There are not enough superlatives in any language to describe Samarkand.

Amazing. Marvelous. Beautiful. Magnificent. Mahtava. Ihana. Klassno. Krasivyi. Wunderschoen. Abdan Jakshy. Etc... but they still don't even scrape the surface of how amazing everything is here in Samarkand.

To backtrack... our second day in Tashkent was great. The weather was better and the roads weren't as wet. We looked into getting train tickets, but we couldn't until we had our passports, so we had to wait until evening. We ran into a really nice guy in line who gave us his business card and told us to call him if we had any problems at all in Uzbekistan. The people here are unbelievably friendly. We took a streetcar to the old part of town, and wandered around the bazaar. It was bigger and much better organized than bazaars in Kyrgystan- the different sections are labelled, so you know where to find what you want, rather than having to wander around aimlessly, hoping to happen upon an aisle that has what you want. There was a domed room full of spices, and all the sellers were really friendly and interested in foreigners. People tend to stare at us because it is definitely not tourist season, but they are mostly friendly stares. Children talk to us, and many people say "Hello!" when we walk by. After the market, we walked north of the Old Town to Khast Imom, a mosque. As we walked down the winding streets of the Old Town, there was an open door into a courtyard, which just happened to be a cafe. It wasn't labelled at all, and we never would have found it if the door wouldn't have been open at that moment. We ate great shashlyk and then went to the mosque, which was really beautiful, even though it was sort of overcast.

We then needed to catch a cab to get to the Kazakh Embassy by 17:00 to get our visas. A cab stopped without even being flagged down, but quoted us too high a price. It's great in UZ that all cars are cabs, even if they aren't licensed cabs. So as soon as the first car drove away, the next car pulled up and asked us where we wanted to go. All wanted too much money, so we walked out to the main street and haggled one regular person (not a cab) down to a price we wanted. He drove us to the wrong place at first, only one block from where we wanted to be, but instead of just letting us get out and walk a few minutes, he turned around and brought us right to the door of the Embassy. We had to wait a while for the doors to open, but we picked up our transit visas and paid our $20, no problems. Our transit visas are actually for 1 month, rather than 5 days like I'd been told. Too bad we have to get back to work on January 5th!! We walked back to the train station to buy our tickets. We first had to register in the immigation office, and then we bought tickets to Samarkand, and Evan to Nukus, in the Western part of UZ and close-ish to the Aral Sea. We bought some bread from a babushka in the station, and then got on the train. Mike and I had a 4 person sleeper room, which we had to ourselves for most of the time, except maybe 20 minutes when a nice guy from Karakalpakstan, the western region of UZ, came in and talked to us in Russian. It's incredible how friendly the people are in UZ!

And now about Samarkand...

Mike and I arrived on the night train at about 1:45 am 2 days ago, after a 5 hour ride from Tashkent. We left Evan on the train. We were approached but a cute/creepy old lady at the train station who offered us a homestay for 12000 som for the night, which was super cheap, but we decided against it because in Uzbekistan, you need to register with immigration for every night you spend, and hotels do it for you, but this woman couldn't. So we turned her down and caught a cab to a hotel listed in Lonely Planet, Hotel Registan. The write-up was pretty negative, but it seemed like a pretty standard Soviet hotel. It wasn't as bad as Lonely Planet made it sound, that's for sure. The next morning we walked into town to find a new hotel. We chose Antica, which was Lonely Planet's pick for the best hotel. And it was amazing. It's located in an old part of town, with cobblestone alleys and courtyards. I imagine that in summer, when all the fruit trees are in bloom, that it's absolutely amazing. We got a cute room with a view of one of the many blue-tiled mausoleums, breakfast included, a double bed, and a really modern private bathroom with a great shower. It was $40 for the 2 of us, but totally worth it. We had tea at the hotel and then set off to wander around Samarkand.

You can't look anywhere without seeing at least one blue cupola/dome from one of the many mosques or minarets. We went first to the Registan, which is probably what Samarkand is most known-for. It's a group of three Medressas, built between the 15th and 17th centuries. Entrace was 6500 sum ($5), so we decided to just check it out from the outside, and save going in for the next day. We then wandered down to some other mosques and the bazaar. We saw Bibi-Khanym Mosque, which it's said was built by one of Timur's wives as a surprise for him, but the architect fell in love with her and refused to finish building the mosque unless she gave him a kiss. The kiss left a mark on her face, and Timur saw it when it got home and had the architect executed. From that point forward, he decreed that women must where headscarves to avoid tempting men. Who knows if it's true, but it's a good story anyways. Again we didn't go inside, because it doesn't seem like there was really much to see other than a courtyard. We then went to Shah-i-Zinda, which is said to be one of the most moving sites in all of Central Asia, and a place that Muslim pilgrims visit because the cousin and good friend of the Prophet Mohammed is buried there. It's just a bunch of mauseleums, but there is great tile-work and a huge cemetery to walk through. We ran into our friends Katy and Josh from Bishkek! We knew they were spending vacation in UZ also, but had no idea what their plans were. Even crazier was that they were staying at the same hotel as us, in the next room! They had also been approache by the creepy/cute old lady in the middle of the night at the train station, and they actually stayed with her! They said she lived in a really scary part of town near the train station, and that when they said that they weren't married to each other, she started talking super religious and even got out a Bible and read them the Ten Commandments! So I'm very glad that Mike and I didn't stay there.

