The Great Silk Road Cities Part 1 - Samarkand and Termez

The Black Death grimly galloped through Europe; at it's most malevolent, it was scything down 1 in 3 people; meanwhile in China the Mongol court was forced out; the Hundred Years War was consuming England and France; a mini ice age threatened global food security and the climate; yet out of the 14th Century "Dark Ages", empires were to rise, not least that of a Ghenghis Khan descendant - Tamerlane, or Timur the Great as his later achievments led him to become known. And with Timur's rise, a vast empire centred on modern-day Uzbekistan, reached it's golden period.

Possibly the most culturally interesting series of cities along the Silk Road, with some of the most fascinating architecture, are the legacy of Timur's rule and his immediate descendents. I have been so looking forward to exploring the ancient wonders of Samarkand, Khiva, Bukhara and several smaller important towns in the surrounding area, and whilst I had hoped to see them by bike, I'm no less excited to be doing it in a more "normal" way on board trains, cars, buses and by foot, enforced to do so by my spine injury.

My first excursion away from Tashkent, clinic visits and physiotherapy, was to Samarkand, squeezed between now weekly physio sessions. Alex from the Netherlands, who I met at Topchan Hostel, has been studying in Samarkand - the nearest of the great historic Uzbek Silk Road cities to Tashkent. And it was good to meet her again whilst there, and in the town of Termez. Her passion for Islamic Architecure and History really show, and so it made it a much more interesting trip for me.

Although already one of the great Silk Road cities, Samarkand particularly flourished as Timur's capital. For me the Registan Ensemble is possibly the architectural highlight of Central Asia - both externally and internally it soars and sings in it's beauty and scale.

In any other city just the Bibi Khanum Mosque, Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis or Gur-i-Amir Mausoleum would be enough to put the city on the tourist map, but here the wealth of architectural riches is almost overwhelming.

There are of course hoardes of tourists, and this is only likely to increase exponentially as interest in China's new silk road project increases, and mostly because Uzbekistan is working hard moving from being a closed difficult country to visit - to being a country actively promoting tourism.

I had another physiotherapy session booked back in Tashkent and my physio decided I was now ready to fly the nest. I was not so convinced - I wanted to be fit for normal life (which for me includes running/cycling/hiking), but she really did not want to engage in getting my back strong for that level of exertion. She told me "people over 40 shouldn't run - walking is good, but not running". Anyhow, she had done a good job of getting me back to walking again, and if sports conditioning was not her thing, then probably best not to be wasting time there. So that was it - I was now free to go where I wanted again, no longer a prisoner of circumstances in the pleasant city of Tashkent. And so my first port of call was to the town of Termez.

Termez lies right on the edge of the tourist radar, a long train journey to the south of the country, and sitting within firing range of the troubled country of Afghanistan. Tourists do come here, but in small numbers, indeed I'm asked on more than one occasion if I'm an archaeologist - I'm guessing that most of the foreigners that locals see here are involved in digging up, surveying or studying the extensive ruins and fascinating remains in the area.

Most of the sites are a good way out of the town, and there is little public transport, so it's necessary to use a private driver.

The highlight for me of this area for me is visiting Alexandria-Oxiana also known as Kampyr-Tepe. Another settlement named after Alexander the Great who almost certainly passed through here. It has long, long since passed out of service as a functioning town, and the 2 1/2 millenium old site is pretty much an open archaelogical playground. There is no entrance fee, or barriers, or anything really other than a vast extensive ruined town in the middle of the desert, not far from the Afghanistan border. It really does allow you to play out all your Indiana Jones fantasies being in a place like this!

Long before Islam took such a strong hold in this part of the world, Buddhism stretched this far West, and Termez is one of the few places in Uzbekistan with ancient remains from this period. Like most of the sights here, they are ruins and remains, rather than the full blown ancient skyscraper-like structures of Samarkand, and the most interesting Buddhist stupa, Fayaz Tepe, is covered by a modern dome to protect it from the elements. There is a small low window which one can peer through to see the central stupa, and as I bend down to press my face against the glass, I catch out of the corner of my eye something wriggling through a crack between the dome and the glass. Literally a few inches from my face is a large multi-coloured serpent. I quietly and carefully back off (4 years living and doing outdoorsy stuff in SE Asia has changed me from giving off the very unmanly, high-pitched screech that would have once accompanied a close encounter with a snake), and so it thankfully ignores me and carry's on with it's business, if I didn't already feel like Indy, I certainly did now!

I also visited the Al Hakkim Mausoleum, an important and particularly beautiful Muslim homage to the 9th century poet, Al Hakkim.

Just out the back of the mausoleum is a series of barbed wire fences that mark the outer perimeter of the Afghanistan border, and a little further away a high wall from which a fine view opens out, in the direction of Afghanistan, just on the other side of the river:

The trip was rounded off with a visit to Kyrk Kyz (another old ruined site), and an impromptu stop in the cotton fields.

It is cotton harvest time - Uzbekistan's main export. For many years this has been a blot on the conscience of the country - the main cause for the ecological destruction of the worlds 4th largest lake; and an industry guilty of enforced child labour, and forced adult labour too. Many countries and businesses boycott Uzbek cotton, but the new government are starting to work towards improving many of the practices. Let's hope that these improvements continue.

My second e-visa was nearly expired, and I had one day to get back to Tashkent, then travel North to the Kazakhstan border. Although I was now almost at the edge of the border, realistically the long journey back to Tashkent was my only option to leave the country - as well as bordering Afgahnistan, Termez is very close to Tajikistan, but both Tajikistan and Afghanistan require pre-applying for visas, and I'm not so sure a trip to Afghanistan is a particularly wise move right now. So I turned up at Termez train station, only to be told that the night train back to Tashkent was cancelled! The next scheduled train tomorrow morning might just get me to Tashkent in time to then travel onwards to Kazakhstan before my visa expired, but it would be touch and go, and that was also assuming that the morning train wasn't also cancelled.

Outside the station, people were squishing themselves into minibuses and shared taxis with luggage piled high on their knees. My spine was still very vulnerable, and I knew this would be a silly move for me. Online I found a single flight later in the evening back to Tashkent, but couldn't book it over the internet. Officials at the train station also told me that you can't buy tickets on the day at the airport in Uzbekistan. My bike and many of my things were far away in the East of the country, I intended to leave them there and return to them later - I definitely didn't have time to reach there before my visa expired, and if I overstayed my welcome, I may well be fined and barred from returning to Uzbekistan, separating me from my bike and gear - that would cause me a whole world of headaches, so I decided going to the airport was at least worth a try.

Thankfully it all worked out fine. Not only were tickets available, but they were not much more expensive than advance tickets. Just over GBP30 got me a ticket and a few hours later, I was back in Tashkent with all of the next day to do the short journey to the Kazakhstan border. My next visit to this country would not be for medical treatment, but purely as a tourist!