Glenna and I have been planning to go to Uzbekistan for five years. This year we finally did it. It was not without turmoil. But we made lemonade out of plenty of lemons. I’ll get the lemons out of the way first.
Sunday-Monday. We bought our tickets back in February. The itinerary was changed by American Airlines soon after, but something got screwed up and my itinerary didn’t get changed. So when we got to our gate at GSP I didn’t have the right ticket, and the flight to Dallas-Fort Worth was full. They asked Glenna if she was going to go anyway! They were more concerned about compensating us for their error rather than finding us a flight. This was Apr 27 and they could get us to Tashkent on May 2! I looked on Kayak and found a flight leaving out of Charlotte, and Glenna got on the phone with AA and got those reservations. There was a plane going to Charlotte in a few minutes. The AA app was down and they couldn’t sell us a ticket, but the AA gate crew wouldn’t let us get on it because we didn’t have a ticket! So we ubered to Charlotte and made our flight to Chicago and then Doha, Qatar and Tashkent. We had some time at Doha and explored a little.
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| This cute stuffed animal dominated the space |
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They had an area called The Orchard where
you could walk around or sit
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| The Orchard was filled with very large plants |
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And also very nice structures
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Unfortunately my luggage didn’t make it. My Apple Airtag (definitely worth having) told me it was back in Chicago. It took forever for the inexperienced agent to file a claim for us, so we didn’t get to the hotel until 4AM. And then it took two full days to get my bag back to me and then only because I persisted with both AA and Qatar Airways. Glenna thought I did really well with no change of clothes, no medications, no cosmetics, no nightgown. I only bought underwear and a shirt.
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| This is how the agents in Doha were able to locate my suitcase |
The first evening in Tashkent we got a notice that our flight from Tashkent to Delhi at the end of the trip (we were going to spend a day with a friend of Glenna’s there) was cancelled. We got a reservation on Uzbek Airlines with fewer hours in Delhi and applied to get our money back for the cancelled flight—not without some difficulty. Several times we had trouble getting my credit card to go through. CapitalOne is very cautious.
Also that evening I discovered that I had somehow lost the key to my luggage locks; it was in my change purse and I must have lost it in pulling out the credit cards, money or credit slips. Glenna’s Bill found a hack on YouTube to get into the suitcases which we had to use for the rest of the trip.
We spent a day in Tashkent as planned and prepared for our overnight train to
Khiva. We deliberately stayed at the railway hotel so that we would be close—only to find out that our train left from the other station. We dashed over there (via their Uber-equivalent called Yandex—worked very well) only to miss the train by a few minutes. We spent the next hour in the station, me getting a flight to Khiva for the day after and rebooking all the hotels (I always use booking.com; they allow cancellation usually up to the day before with no charge.) and Glenna cancelling all four trains and rebooking three of them (as Glenna said in her journal “with lots of pantomiming, phone pointing and Google translate” with a male agent until she switched to a female agent: “should’ve known women are always more efficient”). The Uzbeks speak some English but not a lot. They all speak Russian, and there were loads of Russian tourists. Sometimes the credit card receipts were totally in Russian, and I had a hard time afterward figuring out what each was for. (I keep track of all our expenses and total them up at the end.)
We switched hotels for the next two nights in Tashkent. I paid the bill the second night instead of waiting until the morning when we would be rushed. Mistake. The night clerk didn’t know what he was doing and he charged us twice in one transaction for the room. He said the day clerk would straighten it out. They assured me in the morning that they would do that. On May 12 I got an email from them saying they had refunded it to the bank, not my credit card, and I would have to get it from the bank. CapitalOne was as mystified by that as I was. So more forms to fill out with CapOne to get the money back. That was some beginning of a trip!