After we parted ways with them, Mike and I wandered around the cemetery for ages, reading gravestones and looking at the pictures of the deceased that are lasered onto many of the stones. Some plots were really intricate, with roofs and lots of decoration. There was even one man who had a life-sized statue of him on his grave! We grabbed schwarmas for dinner and went back to the hotel. There's a big New Year's tree set up in a square near the hotel, and many people just were hanging out there, talking to their friends and setting off little fireworks. The people here just are so much friendlier and not nearly as aggressive or intimidating as Kyrgyz people.

This morning, we got up at 9 and had breakfast at the hotel with Katy and Josh. We wandered around the mausoleum housing the tomb of Timur and checked out the Timur statue, and then we set off to the train station to buy tickets for the night train to Bukhara. Since it's close to New Years, the trains are likely to be full. We got a bit confused and I thought the ticket man told us we had to come back at 1 am to buy tickets for the 1:45 am train, but it turned out he meant 1 pm. We didn't figure this out until we'd gotten into a marshrutka to head back to the center of town, but we got off and walked back to the train station. It was amazing weather today- sunny, complete blue skies, and warm enough that I had my coat off for most of the time. We bought cheap cheap seats and then caught a marshrutka back to the Registan (we'd decided that it would be worth it to pay the 6500 sum entrance fee). As we were taking panorama pictures, a policeman approached us and offered to let us into a locked part of Ulugbek's medressa to walk to the top of one of the minarets. Lonely Planet said that this would happen, and Katy and Josh said they were approached too, and they did it for 10,000 sum (talked the cop down from 20,000) and that it was amazing, and totally worth it. We weren't going to pay that much, so we declined and walked to another part. I left Mike alone for a few minutes to check out a different room, and when I saw him again, he was surrounded by 6 Uzbek children. It turns out they were an English primary school class with their English teacher, hanging out at the Registan hoping to find some tourists to practice English with. Mike and I sat down with them for about an hour, just asking and answering simple questions. They were all about 15, and had only elementary English skills. But their teacher was young and had great English, and was fun to talk to.

Then we learned all about Uzbek textiles from a nice seller, who tried to get us to buy some fabric from him, which of course we didn't do. As we went out to the center of the 3 medressas, yet another cop approached us, offering us entrance to the minaret for 2000 sum apiece. Still not wanting to spend more money, since we're going to run out anyways and we have to get money western unioned to us, we declined again. The first cop came to us again and said that I could go up for free since I was so beautiful. We left the medressa, but the cops kept whistling after us, trying to get us to go up the minaret. The cop was hilarious- he asked if we were married, and then said that if we went up the minaret, maybe we'd get married. He asked how many girlfriends Mike had, and when he said 1, the cop said that after going up the minaret maybe he could get more. He asked if we had any children, and then said if we went up the minaret, I'd probably be pregnant. It was great to joke around with policemen. We went back in and bargained to get up the minaret- I'd get in free, Mike would pay 2000 sum ($1.50), and I would have to kiss each of the policemen on the cheek. That was too good a bargain to pass up, so we went back in and up the minaret. We climbed lots of scary stair to the top, and the view was beautiful. Mike and I still aren't married, we have no children, and he still (unfortunately?) only has one girlfriend, but it was great. The cop walked part of the way with us, making sure we were careful stepping on the crumbling, unrenovated steps. He gave us his phone number, and said that when we come back in June we should call him up. I did kiss him on the cheek as promised, and got a picture of me doing it. It's not everyday I get to kiss a policeman, especially in a "Police State" country with supposedly scary policemen. The other policeman came up and got his kiss too, and then gave me his address and asked me to send him the picture. He also said that when we come back in summer, we should ask for him at the Registan and that we can stay in his house instead of a hotel. The Registan had closed by this point, but a friend of the cops took us into his souvenier and gave us information about getting a cheap hotel in Bukhara. He wrote down the address, told us how to get there, and even called ahead to make sure that we could get a double room with hot water, breakfast, and a tv for $20 for the 2 of us, rather than $40! I wanted to buy a postcard from him, but he gave it to me for free! It was amazing. One of the cops stood with us while we took night pictures of the medressas, and told us more information about the history of the medressas.

Samarkand is just AMAZING! I wish we could just stay forever, joke with salesmen and policemen, visit mosque after mosque, and eat glorious plov. I'm glad Mike and I will be coming back through Uzbekistan at the start of our land journey to Turkey next summer.

We set off to Bukhara tonight, and it will be beautiful there as well! Happy Boxing Day to all.