Samarkand, Uzbekistan

We were up at 6:30am, had breakfast by 7am, finished packing up, and were on the road by 8am. Next destination: Samarkand!

Our driver ran a bit of a milk run before leaving town, dropping of packages along the way. We still made good time, though. There were a couple of smaller ruins right beside the road, about an hour out of Bukhara, but we declined as our main goal was to get in as much touristing in Samarkand today with the sunny skies.

We switched drivers about halfway, which was a convenient pit stop. Our next driver was already there waiting for us.

We arrived in the outskirts of Samarkand just after noon. Our route took us past a couple of the main sites, including the Registan, which looked ginormous from the car.

Our driver had some difficulty finding our hotel, Rabat Boutique Hotel. We asked for directions in a couple places. We had the phone number for the place, but I had typo’d it, so the driver couldn’t get through. Heather looked up the number on our reservation and we realized the typo; the driver called and got through, and we finally found the place right where google maps said it was. (Later we saw the signage for the hotel on the 2nd floor level, just out of view from our car window.)

The owners, Firdavs and Vlad, were super friendly. The hotel itself is a lovingly restored hundred-year-old former Jewish merchant house. It had even more character than our hotel in Bukhara. Our room had a waiting room overlooking the common areas, and then a bedroom, both retaining much of the original build. The bathroom, however, was completely new.

We got some lunch recommendations and then rushed out.

Our hotel was less than a ten minute walk to the Registan, one the top highlights in Central Asia. The scale is enormous, three large madrassas surrounding a square. It’s the most impressive site I’ve seen so far on this trip.

Took some pics and then dropped into a local restaurant for lunch. Had the soup, which was really good, along with a salad and bread.

Then back to the Registan. Bought our tickets and entered the square. The centre madrassa has a mosque with blue and gold ceiling that’s pretty cool.

Most impressive, though, is the scale, which is best viewed from the viewing platform rather than up close.

Next, we walked over to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque. The are 30-foot wide pedestrian walkways between the major attractions here, which are great. The path to Bibi-Khanyn reminded me of the walkway to the Colosseum in Rome, it has the same direction and feel. The walkway was filled with local and regional visitors.

Bibi-Khanym is big. The cupola of the mosque is 41m, which was the biggest mosque at the time it was built. (The highlights in Samarkand were built by Timur the Great starting in the 14th century. Timur’s empire ranged from Istanbul to Delhi). It was peaceful in the centre courtyard.

The last highlight of the day was also the reason why I originally wanted to see the Silk Route, the avenue of blue-tiled mausoleums of Shah-i-Zinda. We walked over and bought our tickets, including a camera pass (although unlike Egypt, no one asked to see the camera pass after).

The avenue is stunning, one of the top things to see in the world. The view from the innermost shrine, the entrance which frames the avenue, is amazing.

I took a million pics and then we headed back towards the hotel. Stopped by the Siob Bazaar, just behind Bibi-Khanym, got some pics of the mounds of sweets and nuts, chatted briefly with the friendly vendors.

Back at the hotel we cleaned up. We were planning to head out for dinner when Vlad kindly invited us to join them for dinner, as his mother was visiting from Tashkent and he was cooking a feast. We accepted and he said dinner would start in about 30 minutes. That gave us enough time to walk over to the Registan to get some sunset pics.

When we returned, there were a couple of other guests already seated around a square table. We joined them, along with Vlad, Firdavs, Vlad’s mother, and a couple other friends of the family. Vlad explained the different parts of the meal, and translated any questions for his mother.

Before we ate, we had a toast with vodka. Vlad gave the toast, and then we waited to see if this was a sipping drink or a shot. Vlad showed us how he drank - breathe out, drink the shot of vodka, a couple sips of a chaser, and then breathe in. The chaser was up to the individual, a choice between tomato juice, a yogurt-like drink, or apple juice. We stuck mostly with the tomato juice.

So far so good. Then Vlad said we would toast three times over the course of dinner. Again, not too bad, especially with all the food we’d be eating.

The appetizers included a tomato and cucumber salad, cauliflower lightly breaded and fried, a broth from the meat, Samarkand bread (a denser bread than we’ve had on the trip in Uzbekistan so far) and a few other things.

It turned out that we (us four tourists) each gave a toast. Vlad, Firdavs, and Vlad’s mother also toasted at separate points, too. A bit more vodka than we had planned...

The main course was a large platter of meat-stuffed peppers in a tomato sauce. It was excellent!

After dinner, Firdavs made us some herbal tea, and we chatted away the evening. It was really cool to have an authentic dinner experience. It was an amazing start to our stay in Samarkand!