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| A very welcome Welcome sign |
Nothing more bad happened to us until the end of the trip (except our choice to switch hotels in Khiva). Just as we got into our room back in Tashkent at midnight after our train from Samarkand, Glenna’s phone buzzed with an email from AA which said that the flight from Delhi to JFK for that evening had been cancelled (by our government, we learned later) because of the skirmishing between India and Pakistan. We could not call out of Uzbekistan without great difficulty--something about SIM cards and tariffs--and so could not get in touch with AA. We decided to go to the airport to see what we could do. We missed the only flight to Doha and so decided to try Turkish Airlines. Glenna had no sooner booked a flight to JFK through Istanbul than the agents told us that it might be better to take an Uzbek flight that was direct. We got that flight and got most of the money back for the Turkish flight. Meanwhile we had enlisted my brother Rick’s help in getting home. He booked a flight from Doha (but they only booked me, not two as he had asked), but we couldn’t get to Doha anyway.
We slept some on the flight to JFK, but one kid literally screamed and cried and whined the entire trip, saying the same sing-songy thing the whole time. We were glad to get to the USA.
At JFK the next morning we had to find a way to get home. There had been storms the last few days causing lots of flight cancellations (plus the Newark outage), so the very helpful agent booked us for the next morning but also put us on standby for flights to Charlotte and then Greenville for that day. Amazingly enough we made both standby flights and got home a day early since we didn’t get to go to Delhi (missing out on Manish’s cooking—he’s a great cook—and carrying home all the gifts Glenna had for his family).
Now that you’ve heard all about the lemons, the rest is pretty much lemonade—and sometimes with real lemonade.
I can hear your first question. Why Uzbekistan—and maybe, where is it? Glenna and I have long wanted to go to Iran but have never felt it was safe enough. Isfahan, in particular, has gorgeous Islamic architecture. Glenna studied Islamic architecture in her master’s program in art history, and we both are bewitched by it. So Uzbekistan was our second choice. Its cities were stopovers on the Silk Road, that network of trade routes from China to Europe in use from 130 BCE to 1453 CE. The cities prospered as a result, and magnificent edifices were erected, primarily mosques, madrasas and mausoleums, after the rise of Islam which began in the early 7th century CE. Uzbekistan, the home of the Uzbeks, today is surrounded by the stans that are south of Russia in Central Aisa and that were once part of the USSR.
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Here is where Uzbekistan is--surrounded by other Stans. Above Kazakhstan
is Russia. Below Afghanistan and Tajikistan are Pakistan and India. |
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Here is a depiction of the Silk Road routes from China to Italy. The four cities we visited from west to east were Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent.
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First some definitions. A mosque is a Muslim place of worship (the word in Arabic is masjid; it got altered in Spain centuries ago). A minaret is a tower associated with a mosque from which the call to prayer is issued. A muezzin is the person who gives the call to prayer. A mihrab is a niche inside a mosque which signals the direction of Mecca towards which all must pray. A minbar is a raised pulpit inside the mosque from which the Friday address is given. A madrasa (or madrasah or madrassa--when a word is transliterated, it often has various spellings such as Peking as we used to write and Beijing as we write now) is an Islamic school. A mausoleum is a monument to someone who has died. Did you notice that these are all m’s? I did but didn’t know why. Glenna says, for example, that adroos in Arabic means to study. If you put an m at the beginning, it makes it a place to study, that is, a madrasa. So the m in front makes an object out of the action word that follows. She says that Arabic is a very logical language.
Anyone who has been to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain has experienced Islamic architecture. This trip was Alhambra after Alhambra after Alhambra. It was an absolute embarrassment of riches as we knew it would be. I took about a thousand pictures. Between her camera and her phone, Glenna took many more than that. It was very hard to choose pictures for this blog. There were just so many gorgeous ones. So here goes.
Tuesday. Despite having had very little sleep in the previous 33 hours, I didn’t sleep well that first night. The mattress was hard. But we got up the next morning ready to go. The first task was to figure out the Tashkent metro system which turned out to be pretty easy. Tashkent has beautiful metro stations built during the Soviet era (as does Moscow which I saw back in 1973), and we made a point of seeing many of them that day.
