23 September 2024 (Monday) - Bukhara Day Two

Hotel (Asia Bukhara) to Indian Village (Coach) – 10 miles

Indian Village to Summer Palace (Coach) – 10 miles

Summer Palace to Mickey Mouse (Coach) – 10 miles

Mickey Mouse to Hotel (Asia Bukhara) (Coach) – 2 miles

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What with all of the stress of dog sitting issues I took a while to get to sleep last night. Sadly I was woken by some strange music playing form four until five in the morning.

Brekkie was something of a scrum this morning, and with brekkie scoffed we were soon all assembled in the hotel foyer and onto the coach. Fax did a head count to check everyone was together – it really was just like taking the cubs on an outing.

We took the coach out to what was billed as the “Indian Village” which was rather pretty and ornate. Fax gave us a lot of religious talk here.

There were peacocks all over the place and we found a dog. I don’t know if it was a stray or not. Up until now we’d only seen two dogs – both being walked after dark. We made quite a fuss of this dog; had it been back home the dog would have come home with us.

Back on the coach and on to the Summer Palace which had two sets of toilets. “Regular” and “Emergency”. Sadly an emergency toilet in Uzbekistan doesn’t cater for the sort of potty emergencies that I was having. Squatting over a hole in the ground three feet from my bum is no substitute for putting my arse into a proper bum-sink.

Passing over the frankly feral toilet arrangements the Summer Palace was also rather pretty.

Back on the coach again. Gettng on and off of a coach has been a feature of this trip. From here we went to a car park near which was one of the worst statues of Mickey Mouse that I’ve ever seen. I can only imagine that Mickey has picked up whatever it is that is upsetting my guts. It was a short walk to the oldest mausoleum in Bukhara (and that is up against some pretty serious competition).

We chatted with some market traders that Fax knew – they were selling some rather good stuff, and then went on to the plumbing museum where our guide got into an argument. He was telling us about some incident that happened locally during the Soviet era when a passing Russian tourist got rather angry. She didn’t claim that what Fax was saying was wrong. But she thought it wrong that our guide should give us any factual information, and said he should stick to telling us Uzbekian fairy tales.

Fax seemed rather miffed; we all reassured him. The chap had been wonderful. Giving us snippets of history from three thousand years ago up to the present day, he made no attempt to gloss over any of the unpleasant parts. History is history.

We went back to the hotel where there were proper toilets. It had been three day since I have dared to fart without the safety net of a chodbin, and I was glad I’d not risked it earlier.

We were left to our own devices for the afternoon. Yesterday a couple of our number had told us of where they’d lunched. We had ice creams there yesterday and today we had a rather good bit of scoff. Having gone out expecting the pace to be little more than shacks in a desert we were rather amazed to find i-pads being used as menus. A glass of rather good fruit juice each, a decent pizza and a very good cheesecake and for all that the bill ran to six figures it came in less than sixteen quid in UK money.

Once we’d finished feeding the kitten that had shamelessly joined us we walked round the market; I took a selfie with a sleeping cat. We had a pint by an ornamental lake and watched a stray dog getting a drink and having a bath.

We went back to the hotel where the hotel staff came up to our room. Having been constantly complaining about the lack of wi-fi in our room a chap came up, took our phones, pressed all the buttons that we’d pressed, pointed at the screen saying “internet not connected” and then typed something into his phone using Google Translate. He brandished his phone at me which said “it is fixed” and wandered off with a smile on his face.

This evening we were out for dinner again. Dinner was rather good (by the standards of the trip). As we ate so a band was playing traditional music whilst young girls modelled various clothes we might like to buy. The clothes were odd; at best they might have been used as pyjamas.

One of our number had a birthday today. The band struck up “Happy Birthday to You” and we had (proper) cake all round before all going back to the hotel.

Having heard good things about the rooftop bar we walked up to find it was something of a disappointment, so we had a gin and tonic in the foyer bar, This one tasted nothing like last night’s one.