Monthly Archives: October 2014

18 month summary

Countries visited in the last three months (1st July to 30th September)

South Korea, China, Uzbekistan (total visited to date on this trip = 16)

Have you managed to stay within your budget (£70 per day)? And what has been the expense breakdown?

Not quite. Day-to-day expenses haven’t been too high, but three sets of flights, expensive visas for Uzbekistan and travel insurance renewal in September all bumped the total up. Our average daily spend over the three months has been £75.52. Our daily spend to date since we left home has been £70.63.

Accommodation is a little lower than the last two quarters, but still the biggest expense at 30.5% – we found accommodation in China to be very cheap, and moderately priced in South Korea where for half of our stay we rented apartments in Seoul. In Uzbekistan accommodation is expensive compared to other on-the-ground costs, we think because supply is limited by government licensing of hotels and guesthouses, but still not too bad at around £25-30 per night for a double room.
Intercity transportation is next highest at 22.5% – three flights in this quarter (Osaka to Busan, Seoul to Shanghai, and Beijing to Tashkent) account for two-thirds of this amount totalling just over £1000. This cost has been the one of the major factors in our being slightly over budget and is a good reminder to us to travel overland whenever possible.
For the first time, healthcare has been a noticeable amount at 0.8% – fortunately this isn’t due to a decrease in our general well-being although there were a couple of trips to the pharmacy for cough medicine and rehydration sachets. Most of the spend was a pair of glasses for Andrew as he was getting headaches when using his computer for extended periods.
The living expenses category is a much higher percentage than usual at 7.6% – before we left home we bought an 18 month travel insurance policy so we needed to replace that when it expired in September, a new 6 month policy cost us £280. Our wardrobe was also starting to look a bit tired so we replaced our jeans and some T-shirts while we were in Seoul.
Visa spend for the quarter was 3.0% – we got both our Chinese and Uzbekistan visas at the embassies in Tokyo and, while the Chinese application was relatively straightforward and inexpensive, we had to pay a premium for the Uzbekistan one to be ready at the “express” timing of one week rather than two.

What has surprised you most in the last three months of travel?

That the Korean language is written not in characters representing words, but with an alphabet called Hangul. At first glance it looks like it’s made up of thousands of characters like Chinese or Japanese, but it’s actually built from just 24 basic letters arranged in blocks. We got to the point where we could recognise a good few and decode whole words with the aid of a cheat sheet!

Apart from family and friends, what are you missing most about life in the UK?

Julie – A soft bed… Many have been the nights when I have wished for my own comfortable bed in the last few months as the concept of springs and mattresses doesn’t really seem to have caught on in the budget accommodations of China and Uzbekistan. The most extreme example would be the bed we had in Wuhan where it is no exaggeration to say that we may as well have been sleeping on the floor…

Andrew – I’ve really missed driving. It’s not the convenience as we’ve packed pretty light and we love public transport – especially overnight trains – but the enjoyment of motoring and, as we’ve seen quite a few motorbikes and scooters, of riding too. Though I’ll see how I feel about a motorbike when I get back to the British weather..

What’s the most memorable sight that you’ve seen in the last three months?

This is usually a really hard question to answer, but this time we both immediately said the Registan in Samarkand. We were really looking forward to seeing it and had a nagging worry that it might be a let down but it was even better in real life, absolutely jaw-dropping.

Tell us a funny story from the last three months of travel.

In Samarkand we’d met the same portly taxi driver pretty much every day near the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum offering to take us to Shakhrisabz. The evening before we planned to make the trip we went to seek him out and arrange to meet the following morning. At the mausoleum we didn’t see him in his usual place but Andrew soon spotted a large guy a little way off chatting to another taxi driver. He rushed over to shake his hand and say ‘hello’ but as the man turned we realised it was a different driver… He was so dumbstruck by a random tourist shaking his hand that we were walking off giggling before he recovered himself enough to shout ‘taxi?’ after us!

Who is the person you’ve met that you remember the most from the last three months?

The owner of the Mirzo Guesthouse in Tashkent, Murod. He’s an affable retired history professor who is always keen to have a chat although he doesn’t speak much English (he absolutely pounced on any guests who spoke Russian). When he found out that Julie’s degree is in maths he excitedly told us (mostly via his son Oybek who runs the guesthouse with him and speaks excellent English) about medieval Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who came from Khiva, and whose name serves as the root for the words algebra and algorithm. When words fail, Mr Mirzo is proficient at communicating through the language of music, liking nothing better than getting out his dutar on an evening and serenading any guests who happen to be about!