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| Toshkent metro station |
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| Kosmonavtoar metro station |
I needed something else to wear, so we went to a department store which was rather odd—small departments next to other small departments which had nothing to do with one another. The clothes sections were scattered throughout the store next to grandfather clocks, gold services, bikes, electronics, etc. No luck finding anything there. Right near there was an ATM where we got cash. 13000 Uzbek som equals $1, so we were carrying around lots of bills in our wallets. Our biggest purchase was 1,568,175 som though that one was paid by credit card.
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| Nice sculpture in the park |
By that time we were hungry since we had missed breakfast. Right across the street was a Turkish cafe where we had apple tea, wonderful fresh salad and Iskander kabob (all highlights of Turkish cuisine which we had loved in Turkey).
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| Our first Uzbek meal even though it was Turkish cuisine |
There I got to talking with a woman at a nearby table named Firouza who spoke English quite well. She was with her 93-year old mother. We ended up going to Chorzu bazaar with them, a place we had planned to go anyway. It is a huge bazaar covering several acres. She led us to several stalls where I eventually got the underwear and shirt and Glenna got an Ikat jacket; she also bargained for us with the dealers. In most countries of the world you have to bargain. I have never been comfortable with it, but Glenna is quite good at it. It’s fun to watch her.
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| Glenna perusing the garments |
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| Glenna & Betty with Firouza in our Uzbek caps |
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| I always like to look at the spices; they are so colorful and smell so exotic |
We got to the bazaar via the metro. Firouza at one point told Glenna to give her her purse. She had seen someone suspicious eyeing it. Glenna had seen it also and was holding on tight anyway. The guy got off at the next station. I was completely oblivious to the whole episode; I only read about it in Glenna’s journal. But that was the only time when we ever felt any danger. We could walk around at any hour of the night (we had plenty of night—this was not a trip where we regularly got to bed at a decent hour) or not exactly walk side by side or Glenna could go out very early to take photos, but we never felt unsafe.
Ikat is something I explained in my last blog because Glenna and I saw an exhibition on it in DC in November. This is what I wrote about it then: Ikat is a dying and weaving technique which began in Central Asia and spread via the Silk Road. With other techniques dyes are applied after the weaving; with ikat the yarns are dyed before the weaving. The part of a yarn that isn’t to get a certain color is tightly tied off before dipping the rest in the dye bath. After drying, more parts are tied off to dye another area a second color. This continues until all the colors are applied. The dying can be applied to the warp (vertical yarns) or the weft (horizontal woven-in yarns) or to both.
Ikat was everywhere in Uzbekistan, and Glenna loves it. She got three Ikat jackets, two pieces of fabric to make pillows and two scarves. I got one jacket, a piece of fabric, a t-shirt and a scarf.
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My purchases--Ikat blue fabric, t-shirt and jacket, suzani table runner, a wooden
minaret, pomegranate painting, cute bird-shaped scissors, bread stamp, earrings,
free scarf and magnets
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| Glenna's purchases--mostly Ikat and tiles, both of which she loves |
After the bazaar we visited more metro stations to take pictures. The variety and beauty were a sight to see.
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| Our later light dinner of soup and pretty bread |
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| Our pretty afternoon drinks |
Back at the hotel we got the email about the cancelled flight to Delhi and found out that I had lost the luggage key and then missed the overnight train to Khiva. Honestly, I didn’t mind missing that train, laying over in Tashkent for another day and taking a flight the next morning. We could only book upper berths and, as I later saw, there was no way I was going to get up there with no ladder and only a single bar to put my foot on.
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See the bar that I would have had to
navigate to get to the upper bunk |
That night and the next night instead we stayed in a great hotel which even had a sauna. (I hate them; Glenna loves them.) 13,701 steps
Wednesday. The next day in Tashkent was lovely again. Having gone to bed quite late after rebooking everything, we got up after 9 and had a nice breakfast. I spent quite a time trying to contact someone about my luggage and ended up writing an email to the AA luggage office in Chicago.
