The traditional courtyard of Zuxro’s guesthouse
My second day in Bukhara did not start well. After a leisurely and late breakfast Zuxro told me that it was already 35 degrees and wasn’t even 9 o’clock yet!
I had two options – try to do all my sightseeing before the planet burst into flames at lunchtime or take advantage of the suprisingly good aircon unit in my room. I chose the latter. And so did everybody else at the guest house. It seemed that the endless days of 40+ degree heat in southern Uzbekistan was sapping everyone’s energy.
Throughout the day, the courtyard of Zuxro’s guesthouse became the defacto lounge room as we all emerged at various times from our little icy-cool redoubts to try to pass the time in some constructive manner until the late afternoon when the temperature became bearable again.
So I took the opportunity to chat with my fellow guests. There were no other motorcyclists but there quite a few overland bicyclists. How they had survived riding 100-150km, day after day, in that heat is beyond me.
With nothing better to do with my time I decided that I should sort through the many hundreds of photos I had taken and cull the garbage and try to make something worthwhile from the rest. So below is a selection of photos of Uzbekistan that didn’t make it into the blog so far.
Even the Arabic calligraphy of the Registan are works of art.
The Registan? Who cares? We’d rather play in the fountain! What all kids want to do when their parents take them to the museum on a hot day.
In Samarkand even the mouse gets its own Persian rug!
I didn’t know mulberry trees lived that long!
Restoration work on the Ark in Bukhara. The building methods haven’t changed in 1000 years either.
The pavillions of Kalon Mosque – a study in symmetry.
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