The drive back to Tashkent was uneventful apart from the awful roads. In fact, the nearer we come to Tashkent, the better the roads become.
As much as I try to doze off, it is impossible. There is so much going on inside my head and what with the regular jolt of the bus falling into a pothole, sleep is impossible.
I am reminiscing about this beautiful country, sad in some ways that the journey is coming to an end, but glad that I have had the privilege of seeing all these wonderful places and being associated with all the history that goes with it.
I remember at home having to answer the questions, “Why Uzbekistan? Where on earth is that?” Well, those questions have been well and truly answered and I have got over 750 photographs to prove it. I came here with an open mind not really knowing what to expect and now I have had my mind filled with wonderful memories and photos to back them up.
In Tashkent, for example, the ‘golden’ smiles on the faces of the fruit sellers in the bazaar will be forever memorable.
In Khiva, I will remember those seemingly impregnable City Walls, the view out over the city from the rooftop of the City Museum, our hotel-cum-madrassah and the functional little rooms that had previously been inhabited by Islamic students.
The journey across the Kyzyl-Kum Desert will live with me for some time. Not just the atrocious road surface but the desolation, the heat, the vodka at the halfway stop and the eventual arrival into Bukhara.
In Bukhara itself, the highlights were undoubtedly the Ark Citadel and its walls, the minarets, the mosques and the madrassahs.
For me, though, the ‘pièce de resistance’ has to be the magnificence of Registan Square in Samarkand. I could easily go back there again and again to marvel at its splendour.
The overriding experience has been being able to relive some of the many historical moments that have happened here, like standing on the Ichan Kala Walls in Khiva and imagining the hordes of Mongols invading from the East, under the leadership of Genghis Khan and destroying almost everything that got in their way; like imagining Temur ruling over Samarkand and being involved in the design and construction of the most stunning buildings; like imagining the horrors experienced by Colonel Stoddart and Captain Connolly in Bukhara as part of the Great Game escapades and like imagining how different it must have been living here under the Soviet system and how joyous must the celebrations of Independence in 1991 have been and the pride felt by and for those medal winning Olympians and Paralympians we met on the plane coming out here.
Wonderful memories of a special country.
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The flight home is infinitely more comfortable than the flight over. We land at Heathrow in the dark, it is pouring with rain and I still have my shorts on! Welcome home!
We say our farewells at the baggage reclaim. Tracey’s suitcase has followed her this time much to her delight. Andrew returns my camera and we exchange addresses to stay in touch and for me to send him a CD full of his pictures.
Driving along the M25 is bliss, so smooth, even in the dark and the pouring rain and it’s not often I can say that!