can be seen in the quality of the carpets (which are stunning). Abdullah has training as a doctor, speaks 7 languages and spends 3 months a year volunteering as a medic in Afghanistan. It was great to meet someone who clearly gets so much joy from making his world a better place.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Tajikistan and 3 days trekking in the Fann mountains. I had the greatest good luck to go to the same agency at the same time as two french people who wanted to to exactly the same thing. This way we are combining forces to make it less expensive (though it is still pretty pricey). The French seem very keen and super fit, so I hope I will be able to keep up with them. We are planning on arriving in Dushanbe on the 30th, so will post again after then.