Then we were off to the Hazrati Imam complex with our second Yandex ride. We took many Yandex trips. And, boy, are the Uzbeks aggressive drivers. They go pretty fast. They weave in and out. They drive close. They honk. When they are waiting to turn left, they get right up next to the cars passing them in the other direction. And mostly the back seat seatbelts didn’t exist or didn’t work. Many times I just closed my eyes. As Glenna said: “Not quite India or Cairo but enough to make Mom nervous.”
The Hazrati Imam complex, named for the first imam-khatib (Friday sermon-giver) of Tashkent, consists of two mosques, two madrasas, a mausoleum and the Islamic Institute. Finally we were doing what we came to see—Islamic architecture. There was a lot of construction, so there were tin walls all over. But we could still visit most of the places. The Barak Khan madrasa had been turned into a marketplace, and the Hazrati Imam mosque was modern though quite beautiful.
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| Tiles on the facade of Hazrati Imam mosque |
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Minaret for Hazrati Imam mosque
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| Hazrati Imam mosque with its dome |
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Ceiling of Hazrati Imam mosque
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| Minbar from which the Friday sermon is given |
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Mihrab giving the direction to Mecca
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| Looking back to the domes and minaret of the mosque |
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| Looking up at the beautiful entrance to the Baroqxon madrasa |
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| The dome of Baroqxon madrasa |
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| Interior of Baroqxon madrasa |
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| Pillar inside Baroqxon madrasa |
The best part was the small library museum containing numerous Qur’ans (Korans to us) from all ages and whose highlight is what is said to be the oldest Qur’an in existence. It was from the 7th century with pages of deerskin and huge—5’ across with very large Kufic script.
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| Said to be the oldest Qu'ran--7th century--with its deerskin pages |
Islamic calligraphy is highly stylized and structured—and very beautiful, I think. Depictions of people and animals are not explicitly forbidden in the Qur’an, but tradition has often limited figural representation in religious texts in order to avoid idolatry. Over the centuries there have been numerous named scripts (just the way the letters are formed with the qalam, a reed pen). Kufic was perhaps the earliest script, developed in the late 7th century in Kufa, Iraq (Mohammed lived from c. 570 to 632). Calligraphy is a valued art form and considered an aesthetic and also moral pursuit (Ancient Proverb: “Purity of writing is purity of the soul.”). Writing plays a central role in Islamic culture, symbolizing the emphasis on knowledge and education in the Islamic tradition.
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Arabic script on Hazrati Imam mosque--
I don't know their alphabet but the way they
write it I think is beautiful |
On the way out of the complex we got a pomegranate juice, a potato piroshki and a minced meat gumma (both filled fried pies)—delicious. Pomegranates were everywhere. Later I got a watercolor of pomegranates, and they are prominent on the suzani table runner I purchased. Pomegranates are featured in several religions and are an unofficial symbol of Uzbekistan meaning fertility, strong union, wealth and abundance.
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| Food truck menu |
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| Tasty pomegranate juice |
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| Piroshkis with yummy sauce |
Our next stop was the Museum of Applied Arts which we learned was in the former residence of a 19th century Russian diplomat. It was as beautiful as the art in it. There was lots of ikat and also lots of suzani which is an embroidered textile that has been made specifically in the Stans of the former Soviet Union for centuries. A bride had to present her husband with her suzani handiwork. Suzani means needle, and dealers who had handmade pieces were quick to show us the loose threads on the back.
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| Wall of suzanis. Lots of color which the Uzbeks love. |
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| Loom producing Ikat fabric |
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Beautiful suzani pattern
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| Wearable suzanis |
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They were quick to show us the
back of the handmade ones.
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The most gorgeous room was one that was probably a receiving room once upon a time.
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| View of the reception room |
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| Fireplace in the reception room |
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Wall niche found in most homes
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Another interesting room was one which contained several traditional instruments. QR codes next to them allowed you to hear how they sounded.
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Traditional instruments whose sound we
could hear |
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Another beautiful instrument
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Another beautiful space was the courtyard.