Finally, what have you found to be the greatest challenge so far?

More so than on our first trip, we found the language barrier in southern China harder. It’s not that we encountered more Cantonese where our very limited Mandarin didn’t work, it was that our pronunciation made planning our independent travel very difficult on occasion. For example, we were trying to buy our train tickets to Zhangjiajie but the woman behind the counter didn’t have a clue where we wanted to go. It was only after showing it on a map to a student who just happened to be in the queue with us, that we learned how to say it properly! (it’s “Djang-Jar-Jay” in case you’re wondering!)

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Day 1 – A mammoth sightseeing session

First stop, the resplendent Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum

I’m sure you’ll breathe a sign of relief when I say I’m only going to mention our highlights of Khiva, as we managed to see nearly everything on the ticket!

First up was the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum which isn’t much to look at from the street, but inside it reveals a tranquil courtyard with the main mausoleum straight in front and a room of tombs to the left. As we paused to take photographs, a family of worshippers followed us in with very smartly dressed children. The parents grabbed Julie and Jo for a spontaneous photo shoot..

Jo and Julie roped into a family photograph. This happened to us all quite a bit in Uzbekistan

Pahlavon Mahmud was a poet, philosopher and a wrestler (!), who later became the patron saint of Khiva. The tiling inside the main chamber and of Mahmud’s tomb is exquisite.

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud's mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khas to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud's wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud’s mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khans to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud’s wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

After a few more sights we took a break to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret, the tallest one in Uzbekistan! The stairs inside were narrow and ascended anti-clockwise. The steps were steep which meant it was hard going but only took a little time to reach the viewing platform at the top.

Jo and Julie starting to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret – Khiva’s newest (built in 1910) and Uzbekistan’s highest at 57m

Khiva from the top of the Islom Hoja Minaret

Having climbed his minaret, we then visited Islom Hoja’s Medressa which is also the Museum of Applied Arts. It seems that they’ve knocked through all of the student and teacher cells on the ground floor to create a long corridor of tiny rooms in which we found a very eclectic exhibition – woodcarvings, metalwork, carpets, clothing, books and stone carvings.

A taste of the variety on display in the Museum of Applied Arts. Clockwise from top-left: Walking through the walls of the medressa; Parcha robes for women (20th century); Stamps (21st century); A part of the ceiling from the Arabkhan mosque (17th century)

Next up we popped our heads into the Photography Museum which had a very impressive collection of old black and white photos of Khiva from the 1920s and 30s, including some exposed onto glass!

A small selection of the framed photographs of old Khiva on display in the Khiva Photography Museum

After we recharged our sightseeing batteries with tasty home-made somsas (triangular pasties about the size of your hand, similar to an Indian samosa but oven baked rather than fried) and copious amounts of tea in a little cafe in the bazaar just outside the East Gate, we tackled the lavishly decorated, massive Tosh Hovli palace – so big it’s in 2 parts!

The sumptuously decorated Tosh Hovli Palace courtyard

Details of the decorations in the Tosh Hovli Palace. Clockwise from top-left: The wooden pillars are just as elaborate as the tiled walls; Ceiling detail; Interior bedroom; Silk scarves for sale in the courtyard

In contrast to the Tosh Hovli Palace where seemingly every internal surface is decorated, our next stop was the Juma Mosque – my favourite of the day..

The underground Juma Mosque with it’s 218 carved wooden pillars was my favourite of the sights in Khiva

Just outside the walls to the north-west is the Isfandiyar Palace. We double-checked the map when we got there as it looked pretty non-descript from the outside and we were the only people there – besides a local guy sitting on the step.

Julie and Jo checking we’re in the right place, and reading up on the Isfandiyar Palace before we enter

But inside awaits the biggest assault to the senses all day..

CAPTION COMPETITION: Julie and Jo exclaiming over the chandelier in the completely over-the-top Isfandiyar Palace. It’s bold and bonkers and we loved it!

Every room overloaded our senses with colour and patterns. Somehow, it made complete sense that the only suitable furniture that wouldn’t cause further clashes would be mirrors..

