Samarkand to Bukhara

This morning we were up for breakfast and then off to Gur Emir, which was the burial place of Amir Temur. "Gur Emir" means "the burial place of the ruler." Temur wasn't supposed to be buried there (he had planned to be buried in Shahrisabz - see yesterday's blog), but that is where his body ended up, along with a couple other people, including his grandson, Ulughbek. Here are a few pictures of the outside and inside of the site:











After visiting the site, we headed to the market, which I didn't particularly care for for two reasons: first, I don't places that are congested with people; and second, it was a fairly unremarkable market.


We then had lunch at our hotel, packed up and then were on the road to Bukhara. The drive took about six hours along a road that was not quite as smooth as the one from Tashkent, but thankfully we did stop a couple times along the way. The first was at the ruins of a caravansary, which were the former stops along the Silk Road where the caravans would rest after a long day of travel.


We continued on and made a stop at a cotton field, where the cotton was being handpicked by several villagers.








We piled back into the bus, and drove on the rest of the way to Bukhara. We arrived at the hotel for the night and in the lobby was an acquaintance from a previous trip (those who were on the Corinthian II from Ghana to Spain may remember Holly) reminding me what a truly small world we are living in... We then had dinner and afterwards I caught up on email and paid all my bills online, wrote the daily blog, and then headed to bed because we have to be packed up and ready to change hotels in the morning. I'm not entirely sure why because our current hotel is more than satisfactory, but it is what it is. Maybe the next hotel will have wireless so I can upload my blog! Only time will tell!


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