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| Porch in the courtyard--every inch decorated |
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| Porch ceiling |
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| Beautiful pillar |
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Glenna and Betty against the tiled background
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Other rooms had metalwork, wood carvings, ceramics and miniature paintings. Afterward we relaxed in the courtyard with lemonades.
After walking around the very nice vicinity of the museum for awhile, Glenna wanted to try to get a small ikat purse that she hadn’t bought at the department store the day before. No purse but she got 3,000,000 som at the ATM. I sat on a bench in the very nice park. A young woman sat on my bench also. Soon a man (obviously her beau) came to pick her up and bring her flowers. She had him give half of the flowers to me.
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| School was just letting out |
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| A cute cat hotel |
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Betty with her flower gift--and a glimpse
of the shirt I bought
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Glenna had found a Georgian restaurant that we decided to try. (She’s great at finding restaurants, coffee houses, tea shops, etc., and going to places like that is always a part of our trips. We consider it an essential aspect of a good travel experience.) We tried the bus to get there. That worked really well; just tap your contactless card. Very good dinner, especially eating outside, the highlight of which was soshti, the national bread of Georgia. It happened that it was ladies day, so we got half off our meal! 11,120 steps
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Our Georgian dinner of dumpling soup,
Georgian bread, chicken with garlic and
tomato and wine(!) |
Thursday. We were up very early the next morning for our flight to Urgench, the nearest airport to Khiva, our next city. First I retrieved my bag from the international luggage office (yay!). We actually had to take a taxi to the domestic terminal because it was quite far away. In both Chicago and Doha, it was also a long ride between the terminals we needed but that was by shuttle provided by the airport. The taxi drivers near the train stations drove us nuts. You just have to walk right by without saying anything. Actually, though, I feel a little bad for them; I think Yandex is probably edging them out of business. I’m not sure why they don’t just drive with Yandex; I don’t think it has to do with the condition of the car because we once had a pretty ancient one. I wonder that about Uber and Lyft vs. taxis in our country also.
This trip took us from the far eastern part of the country to the west. The country is largely a desert, and as we looked down from the plane we could see that. But as we neared Urgench we could see patches of green.
We were the last ones out of the terminal. They were too polite to tell us to get out because they were closing it. I guess ours was the only flight for a good while. We took another Yandex for the 45-minute ride to Khiva. It was nice to see the countryside and small towns along the way. Most of the front yards had gardens and fruit trees instead of grass.
At the hotel where we wanted to drop our bags, we waited awhile for our frazzled hostess. We got a room right on the ground floor—great for me.
We soon left to see the sites of the walled old city, Itchan Kala, which is right where we were. If possible, we always like to stay right in the thick of things. Sometimes you even get a great view from your window.
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| Sign for the Old City, Ichan Qal'a |
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| I loved this old city wall--this view right by our hotel |
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In places you could actually see
the straw sticking out |
Khiva has a ticket that gets you into most sites, so that was our first order of business. We were very hungry, and Glenna had found a really nice place outside the walls. There are too many tourists in Itchan Kala to get a sense of the people who live there; outside we got to see a bit of ordinary life—including cats which we saw everywhere. And we stopped for every one of them!
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If shopping is your pleasure, it
certainly wasn't hard to find places |
Lunch was again outside. We were seated at one of those platforms with a low table in the middle of it. I like the idea of it but it is really uncomfortable for me to sit with my legs stretched out in front of me while I’m trying to eat. We had the Khiva specialty of shivit oshi which is green noodles (colored with a dill infusion) topped with a stew of meat, potatoes and carrots and a strawberry mojito. Delicious.
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| Glenna at the platform table |
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Green noodles, fresh salad and mojito
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The interior of the restaurant. We figured it was used for weddings
and other fancy events |
On the way back to Itchan Kala we passed by an interesting 16th century cemetery called Shokolandar Bobo. Bobo actually means grandfather, and we saw the name applied to other cemeteries. So perhaps bobo came also to mean the place for old people when they’re gone.