We’d saved the Kuhna Ark for last because we’d read it was a good vantage point over Khiva at sunset. As we climbed up to the watchtower (which was 2,000 som extra, about 40p) we heard Uzbek pop-music, and found ourselves in the middle of a music video shoot!

Shooting for an Uzbek music video on the Kuhna Ark in Khiva

Dancer posing for us in-between shooting a music video in Khiva, Uzbekistan

Not only was she a great dancer, she was happy to pose for the multitude of tourists in between shots. We don’t know her name, but she was described as “the best” by the crew and, amazingly, we saw her again on the Uzbek MTV when we had dinner later that night!!

I got talking to a smartly dressed guy who was hanging around while the filming was going on, and through an interpreter I found out he was the singer who wrote the song she was dancing to! I haven’t been able to find his track (as I suspect it isn’t yet released), and there’s another famous Uzbek singer called Athambek. From his handwriting, I think his song is called “Noziga Boylaribgoldim” – if you find it please drop it into the comments below. Here’s a photo of Athambek..

Athambek, the Uzbek singer/songwriter I met in Khiva

The Kuhna Ark and city walls of Khiva, Uzbekistan

The Kuhna Ark and city mud walls of Khiva at sunset

Day 2 – Ancient Khorezm Mud Fortresses

As we’d seen pretty much everything on our list the day before, we arranged a 6-hour, half-day taxi tour of Ancient Khorezm. Here’s the introduction from the Lonely Planet..

The Amu-Darya delta, stretching from southeast of Urgench to the Aral Sea, has been inhabited for millennia and was an important oasis long before Urgench or even Khiva were important. The historical name of the delta area, which includes parts of modern-day northern Turkmenistan, was Khorezm.
The ruins of many Khorezmian towns and forts, some well over 2000 years old, still stand east and north of Urgench in southern Karakalpakstan. With help from Unesco, local tourism officials have dubbed this area the ‘Golden Ring of Ancient Khorezm’. The area’s traditional name is Elliq-Qala (Fifty Fortresses). – Lonely Planet, Central Asia, p202

The tour took us to three of the main qalas, starting with the square Kyzyl Qala. We caught a quick glimpse of it just before we turned off the main road and onto a bumpy dirt track, and as we rounded a small hill of dirt, the massive towering mud fortress stood in front of us..

The square Kyzyl Qala still standing after more than 2,000 years. An excellent example as we walked pretty much all the way around it before we found a way in!

Julie, Jo and I exploring Kyzyl Qala fortress. There aren’t any signs, fences or restrictions, which makes it all the more impressive that these fortresses are still in such good condition

Next up was the main temple complex of the Khorezm kings who ruled the area in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the massive Toprak Qala. We found a lot of the rooms were still visible, as were the doorways linking them. Nearby were the modern foundations of a recent excavation team.

Panorama of the massive Toprak Qala, home to the Khorezm kings in the 3rd and 4th centuries

Julie and Jo scaling the remains of Toprak Qala

The final stop on our qala gala were the 3 ruins of the very impressive Ayaz-Qala. Our driver gave us the choice to drive up the hill, walk down and pay an unofficial entry fee levied by the ger camp nearby, or park at the bottom and scale the walls, thereby avoiding the fee – we opted to storm the walls!

Saving the best ’til last – the massive 3-in-1 Ayaz-Qala. There’s a ground-level fort, the raised fort in the middle and main fortress on the edge of the cliff

Julie, Jo and I having scaled the walls of the Ayaz-Qala fortress. This one was our favourite as some of its tunnels were intact and we could crawl through them!

Thank you Khiva, the compact Silk Road city with the adorable stumpy minaret..

Silly poses with the Kalta Minor Minaret, Khiva

Us with the adorable, stumpy icon of Khiva, the Kalta Minor Minaret

P.S. Don’t forget the caption competition!

Bukhara, Uzbekistan: almost free

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This is a guest post from our good friend Jo who came out to tour Uzbekistan with us. Take it away, Jo …

Although it shares with Samarkand similar grand architecture, Bukhara is a very different place to visit – better-preserved, but because of that, more touristy.

The city has had a series of incarnations but has always been of significance, either politically or religiously. From the 16th century to 1920 it was the capital of a ‘khanate’ before being captured by the Bolsheviks. In 1924 the city was absorbed into the Uzbek SSR.

