Thursday 3 May
Our guide Malika arrives at 10.30 am to take us around the ancient buildings of Samarkand. She is young, with a 4 year old daughter. She's dressed in Eurpean style (rather than the floaty 3 quarter length dress and matching trousers that many Uzbek women wear). We are paying Malika $30 for her services as our guide for the day - we tell her 4 hours will be enough (it turns out to be 5 hours - again!) We ask her if we can stop half way around for a cup of tea, as we don't have the energy of the young! We find that our tour guides always like to give value for money!
Malika turns out to be an excellent guide - with a great sense of humour. We like her immediately. She takes us around all the magnificent architectural sites of Samarkand, and we can see why its a Silk Road heritage site. It's impossible to describe in words the impact these monuments have on the tourist - they are huge, imposing 14th and 15th century buildings, with delicate mosaic covering a large proportion of the inside and outside of the buildings. Photographs can't do them justice - to feel the awe which these buildings generate, you just have to be here!
Our guide explains that most of the buildings in Samarkand are mausoleums (huge, imposing tombs) built by the ruling (Emir) for his own burial and that of his family, four wives, and a few family friends, including the family nurse. What is so spectacular about these monuments is that they were virtually destroyed by earthquakes and the passage of times, but like the monuments in Bukhara, have been painstakingly rebuilt exactly to their former glory from about the 1930's, using only the original technology, not any modern technology available today.
Some people remark that the buildings should have been left in their delapidated state so that tourists and visitors could feel their "age" - but for us, it's incredible that they've been rebuilt so skilfully and lovingly. Small areas of original colouring and inlaid mosaic remain for comparison. As in Bukhara, nearly all the mosaic is of varying shades of blue, made from natural colourings - blue being the colour of peace.
The mausoleums incorporate mosques, which have small areas which are still being used today. We walk into a small quiet courtyard which our guide tells us is still used once a year for sacrifice of animals - people who need God to answer a particular need or prayer can come and make a sacrifice, usually of a lamb.
There is a flight of stone steps which you are supposed to count as you go up them, and again when you come down - if the number of steps is the same both ways you're ok - you haven't got too many sins! Reg and I decided not to count the steps - we felt sure our sins would find us out!
At this point Reg asks a group of Uzbekistan matrons in national dress if we can take their photograph. Laughing and giggling, they agree, then want me to join them, for Reg to take another photograph. I am enfolded in the embrace of four gold-teethed, smiling, jostling Uzbekistan women.
We stop half way around for a cup of black tea, which is served with the familiar white bonbon type sweets, and various sugared nuts which are a described as Uzbek sweets. We have a long chat with our guide Malika about life in Uzbekistan. She tells us she is divorced from her Russian husband and he now lives in Moscow - we get the impression that alcohol had been the main problem. Malika tells us that she prefers to live in Uzbekistan as she feels life is too fast in Moscow, and alcohol is a way of life there. She taught English there for a few years, and says she had real problems with the behaviour of her students - sounds like some English schools! Malika tells us that although Uzbekistan is mainly a Muslim country, and strict Muslims don't drink alcohol, this rule is not observed by most of the population - although alcohol is not a big problem here.
Malika also tells us more about boys and girls education, and I need to put the record straight as I may have misunderstood our previous guide in Bukhara, who was obviously talking about a few years ago when she described girls being educated to be housewives, and separate education, Malika tells us that nowadays in Uzbekistan, there is mixed education, right from nursery school through to university.
It's late afternoon and we part company from our lovely guide, giving her a generous tip because we like her so much! We're really tired and return to the hotel - I have a sleep and Reg speaks to the very useful Post Office man about phone credit - before we know it (for a small commission) he's got us some!
We eat out at a nearby cafe place, and have chicken and salad, with potato salad, which is tasty, I have icecream and we both have the usual black tea. Our young waiter speaks only a couple of words of English but he tries so hard we like him and tip him well!
No internet at the hotel so can't post yesterday's blog. Tomorrow we'll look for an internet cafe.
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