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A typical house outside Itchan Kala--straw and mud
but with some nice design elements |
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| A peek into the cemetery |
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Some of the domed graves
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Our first stop back inside the walls was the mid-18th century Mohammed Amin Khan madrasa. To diverge here: a madrasa is a boarding school for young Muslim boys. You definitely understand that education was important in Muslim cultures when you see the large number of madrasas. The rectangular structures almost all follow a definite plan. In the middle of the front side is a large iwan which is a vaulted rectangular space enclosed on three sides and open on the other. (Iwans are common in Islamic buildings, but the word and the concept are Persian and predate Islamism.) The formal gateway around the arched iwan is the pishtaq which projects out from the façade of the building. It is almost always highly decorated. Inside, opposite the portal, is usually another iwan, and sometimes there are two more in the middle of the other two sides. The large resulting courtyard may have trees and benches and flowers. It is here that the students lived in small cells (called hujra) all around the courtyard on a single level and sometimes two. There may or may not have been a window in these rooms, sometimes just a stone grille above the doorway. Lessons took place in the corner classrooms or the courtyard. Most included a mosque for worship also.
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Here is an example of a madrasa with numerous
iwans and a pishtaq around the central one. It also
shows lots of suzanis for sale. We passed this
spot numerous times. |
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This photo shows the interior courtyard of a madrasa with trees surrounded by walls with
lots of iwans and two pishtaqs |
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Here is the door to one of the cells where
the students lived with the grille above it
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The inside of a two-story cell
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Several days later we visited a madrasa in Samarkand which had been turned into a museum of education with very interesting displays and commentary. There students were divided into groups according to their level of knowledge—excellent, middle and low. The teachers had small classes and taught all three levels and more than one subject. The school year was six months, from September 21 to March 21. Shari’a principles, literature, history, philosophy, logic, astronomy, and mathematics were taught but the primary emphasis was on religious and ethical education.
Back to the trip--we visited Mohammed Amin Khan madrasa (now a hotel but we could go into the courtyard) and couldn’t get enough of Kalta Minor, the adjoining minaret—the symbol of Khiva. It was supposed to be 70m high but ended at 23m when the builder was beheaded.
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| View of the Itchan Kala walls from the outside |
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| Caravan sculpture near the walls |
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Towers of entrance to the madrasa
and Kalta Minor behind |
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Lovely old door
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| Mohammed Amin Khan madrasa |
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Sculpture celebrating music and dance
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Another sculpture celebrating music
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Two friends enjoying each other's company--I loved spotting
these sculptures around the city, this one at Kalta Minor |
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| The bridge between the madrasa and Kalta Minor |
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Looking up Kalta Minor
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We wandered down the street toward the east, passing the stalls and tables which are literally on both sides of most streets. It is fun to look even though after awhile you realize that you’re looking at the same stuff. How all these vendors make money is a mystery to me. Twice when I bought something I was given a small scarf also. I figured that they were showing their gratitude for a sale. Glenna did a great job of bargaining, I thought, but maybe not. Maybe they made good money from us. Actually I hope so. Most countries of the world are so cheap for American travelers that I even feel bad bargaining over what to us is still inexpensive. But it's such a way of life for them that they actually enjoy the bargaining and expect it. So I guess my philosophy is bargain some but don't be ridiculous about it. But I still leave it to Glenna!
We visited Shergazi madrasa which is now a museum of Central Asian cultures and medicine. This was one of the plainer old structures in Khiva.
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| Nice stove in the courtyard of Shergazi madrasa |
Across the way was the wonderful 14th century Pahlavon Makhmud mausoleum whose every inch was decorated with wonderful patterns. The principal person buried here was the namesake, a famous poet and wrestler. Then the benefactor had himself buried here also. There followed several more--and many more in the space outside next to it.
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| Islam Khodja complex--mosque, madrasa and minaret |
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| Looking up the minaret |
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Lovely mihrab inside the mosque
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We were in need of a rest, so we stopped at the delightful Farrukh Teahouse in a courtyard. We had tea and a delicious greasy freshly-made gumma.