Despite the Russians, Bukhara is still at its heart a medieval city and most of the mosques and medressas survive in good condition. The most spectacular sight, which we returned to at several different times of the day, is the Kalon Minaret – built in 1127, this 47m high tower has survived the invasion of Chinggis Khan. It was partially damaged by the Soviets but has been well-restored and its golden brick patterns reflect the light beautifully.

Kalon Minaret

We began our three days of wandering around Bukhara’s baking hot streets with the Ark. Sadly this great construction does not float, although there was a solitary camel standing outside for tourists to have their photo taken with. Unlike much of the other architecture we’ve seen, the Ark is not a religious building but instead was a fortress and palace for the Emirs of the khanate.

The Ark and its walls

It’s also a bit like a reverse TARDIS, as much of the vast inside is inaccessible. Many of the buildings are now used as little museums of Bukharan history, some more interesting than others. We shared the experience with loads of tour groups, the first we’d really seen in any number, and as it was a Sunday, lots of locals too. Any prospective visitors should note that the entrance fee of 4,500 sum is separate from a 4,200 sum fee for a guide – we managed to get the latter back on exit as we a) hadn’t been offered a guide, and b) hadn’t wanted one.

Bukhara also has any number of smaller mosques and mausoleums. We passed several of these in our wanderings, including the Chashma Ayub Mausoleum, where apparently Job found water by banging the ground with his staff, and the lovely 9th-century Ismail Samani Mausoleum.

Ismail Samani Mausoleum

Of course we also looked at the bazaar nearby and had a truly excellent lunch of plov for the kingly sum of about £1 each, including free of charge a friendly conversation with the nice chaps at the next table, who didn’t seem to mind that we couldn’t understand more than a couple of words of what they said.

The plov restaurant

On day two in Bukhara we started out by visiting the cute little Char Minar, once a gatehouse for a medressa. The towers aren’t minarets but just decoration, we were able to climb to the roof to see the old town from a different perspective.

Char Minar

We also went into the Kalon Mosque next to the minaret. Julie and I went to the effort of putting on headscarves as it asked us to, but frankly we shouldn’t have bothered as nobody else did. The mosque, which can house 10,000 worshippers, is vast in size although it’s mostly an empty space with some more beautiful tilework. We felt it was a bit overpriced at 6,000 sum (£1.20 – but a lot in Uzbek terms!). We declined the offer to spend 45,000 sum (£9) each to climb the minaret, although we would have liked to.

The courtyard of the Kalon Mosque

On our last day in Bukhara we ventured off the beaten track a little, first venturing to a couple of medressas that were on the map but not described in the guidebook. One was closed, but the door was open to the other so we poked our noses in. There was (predictably) a souvenir shop but mainly the place was under renovation. In search of the stairs to the second floor one of the workers invited us into his workshop-come-living space, where he turned the lights on to show us a large owl! Apparently he’d brought it up from an owlet and it ate mice and snakes. An owl was the last thing we expected to find in a medressa, but it was a nice surprise.

The medressa owl!

We wandered through the streets of the old town to the Jewish cemetery in increasingly hot sunshine and finally retreated to the ‘small’ market for another bowl of good plov.

There wasn’t much left to see in Bukhara, so we spent a pleasant hour in a teahouse drinking spiced tea and coffee and eating local sweets, and also visited an excellent contemporary photo gallery full of portraits of local Bukharans.

Overall we enjoyed our three days in Bukhara. More would have been too long as it’s not the largest town in the world, but it was so hot it was nice to retreat back to our guesthouse (the hospitable Sarrafon B&B) in the afternoons for a rest in the shade.

After Bukhara, we got in a car and were driven seven hours across a flat and featureless desert to the next stop – Khiva.

Oh, and the title for this post? If you ask a Bukharan shopkeeper, everything they sell is “almost free”.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum

The city is littered with impressive looking mausoleums but without doubt the most spectacular is the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum which houses the remains of Amir Timur, his sons and grandsons. It was a two minute walk from our guesthouse so we passed it at least twice every day and struggled to stop ourselves taking more photos each time!

It was very difficult to stop ourselves from taking photos every time we walked past!

Inside, the walls and domed ceiling above the marble grave markers are covered in blue and gold paintings.

