Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Beyond the bus in the hazy distance, dry hills creep low on their stomachs along the horizon. Comical sunflowers, flowering potatoes, maize and onions are growing in the fields beside the highway that was once the fabled Silk Road of Central Asia. Small boys swim naked in the shimmering irrigation canals, their wet copper skin shining in the bright overhead sun. The fields are full of tractors and large red harvesters.
It takes seven hot and sweaty hours to travel the 250 kilometres from Samarkand to Bukhara. At the entrance to every town, a police checkpoint with a road barrier bars the way. The bus stops, the driver says a few words to the rotund policeman, and then drives on to repeat the process until in mid-afternoon we eventually arrive.
Bukhara was once one of the most dangerous cities in the world for Europeans to enter. In 1842 Conolly and Stoddart, two British Army Officers, had found out the hard way. After being imprisoned, then incarcerated in a vermin filled pit for months, the two emaciated envoys had been beheaded. Today, visitors are treated slightly better.
We find accommodation down a twisting lane just opposite the Labi-hauz, an ancient pool and plaza that sit comfortably together in the centre of the town. A carved wooden door leads off the lane and into a well-lit open courtyard where a healthy grapevine spreads up and over a metal frame to shade the yard. The woman of the house is in charge. She is a big bustling woman with sharp eyes and finely tuned business acumen. Her large outstretched hand comfortably accommodates the advance payment for the room.
A rooftop tower over one of Bukhara's bazaars
The sky is pure blue, no clouds and no pollution. We walk slowly in the shadows of buildings in a desperate attempt to avoid the heat that clogs the air. The shadows are minimal and the temperature is over fifty degrees.
Every street seems to have a mosque or medressa or a minaret. The town is a museum, perhaps too much so as the environment seems threatened by the over-sanitization of the historic sites. New walls, new gardens, straight lines and smooth surfaces - the charm of antiquity has been diluted. In Samarkand I had heard talk that a large part of the old town is to be demolished for no other reason than it is old. Old and charming, natural and full of character, values are changing fast in the new Uzbekistan.
Despite the apparent re-dressing of Bukhara, the ancient buildings remain stunning. We sit in the shade of the Kalan mosque, looking steeply up at the 870-year-old Kalan Minaret towering a staggering 47 metres into the sky. Only 150 years ago, watched by the crowds gathered on the plaza below, the emir had bagged criminals into sacks and had them thrown off alive and kicking from the top. For us there are no crowds and no plunging sacks, just a small persistent girl continually thrusting a pack of faded postcards into our faces. It is too hot for postcards. It is too hot for anything. It is just too hot.
Like the streets beyond, the covered bazaars are void of people, surprisingly as the shade they offer provide a welcome relief from the sun. Apart from the fact that there is no one to sell to, the prices of local crafts are exorbitant and I find despite constant bargaining the traders will not budge. I ask myself could this really be Bokhara the Noble, trading centre of the ancient silk routes?
By evening it has cooled to a pleasant 35 degrees as we sit beside the bright green waters of Labi-hauz. Ancient mulberry trees sprawl above groups of old men playing chess and dominoes. The trees are as old as this favoured gathering place. In bygone times dancing boys and storytellers, musicians and conjurors would have entertained the men of the city. We dine on plov, a rice pilaf dish served with a chunk of mutton. It is one of the mainstays of the region along with laghman (a noodle dish) and shashlyk (kebabs of meat).
People laze and chat on the wide wooden bedsteads that edge the pool, drinking and eating food from the adjacent choyhona (teahouse). Nearby, mothers watch their young children splashing around in a channel of murky water. Older boys climb a high dead tree-trunk to jump bravely into the stagnant water of the pool, sending ripples thick with algae to lap against the stone surround. As a ring of fountains jump to life, I wonder what micro-bacteria from the emerald pool are wafting in the fine misty spray onto our unfinished food. No one seems to care. It isn't that sort of place.
A young mother and child in the marketplace.
The early morning air is cool as we walk to the market among the colourfully dressed local women. Their fabulous dresses shimmering with sequins and gold and silver lame, flow and billow around them as they fill their bags with fruit and vegetables.
A short distance from the town is the sumptuously over-decorated Emir's Palace. The opulent, at times kitsch, décor is an international affair. Ceramic tiles from Delft, decorative mirrors from Venice, vases from China. It is like a performing circus of mirrors, stained glass, gilded walls and ceilings, with the light and reflections somersaulting and spinning through the sparkling halls.
The last Emir reputedly had four wives. He also had forty or more women in his harem. It is said that, as his harem frolicked around the vast exterior pool, he would throw an apple to his favourite for the night. The harem building now houses a display of beautiful textiles. Suzani, the fine Uzbek silk embroidery stitched on cotton cloth, and rich red hand-knotted carpets fill the rooms.
A hunched man, deaf and partly blind, hobbles towards us. He is the custodian of Chor-Bakr, a lingering 16th century ghost town that sits deserted 10km from Bukhara. I watch as fine dust wafts restlessly across the empty street. The old keeper opens the door to the wearied mosque that looms above us. It is almost chilling inside. Major structural cracks rip up the walls and across the ceiling like forked lightening. The government had given ten million sum ($100,000) towards its restoration, but the funds have gone, with the restoration barely begun. Between the mosque and the only other building of any size lie the crumbling ruins of a fallen structure that had collapsed during the 1980s. It is clear that the mosque could be next.
From the remarkable cool interior of the decomposing mosque we step back into the glare and stifling heat. The deep blue sky is arced with small puffed and fleecy-white clouds. The brittle air is hard to breathe. As travellers over the centuries have done, we return to sit beside the cooling waters of Labi-hauz and retire from the heat.