Hard Khore

From: Khiva, Uzbekistan

We've spent the past couple of days in Khorezm, a tiny province in the West of Uzbekistan. There aren't many cities, but a couple stand out: Boston (same spelling -- weird, right?) and Khiva, the most beautiful and atmospheric little town I've seen in Asia. We've gotten up to a few fun adventures while here.

Khiva is a very compact little place, architecturally charming but a little dead -- it feels a bit like a museum. A lot of the town is reconstructed since (surprise, surprise) the Soviets blew it apart when they invaded in the 20s. Still, it gives a great sense of what the city was like at the height of the Khorezm kingdom: dazzling green towers, giant medressas, mysterious-looking mosques. The city is incredible to look at both during the day:

And at night:

At night, in fact, the city becomes totally deserted. Even the young louts you usually see hanging on streetcorners in other Central Asian cities are oddly absent. With no one around, the city starts to feel like a giant, Eastern playground to semi-adults like myself. Two nights ago, Michael, James and I grabbed a very responsible quantity of beer and climbed up on different things around Khiva: the city walls, a small necropolis, a mosque. Many of the buidings are close together and built with multiple levels, so it's possible to get onto a lot of the monuments.

Later that evening we stumbled across a few shaggy Turkmen-style hats and decided to make a little skit about Central Asia. Something to show the folks at home, you know? It will be a while before I can upload it, but the video clip is (if I may say so) pretty stellar: part Borat impersonation, part Soviet war song, part Russian dancing competition, part Turkmen nationalism. All fun... video to be uploaded later.

So yeah... today, we took a fun little trip north to the Kyzylkum (Redsand) desert, into an area called Fifty Fortresses. I'm not actually sure there are fifty of them, but there's a bunch of gigantic mud castles on mountains in the middle of the desert. The couple we saw were remarkably well-preserved. Here's a view from the main fortress of Ayaz-Qala down to an outpost:

I will say, however, that the climb up to one of them was kinda exhausting. It must have been the heat, I told myself, and also the altitude. Or maybe neither, and I've just become out of shape by eating heavy, ricey lunches and sitting in tea-houses half the day. Maybe I'm building a Central Asian physique.

But, to our tale. Our driver took us to this touristy yurt camp and camel ranch near one of the biggest fortresses. This place basically specializes in renting camels (the Bactrian kind) out to groups of tourists. Pretty cool -- it was one of the reasons we went out to the desert in the first place. Too bad the camel ranch didn't have any camels. "No camels at all?" I asked. No. Apparently they camels had wandered away in the morning ("to get their lunch") and the camel people had no idea where they had gone. The Uzbek tourist sector at its finest... We went for a swim in a nearby lake instead. I guess it was more like an oasis since it's in the desert and all.

So Khorezm has been fun, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow we're heading to Karakalpakstan, which is like a country with Uzbekistan and has a lot of bizarre sights. From there, south to Turkmenistan, with its gas craters, odd capital and rock formations. A week into Turkmenistan, I'll cross the Caspian to Azerbaijan on a giant Soviet ferry boat. All good stuff, but I probably won't get a chance to write about it until I reach Baku (August 19th). Until then...