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| Betty at tea |
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| Our delicious warm gumma |
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We decided to read the tea leaves. I thought
this one was one of the ducks that inhabit our
community pool in the spring with his droppings
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We continued on toward the East Gate where we had read there was good shopping. It was good but not that different from the other stalls but still fun. We always love looking at and considering buying the local wares.
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Wall with tiled crenellations of the Alikuli Khan caravanserai--
one of the ancient lodges and trading places |
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| Beautiful minaret of Khojamberdibi madrasa |
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Entrance iwan of Khojamberdibi madrasa
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Some of the pretty bread stamps. They had nails
on the bottom in patterns which they would stamp
onto their flatbreads (pictured later in Bukhara).
We each got one. |
We went outside the gate and watched four men on a bench enjoying each other’s company. They were waiting for the call to prayer at the local mosque which soon came. It was fun to watch the younger men rushing toward the entrance perhaps because they had come from work. Glenna thought that this muezzein (the one calling the others to prayer) was live. Often they are taped. It was fun to see this slice of life at an ordinary unpretentious mosque.
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| The East Gate of Itchan Kala |
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Four men waiting for the call to prayer
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On the way back toward the west we happened upon Juma Mosque. It was on our list but not on our radar yet. It was unbelievably beautiful in its starkness. Juma means Friday, and Friday is the important day in Islam, so this was an important mosque. Inside are 213 black elm pillars in rows carved over centuries as far back as the 10th and as late as the 18th and each distinctively carved.
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| The array of pillars in Juma mosque |
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| Detail of one pillar |
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Detail of a pillar from another time
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Another view of the ceiling and pillars.This was the section inside that was carpeted
which means it is currently set aside for worship. The rest was just stone floor where
we didn't have to take off our shoes. This is unusual. Generally the courtyard is outside the mosque proper and you take off your shoes to go inside. |
We continued our meandering as the sun was going down (Glenna, as an amateur photographer, is very aware of where the sun is at all times. She loves taking pictures at sunup, sundown, the golden hour, the blue hour, etc.). We were headed toward Kuhna Ark (meaning fortress) near the West Gate. This is one of those sundown places for photos, but after visiting the summer mosque inside, wedecided to come back the next day to go up.
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| The outdoor summer mosque of Kuhna Ark |
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| The minbar of the mosque |
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| Beautiful wall detail of the summer mosque |
We watched young boys playing soccer with a ball whose stuffing was coming out and a wedding couple strolling on the plaza before joining their wedding party. We also went in Muhammed Rakhim Khan madrasa across the square which was bathed in golden sunlight.
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| Afternoon sunlight on the Mohammed Rahim Khan madrasa |
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| Wedding couple strolling on the square |
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| Uplights on the madrasa and in the right rear boys playing soccer with an absolutely ragged ball |
It was already 8:00. We couldn’t get in to the very popular Terrassa restaurant (made a reservation for the next night though) and settled for another place where we had our first lamb shaslik kabob and a dumpling soup. No wine here. Many Muslim countries do not serve alcohol, of course, but Uzkekistan does though they don’t advertise it. This place had beer (which seems to be the first departure from no alcohol) but no wine and certainly nothing else. 12,844 steps.
Friday. The next morning we woke up early because the light was streaming in through the gauzy curtains. I told Glenna she might as well go out and take some photos. When she came back and wanted to take a shower she realized that the water was an absolute trickle which would never wash her body let alone her long thick hair. When we asked the proprietress about it she said, “It's fine; everywhere is like that.” Not what we wanted to hear. Breakfast was barely edible—cold green noodles with yogurt mixed in (really not good) and dry looking breads. Oh, and our toilet seat was cracked which wasn’t comfortable. Glenna did get to shower upstairs in a room that the lady said belonged to her relatives. But with all these things, we just didn't want to stay. I felt bad for the lady because she was trying hard, but it just wasn’t for us. So we ate the price of the second night there and booked the room that we had originally which didn’t have a second night for us when we had to shift everything but now did. We had cancelled that reservation too late to do it without cost, so we ate that too. Oh well, just one of the many wasted expenses on this trip. It was a good move. The next hotel had a balcony, a hammock, a nice breakfast, a nice room, a great view toward Kalta Minor and was right on the square at the West Gate. And it was slightly less expensive than the last place!
