20 September 2024
(Friday) - Khiva
As
I do whenever I go on holiday I miss home. And I miss
my dogs. I was particularly homesick this morning, but
got up determined to make the most of the day.
I slept better than I had for the last few days and we went into breakfast shortly after eight o’clock…
as did everyone else. The place was heaving. But the breakfast was better than
we’d had in Tashkent and was streets ahead of the carrier bag we’d been given
yesterday. It was only a shame the coffee machine wasn’t up to the job and was
spilling the stuff all over the tablecloth.
We all assembled. With twenty-seven of us, there’s
always something of an atmosphere of a school trip on every excursion. This morning we had a walking tour around the city. Seeing there
was a reverse Wherigo cache nearby I sparked up my phone. With one of these
your phone tells you how far you are from the geocache you are hunting, and
when you get close enough it tells you the GPS co-ordinates and gives you a
photo of the hide.
As we walked so the thing counted down and down, and
we actually stopped about two yards from it. Seeing
where it was I thought we’d come back later. It wasn’t
far from the hotel, and it was far more interesting listening to our guide Fax.
He really brings enthusiasm to his talks, and he is clearly very knowledgeable,
but some of the things he says… Apparently William Shakespeare got a lot of his
ideas from Uzbek legends, and you can keep milk cold by dropping a frog into a
jug of the stuff.
We had a good walk round Khiva visiting all sorts of
places of interest. Most of them were “madrasas” and involved
taking shoes off on every visit. I wish I’d brought along a pair of slip-ons.
We popped back to the hotel if for no other reason to
use the toilet. Uzbek toilets are on the feral side.
We were left to our own devices for the afternoon. We
went back into the town to have a closer look at the bits we’d seen earlier and
to go at our own pace. Our own pace was slow enough to get the only two
geocaches within fifty miles.
We got pressies for people back home and I got an
amazingly sexy jacket. I doubt I will ever wear it, but it is there should the
occasion arise.
After a brief lay-down our group assembled and we
walked into town for a meal which was accompanied by local entertainment. There
was a lot of howling and some strange sort of play which looked interesting but I had no idea what it was all about.
Something to do with a small boy stealing a pie I
think?
After a quick pint in the bar with some of our group
we went back to our rooms again feeling worn out.
I
took a few photos today.