Kuala Lumpur 19.1013

A good night's rest made all the difference and tummy seems OK today.  Fingers crossed.  Went down to breakfast and to the biggest array of breakfast items we have ever seen.  It looked as if it would be a rather damp day at times.  Out we went and caught the "Hop On, Hop Off" Bus for 45 RMB each and did the 21/2 hour loop.  So worth  doing as it gave us a good look at the city.  Lunch at the Coffee Bean/Tea Café.  A nice fresh tasty roll with egg, ham and cheese and hot.  Bill enjoyed his pancakes.  T hen a thunderstorm struck and because we hadn't thought to take umbrellas were stuck for about an hour.  A little rest back at the hotel then walked to the Twin Towers and caught the Hop On/Hop Off bus again at stop 23 to go to the K2 Tower.  Spent some time on the Observation deck, 276 metres high and on top of a hill so great 360 deg. views over KL.  Hot and humid so back to the hotel for a break then returned to the Irish Pub for dinner.  Once again the food was good and the staff friendly as the waiters remembered us.  I had roasted pork loin (delicious) and Bill had the meat pie (also good).
 

View over KL from K2 Tower showing the Twin Towers

Kuala Lumpur 18.10.13

An hour's ride to the hotel (Shangi La) where I spent most of the day resting and recuperating.   The hotel couldn't find our booking and his credit card was rejected but after using mine they gave us a nice room.  Quick call to the NAB and the credit card was sorted out.  Because of our rug purchase in Bukhara they thought our card had been compromised.  Bill went off out to explore the city while I rested.  Managed some minestrone soup for lunch and we went out for dinner and found an "Irish Pub" nearby.  Bill had Irish Stew and I had a very nice Chicken Caesar salad.  Grey skies laden with rain.  Before we went out had to wait for torrential rain to stop and waited again at the Pub for another rain deluge to stop before walking back.   KL is a very busy place with packs of motorbike riders revving at traffic lights and taking off at great speed.  The hotel is good with very well trained staff and fairly central and an excellent restaurant.  Initial impressions of KL are good.  Early to bed.

Samarkand to Tashkent and on to Kuala Lumpur 17.10.13

  We spent the morning visiting "the Observatory" where Mirzoi Ulugbeck an amazing astronomer from the 15th century had his observatory.  The observatory was built 1428 for observations of the moon and the sun and other luminaries of the sky.  After Ulugbeck's death the observatory was destroyed and for centuries its location was unknown.  Discovered in 1908 sadly, only the underground basis of the building and sextant were intact.  By using found documents scientists were able to make a model of the observatory.  The telescope had not yet been invented but Ulugbeck using his amazing sextant was able to catalogue with amazing exactness 1018 stars.  He was a teacher as well as a scholar and an amazing man.  We also visited the Museum of Uzbekistan at this site.  An early (once more of dubious hygiene)
lunch before we set off on the drive back to Tashkent and the plane.  Such a crappy bus and another noisy bumpy road but we passed a lot of cotton fields which were being harvested by hand.  Men and women bent over picking cotton into large white bags.  Outside of the cities the population is still very rural, donkey carts, simple dwellings etc.  There was plenty of traffic on the road and we passed through many check points!  Why?  Bebe said
it was because we were close to Afghanistan and people might be smuggling guns.  About 7 pm we arrived at the
airport.   

 Mirzoi Ulugbeck

 Six of us  were catching a plane this evening but before we could say goodbye to everyone we were whisked away to the Business Class waiting area and the other four to the economy area.  Had our passports etc checked 7!!! times before we got on the plane.  Such overkill!  The Business Class waiting area had no food except some sad slices of cheese and old bread stick and a couple of bottles of soft drink.  However the plane left on time and was comfortable.  Then disaster struck me.  About 2.30am tummy pains then terrible diarrhea until we landed at 8am.  No breakfast served on the plane.  Not that I would have eaten it any way.  Took 7 of Judy's gastro stop tablets. 

