The sun has set and the call to prayer has just echoed eerily across the city and people can start eating. Where are/were we? Mashhad, Iran and it’s Ramadan! Of course. But where was I? I think driving across Uzbekistan and loving it - in spite of roads being of Gibb River Road ‘texture’.
Bukhara, our final stop in Uzbekistan came and went. Lots of places to see in this Central Asia’s supposed holiest City, but I spent it with my foot up leaving Lindsay to do it alone. An interesting snippet - in the C19th it was ‘famous’ for plagues. They didn’t change the water in the city’s watering holes often enough and as a result life expectancy was 32! I didn’t drink the water just to be on the safe side!!
This was rather sumptuous at least on the outside.
This is one of 114 pools from which the plague stretched deadly fingers into the populace.
From there we headed to Turkmenistan and a very lengthy processing time through two sets of Border controls. I might tell you about that another time suffice it to say it entailed a few hours and almost 2 km walking with our luggage in 35+C midday sun through no mans land. One interesting spot was on the Uzbek side where we were part of what we think was the making of a promo or training video - we were the only ‘clients’ there. Lots of smiles and we sailed through. The grind was yet to come!
All that was worth it in the end as our guide in Turkmenistan was a walking talking Mr Google. You can imagine my delight - me, who never stops asking questions! He was a real gem.
Ata was brilliant. An astonishing walking encyclopaedia. He was kept busy!
This is the Karakum River. A man made canal linking a couple of big rivers to bring life giving water to the desert. Irrigation on a grand scale. Water is used wisely here. Drainage run off from the irrigated fields is collected and piped to the desert against times of drought. It is salty but water nonetheless.
Reeds are collected for stock fodder and roofing and other uses.
On our way to Ashgabat the capital, we paid a visit to ancient Merv built around C6th BC, it’s a major archaeological site in Central Asia and once contained several walled cities. We wandered almost totally alone among ruins in this 14 hectare site. Ruins, grand and other-worldly, became increasingly silhouetted against a fading lavender and chartreuse sky. We ended with a visit to a C12th tomb outside of which on an old dead tree was the evidence of a not so distant Zoroastrian past.
One of the very early palaces. Mud that is washed down from the walls, dissolved mud bricks, is collected and used in the restoration process.
Another of the many palaces in this huge site.
This is the remains of a Zoroastrian past - but not so passed as devotees still come here at particular times of year and tie their wishes to this ‘tree’.
It was a highly romantic way to end a rather challenging day and a perfect introduction to Turkmenistan.
A C12th mausoleum. Even though it was very late, the kind watchman let us in for a good look.
[To see more pix of this please go to www.flickr.com/photos/hwheat8pix/ and go to Albums and find ‘Bukhara to Merv’. ]
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