International Friendship

From: Khiva, Uzbekistan

My first stop in Uzbekistan was Samarqand. Before I get started here, some poetry. No respectable Central Asian travel blogger would miss a chance to quote a few tired lines of Flecker's The Golden Journey to Samarqand:

"We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

I'd have put it differently, but yes, I was excited to arrive; Samarqand has always seemed to me the most mysterious, romantic and legendary city on the Silk Road. It was the first city I learned about in the region and, in many ways, the reason I decided to travel here.

In Samarqand, I joined up with a couple of new travel buddies. The first was James, a friend of my close friend from Penn, expert in Central Asian history and fluent Russian speaker. He's been conducting research in other parts of Uzbekistan for a serious blog focused on Central Asia. We've also been traveling with Michael, a world-traveling Aussie we met at our hostel. It's been great having a bit of a travel group. Traveling alone the past few weeks has been a lot of fun, but I like having a small group. Turns out we're all doing pretty much the same itinerary in Uzbekistan, trekking west from Samarqand through Bukhara and Khiva into the semi-autonomous "Republic of Karakalpakstan."

Samarqand has the most spectacular monuments in Central Asia. There are a mind-boggling number of turquoise-domed mosques, mausoleums, medressas and forts, all largely intact since the town was never bombarded by the Soviets. The most spectacular of these sights is the Registan, a large plaza with three stunning medressas (Qur'aanic schools). Each of the buildings is large, with colorful blue-green tiles and complex 3-D geometric patterns carved into the vaulted ceilings. Together, the buildings of the Registan are awe-inspiring. It's also interesting how the Islamic world produced such stunning public buildings: since Islam forbids painting and many visual arts, Muslim creative types tended to channel their energy into poetry or architecture.

James and I headed to the Registan as soon as I got to Samarqand. We paid off a guard who let us into the closed parts of the building (everything is available for a price in Central Asia). We climbed up one of the minarets and got some good shots of the buildings.

Here, the majolica dome of a medressa:


And the interior courtyard of another:


We also checked out the Bibi-Khanyn mosque, a giant, crumbling place that I found even moreimpressive than the Registan:



It's easy to get overloaded by Samarqand's famous and imposing masterpieces. Fortunately, we also found some less-frequented and more mysterious sights. One afternoon, we managed to track down the Ishratkhana mausoleum, a ruined burial place outside of town. The place was pretty deserted, it had an underground crypt with a skylight, crumbling minarets and a few spiral staircases. Atmospheric enough, in fact, that the three of us decided to head back there at night with a couple of bottles of wine and a homemade dinner. One local we hung out with advised against the plan: "there are many places of dark magic, especially in Samarqand." Turned out ok: the only real evil was the slightly stale bread we ate for dinner. Below, me going into the crypt:



After a few days, the three of us headed to the nearby town of Shakhrisabz to explore local history. The city was home to Timur (Tamerlane -- see wikipedia), one of Central Asia's greatest conquerors. The few sights in Shakhrisabz are all related to the guy. We went to the still-imposing ruins of the Ak-Saray Palace:



After that, we visited what was intended to be Timur's crypt. He had ordered its construction some time before his death, but died during Samarqand during the winter. Since the pass to Shakhrisabz was closed, his followers decided to bury him in the capital. The bodiless crypt was still neat, though.

But enough of monuments. What trip to Shakhrisabz would be complete without a trip to the local amusement park? OK, it's not exactly Six Flags Uzbekistan, but the ride on the Russian Wheel (ferris wheel, to you non-Soviets) was actually pretty thrilling. Admittedly, mostly for safety reasons: the wheel seemed to have been constructed from sheet metal welded together by middle school students, and the movement was powered by a pair of strained motors that looked like they're been salvaged off a lawnmower. But that's not to say that Soviet amusement parks aren't high tech. Check out this short video of the propellor-powered merry-go-round: [to be uploaded later.]

After the park, we stopped and had lunch at a small tea-house. Here, I discovered yet another facet on the Central Asian jewel of hospitality. I had asked one of the young boys working at the restaurant if I could use the bathroom. He grinned led me to a wall in the back, then pointed at a spot on the wall: "here." It became kind of obvious that he wanted to go next to me, I guess in a gesture of international bonding. It's weird what will make someone's day.

Samarqand, although fun by day, also has some decent nightlife. One of the Michael's friends in a Samarqand native, so he and his buddies took us out for a night on the town. We started out with a trip to watch the Euro Cup final, a nail-biter between Germany and Spain, especially if you're a football fan. Spain won. Say what you like about Spanish football, but there's no other country who can fake injuries and whine so convincingly on the field. After the match, we headed to a nightclub for some late-night entertainment. Bizarre, one of the local guys ordered a giant fruit sculpture. Gotta say I've never been a club where seven guys were polishing off a melon-tower... guess there's a lot of ways to be a tough guy in Uzbekistan.

All in all, a good few days at the heart of the Silk Road. Next up: adventures in the holy city of Bukhara.