Amir Timur’s tomb is marked by the dark coloured stone in the centre of the picture

At night the mausoleum is illuminated

Registan

On our first afternoon in the city, Andrew, Jo and I walked up to Registan Square to catch a glimpse of the buildings which had inspired us all those months earlier. The only word that any of us were capable of for several minutes afterwards was “wow”! We visited the site several times during our stay including at sunrise and at night and the magnificent buildings never ceased to impress us.

Registan Square (from left to right): Ulugbek Medressa, Tilla-Kari Medressa and Sher Dor Medressa

A medressa is an Islamic school or college. Historically they taught a range of subjects to educate their religious leaders. We figured that Samarkand’s medressas were probably a bit like the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge which originally were principally engaged in educating priests.

All of the buildings have been heavily restored and it was interesting to see photographs of how dilapidated they were at the beginning of the 20th century before work began. All three medressas have a similar structure; behind the elegant tiled facade is a courtyard surrounded on all sides by small rooms which would once have housed the students who were taught here. Nowadays most of the students’ cells house craftspeople and souvenir shops.

Souvenir shops in the Registan (clockwise from top left): scarves flutter beside a tiled shop entrance; display of Uzbek embroidery called suzani; costume dolls for sale; a calligrapher writing our names in arabic

Our first stop was at the oldest, Ulugbek Medressa, built by (and named after) Amir Timur’s grandson, it was completed in 1420. Ulugbek was a renowned scholar, particularly famous for his astronomical observations. During his rule, Samarkand became an intellectual centre.

Ulugbek Medressa at dawn

Tilla-Kari Medressa along the back of the square has a tree filled courtyard and also contains an elegant mosque with beautifully decorated walls and ceiling. One of the stalls inside the mosque was selling unusual ceramic Christmas decorations in traditional Uzbek patterns. We were very tempted but the vendor was asking a high price, in the end we walked away thinking we would see similar ones elsewhere but we never did.

Inside Tilla-Kari Medressa’s mosque

On the eastern side of the square is Sher Dor (Lion) Medressa with its distinctive tiled lions (which look more like tigers to us) above the arch of its facade. They’re famous throughout the country and even feature on the UZS200 note.

Tilework in a courtyard niche of Sher Dor Medressa

Registan tile details including Sher Dor lion (top right)

As we were leaving, one of the security guards pulled Andrew aside and asked if we would like to climb one of the minarets of Tilla-Kari Medressa for an extra fee of 6,000 sum (about £1.20). We’d read that it is normal practice for the guards to offer extras like this and agreed on 15,000 sum for the three of us. Tilla-Kari’s minarets are much smaller than those of the other two buildings but we enjoyed the slightly different perspective that a couple of extra storeys provided as well as the thrill of doing something illicit!

Andrew climbing the spiral staircase inside the minaret of Tilla-Kari Medressa

Bibi Khanym Mosque

North-east of the Registan the Bibi Khanym Mosque towers over the surrounding market and park. It is named for Amir Timur’s Chinese wife and was once one of the Islamic world’s largest mosques. Somewhat crumbling in places, restoration work is ongoing. We were interested to see the huge stone Qur’an stand in the courtyard built for the massive Osman Qur’an which we saw in Tashkent.

Bibi Khanym Mosque

Stone Qur’an stand [photo credit: Jo Harris]

Restoration work at Bibi Khanym Mosque (clockwise from top left): photograph of the mosque before work began; the interiors seem largely untouched; new tilework being prepared in one of the side mosques

Shah-i-Zinda and cemetery

Shah-i-Zinda, the Avenue of Mausoleums, translates as ‘Tomb of the Living King’ and refers to the central tomb which is thought to be that of Qusam ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, and one of the first to bring Islam to Central Asia in the 7th century. This is a place of pilgrimage today and there were far more Uzbek visitors here than at the Registan.

Entrance to Qusam ibn Abbas’ tomb

After he made Samarkand his capital, Amir Timur started to bury his family and favourites here too resulting in a concentration of richly decorated mausoleums lining the approach.

Shah-i-Zinda mausoleums

Inside, some of them are rather austere with plain whitewashed walls while others are even more spectacular than their exteriors with delicately painted and tiled walls and ceilings.

