Samarkand

At 9 am the bus took us out to Ulag Beg Observatory. The son of Timur/Tamburlaine, he built the observatory, where we saw the remains of the giant sextant which enabled him to calculate the length of a year to within 10 seconds in the 14th century. Then on to Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis of tombs, mosques and mausoleums belonging to Timur's family, friends and prophet Mohammed's cousin. Lovely buildings - very close together, some restored and others not.

Lunch of plov - very good (I had to eat the pilau rice from under the meat as there was nothing else, the place being a plov cafe) and cheap with salads £3.70 for 2.

The bus dropped us to walk through the bazaar where there were loads of similar stalls in rows - rice, nuts, fruit, meat, to Bibi Khanum Mosque. She was the favourite wife of Timur, and the grand-daughter of Genghis Khan. It was a beautiful peaceful place surrounding gardens.

Then we walked along a posh street of new tourist shops to Registan Square. Amazing. So stunning. There were about half a dozen Wedding parties getting photos done, and police blowing whistles to stop people doing what? All reconstructed in Soviet times.

We were out for 9 hours so could not face going out again to find food. Also, Anna was so ill - had been since the first week- she went back on bus after the plov- we got her Coke and gave her diarolyte when we got back. Then after a shower and rest we joined her and Chloe for crisps and vodka.

Tomorrow there is an issue about luggage - Ruslan has tried for ages to find a bus going back to Tashkent that can take our luggage as the train only stops for 3 minutes so there is no time to load bags. So our bags leave at 9 am and we have till 4 to spend more time here before the train. we have faith!