  

The underground part of his amazing sextant

Rural scene

Picking cotton

Samarkand 16.10.13

I suffered 5 bouts of diahorrea from 3.30 am to 7am.  Took two of Judy's gastro stop tablets and no further trouble during the day.  An 8.30am start.  First a visit to the mausoleum of the great Tamerlane.  Stunning architecture, tiles, and colours, minarets etc.  Then onto the Registan.  What an amazing place!!!  Four huge Madrassas around a square.  All magnificent.  Built around the 1400s.  This is one of the wonders of the ancient world.  Then lunch at the same place we had dinner last night.  Undoubtedly the source of my tummy problem.  Salads sitting out on tables when we arrived and dubious hygiene.  Then another Mosque.  Bibi Khanum, being one of the most brilliant examples of medieval architecture in Samarkand.  Construction began in 1399, the largest Mosque in Central Asia.  It accommodated 10,000 pilgrims and takes ones breath away with it's size and beauty.  Later we went to a market and I bought things I really didn't need to. 2 silk scarves in cream sort of crochet and another large shawl in pinks and blues.  Then onto the Mausoleum Complex.  40 Mausoleums, all different, all wonderful.  Then back to the hotel about 4.30pm before the final dinner.  We went in the bus to a restaurant which was obviously for tourists.  We had "wedding plov".  Plov is a rice based dish with a few vegetables and a couple of lumps of meat in a big heap on a plate in the centre of the table that we helped ourselves to.  Glad we only had that dish once! On the way back to the hotel we passed the Mausoleum of Tamerlane all lit up.  The dome
looked as if it was floating.  Very pretty.  The Registan was also lit up to a small extent.

Bibi Khonum Mosque

The Registan

Final dinner

The Mosque of Tamerlane lit up

 

 

Registan courtyard

 

 

 

Carved doors

More exterior of the Registan

Bukhara to Samarkand 15.10.13

An 8.30am start today.  Before leaving Bukhara to drive to Samarkand we visited the Summer Palace of the last emir.  What a magnificent structure. Spectacular rooms and decorations and large gardens.   Over the centuries the road to Samarkand has been traveled by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane on their incredible journeys.  On the way we had an early lunch at a ceramics factory.  Nothing there that we felt like buying.  Fairly ordinary stuff and the lunch was also somewhat ordinary.  Cold rice!, rice and vegetable soup, boiled meat and a piece of cake (the best bit!).  Some nuts to nibble on. Suspect this lunch was the cause of a later in the day "tummy episode" Once again our snack bags were a god send.  Bill is still unwell and it was a dreadful journey to Samarkand.  The main (so called) highway was shockingly broken up and rough.  Together with our basic Chinese bus it was a rather trying trip.  There were two stops for "open air" toileting when we relieved ourselves behind trees on the  roadside.  The rural landscape is mostly cotton farming in small holdings, with donkey carts being the main form of carrying goods and doing work.  Subsistence farming. 

Views of the Summer Palace of the last emir.  This is the sort of thing we had been seeing in Uzbekistan.  Magnificent, stunning buildings.

Ceiling work

Entrance courtyard

Tombs

An unbelievably intricate magnificent ceiling

So huge that only tiny pieces can be shown

All so beautiful and ornate

Bukhara 14.10.13

Bukhara is an ancient city boasting 2,500 years of history.  It has been a centre of world learning, succumbed to Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and after the Silk Road waned was a capital for despotic Bukhara emirs. Today a 9am start for a walking tour of all the sights around Bukhara.  Lots of palaces, Madrassas, Mosques, etc. etc. all liberally clothed in shades of blue tiles with intricate designs.  Such large buildings and spacious courtyards. So much history and so much to take in.   Quite a hot day for walking.  Lunch was in a rooftop restaurant overlooking the ancient wall, minarets etc.. There seems to be only one denomination here in their currency and to pay for anything in cash requires huge bundles of money.  Bebe carries a large  shoulder bag stuffed full of bundles of 1,000  Som.  Each note worth about 45 cents, I think.  To pay for lunch required Bebe to fork out a huge bundle.  Bukhara was lovely but the locals seem to live in rather modest accommodation.  Lots of tourist trap shops.  I bought myself a lovely silk scarf for $15.00.  So many lovely things.  We went to a carpet shop "Scherezade" to see a demonstration on the making of  and different grades of carpet etc.  Later in the day Bebe took Bill and me for a quick march through the back streets (very interesting to get out of the tourist areas) to return to this shop and another one looking for a carpet for our family room.  Eventually chose one in a traditional Bukhara Camel's foot design mostly in rich reds.  Goat's wool, 160 knots to the inch.  $3,600, and $200 for postage.  Told it would arrive in Australia in 25 days.  24 days later there it was!  And we love it.  Bill unwell again tonight.

City Wall, Bukhara

Bukhara Madrassa entrance

View from lunch restaurant over roof topos

Bukhara

Mosque

Ancient tree in Mosque courtyard

Shopping

Carpet information session

Our carpet

Views of buildings in Bukhara

From our lunch stop

A magnificent ceiling

Many thousand 1,000 Som notes to pay for lunch

From lunch stop balcony

More Bukhara