We soon set off for the North Gate where we took the narrow, steep steps up to the walkway along the walls. We walked to the West Gate and back. Great views of the minarets and domes and iwans of the city along a wide path with no barrier.
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| Narrow streets of Itchan Kala; I wouldn't be driving there. |
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| Narrow steps to get up to the top of the wall |
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View of the walkway with Glenna off
in the distance |
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View of other sections of the wall
through a loophole |
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At first we wondered what those stepped structures were.
Later we realized it was just the back of a pishtaq. |
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| View of pishtaqs and minarets and domes from the wall |
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| Glenna and Betty on the wall |
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We noticed this ingenious use of leaves to make shade on
our way back |
Our next stop was Islam Khodja so Glenna could climb the 82 narrow, steep steps to the top, something which I don’t do anymore (and all the steps in ancient places were very steep for some reason). She said it was very tight at the top with only 8 people up there.
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| Cool sink in the restaurant bathroom |
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Tuxam barak dumplings for lunch
|
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| School girls in their pretty uniforms |
Right near was the amazing 19th century Tosh Khovli palace of relatives of Allakuli Khan (the khans were the former rules of this area) where we spent a long time. It was just stunning, a maze of pattern—in tile and wood and stone. It has three courtyards—one for receiving, one for entertainment and one for the women (the harem). Today there is a yurt in the first one.
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| Inside the receiving courtyard |
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| Ceiling of the porch in the receiving courtyard |
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| Room off the courtyard--with the usual every inch decorated |
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| The yurt in the courtyard for winter times |
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Inside the yurt
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| Glenna and Betty in the courtyard |
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| The pillars were often as gorgeous as the walls |
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| Spectacular wall detail in the harem courtyard |
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Glenna in the harem courtyard
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We went back to the hotel to claim our room and rest a bit—Glenna in the hammock-like chair.
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| View from our hotel terrace |
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One of Glenna's favorite memories was relaxing
in this hammock |
And then out for some shopping. Glenna had her eye on some star tiles (Islam uses 8-pointed stars, Jadaism 6-pointed). She bargained, and the vendor loved it. She also wanted to find something we saw many women wearing—an ikat jacket/duster/kimono/robe (long, knee length or waist length) usually cotton but also silk or a blend. She found one in colors she was looking for; I will probably get to hem it. She eventually got three, and I got one.
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| Kids playing with the music sculpture |
We wanted to sit outside and enjoy the city for awhile, so we got tea and samsas (pastry filled with meat and onions in this case). Our waiter was a dead ringer for Glenna’s nephew, but he declined to let us take a picture of him.
It was nearing the blue hour so we headed for Kuhna Ark. There were 33 hard steps for me, but I made it for a great view of Khiva.
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| Nice door in Kuhna Ark |
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One of the rooms in Kuhna Ark which was
the palace of the khans
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| From atop Kuhna Ark, a view of the roof and the city beyond |
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Towers at Kuhna Ark entrance and the madrasa behind
bathed in golden light |
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| Great view of the city wall with the sun on it |
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Looking down at an artisan practicing his
wood carving craft in the courtyard
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| Setting sun peaking through the crenellations of the Ark |
After we came down, we still had an hour until our 9:00 dinner reservation, so we headed east and found that some of the buildings on the east side had a light show. From Glenna’s journal: “Plus most other buildings were uplit with that lovely golden light that looks so nice against the cerulean sky.”
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| Lights on the Kutlug Murad Inaq madrasa |
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| Lights on the Ak mosque |
The restaurant was worth the wait. We were on the third level terrace and had mastava soup (with rice) and Kavurna lagman (Khiva dish with thick noodles, beef and veg) and wine (!). Very pleasant. And our hotel was right next door. 12,503 steps.
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Betty with our soup and lagman and wine |
End of Part 1. Go to Part 2.
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