Andrew photographing the beautiful interior of one of the mausoleums

Shah-i-Zinda details (clockwise from left): Jo photographing one of the mausoleums; arabic script in the tilework over one of the arches; bright blue tiles

At the far end of the row of mausoleums was the equally fascinating city cemetery. The grave stones are all carved with a portrait of the deceased along with their name and dates. It was interesting to see how the deceased were presented in their portraits (smiling, looking serious, or with full military medals) and we speculated about whether you had to have a photo portrait taken as you approached old age for the stonecarvers to work from. Transliterating the names was good practice for our Cyrillic reading skills too!

Old town

On a couple of occasions we ventured off the beaten tourist path into the narrow twisting streets of the old town. Traditional Uzbek houses are arranged around a courtyard so all that is visible from the street is a blank wall and a double door. Nevertheless we found plenty of life in the street and everyone was friendly and curious about where we are from. It was fun to stumble across little local mosques, mausoleums and even a synagogue in the old Jewish quarter.

Old town (clockwise from top left): Rukhobod mausoleum; old town street complete with Lada; Hebrew texts in the synagogue; we even saw an occasional donkey cart

Wine tasting

As a change from the historical monuments we followed a lead in the Lonely Planet to a wine factory in the newer part of town. We were expecting something quite basic so were surprised to be shown into a room hung with chandeliers which wouldn’t have been out of place in an English stately home.

Table set up for our wine tasting

The lady hosting the tasting explained that because of the hot sunny climate of Uzbekistan, the grapes were high in natural sugars particularly suiting them to dessert wine production. We tried a mix of 3 wines, 6 dessert wines, 2 cognacs and a balsam (herbal liquer) and were impressed with the quality. Unfortunately, production is limited at the moment so you’ll have to wait a while before you see Uzbek wines in your local off-licence.

Our tasting guide with the wines that we tried

We ambled off slightly sozzled and reinvigorated for another day of sightseeing…

Shakhrisabz

On our final day in Samarkand we took a day trip over the mountains to Amir Timur’s hometown and his second capital, Shakhrisabz. This city was once almost as impressive as Samarkand but nowadays is something of a backwater and its remaining monuments are in a pre-restoration state. The government has decided to relandscape the town centre to ‘prettify’ it and for no readily apparent reason have dug up the whole lot at once creating a horrifically dusty building site for residents and visitors to pick their way through, though somehow our feet looked much dustier than the locals’.

View from the mountain pass between Samarkand and Shakhrisabz

The building site that is currently Shakhrisabz centre with Ak-Saray Palace in the background

Shakhrisabz’s most important sight is the ruins of the Ak-Saray Palace. This was Amir Timur’s summer palace but all that remains is the craggy ruins of its entrance arch which stand at 38m tall and are separated by what would have been the 22.5m arch span. Given the scale of the entrance I can only imagine how impressive the rest of the palace must have been.

Jo and Andrew at the base of one of the Ak-Saray entrance arch pillars

Crumbling but impressive ruins of Ak-Saray Palace

We wandered along the building site like main street, stopping in the dusty bazaar for somsas (Uzbek pasties) and tea for lunch. At the other side of town from the palace are some more monuments. The Dorut Tilyovat complex contains the exquisite Kok Gumbaz mosque and two equally beautiful mausoleums. The buildings are situated around a peaceful tree-filled courtyard which was a very nice respite from the dust.

Mausoleum of Sheikh Shamseddin Kulyal and Gumbazi Seyidan

Interior of Kok Gumbaz Mosque

Behind Dorut Tilyovat is the Khazrati Imam complex with its modern working mosque and the dilapidated remnants of what was once a huge burial complex. There’s the tall Tomb of Jehangir with a conical roof which houses the remains of Amir Timur’s eldest son. Tucked away behind this is a set of stairs down to a small burial chamber which it is believed was intended for Amir Timur himself. Unfortunately he died in the winter and the pass over the mountains was closed by snow so he was actually buried in Samarkand.

Tomb of Jehangir; Jo at the top of the stairs to the Crypt of Timur

There were far fewer tourists in Shakhrisabz than Samarkand and we found ourselves to be more than usual the subject of people’s curiosity. My curly hair in particular seemed to excite quite a lot of comment, we were talking to some ladies at a souvenir stall who, once they realised we weren’t going to buy anything, even asked if they could touch my hair!

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures