Bukhara

 As i entered the hostel, there were some kids playing and a guy.  The kids said hello, the guy just pointed and said 5!! I'm like 5, 5 what ...that was the number of my room.  When I entered it was very dark and there was a uzbec guy in there.  I asked some questions about beds, bathrooms, towels etc and chose my bed.  The dorm according to booking.com was full!! 

After being shown the bathroom which can only be described as a colour explosion on speed, I took a quick shower.  Not the best and water leaked everywhere but after that sweat box of a train ride I could have showered in anything!! 

Clean and dry I left the hostel for a wander.  As previously noted the hostel was in a great location 5 mins from the main attractions.. we'll call it attractions because that is what they felt like.  Already there were a lot more people, tourists and coach tours.  Every space was an opportunity to sell something.  Old buildings being changed into markets.  I feel I was definitely spoilt in Khiva.  Not as many people make the journey because it is so much longer! 

The biggest hurdle here is trying to find vegetarian food, so I went on a hunt.  I tried to stay out of the main centre.  I finally found a place that had ok reviews for vegetarian food.  Lovely little restaurant off the beaten track.  Reviews for veggie food not so accurate.  I ended up having chips and salad, not bad but not great although I did ask for an extra helping of cucumber and pretty much got the whole thing!

As I was ordering, a guy from walked in and was shown to share my table, happened to be a guy we met in Khiva watching the football.  It's a small world.  Dinner was ok and fairly cheap, one of the girls I was on the train with came and joined us.  These guys are doing a completely different trip, camping, hiking, hitch hiking across borders so the conversation soon led to them discussing border crossing about countries I'd never heard of! 

Still it was nice to listen and be envious of their on ward travels and to learn about these new countries.  Bill paid and we headed off, I was staying one side of the town and the others the other side.  So we parted but agreed to meet the next day.

As I was so close to the sights I took a wander on my way back to the hostel.  At night the main attraction is all lit up and does look very impressive it definitely didn't disappoint.  Literally a 5 min walk and I was at the hostel.  But those 5 mins consisted of thin dark deserted alleyways.  I wasn't scared as such but my pulse definitely was going faster than normal.  The situation continued as I walked down the dark alleyway to the hostel, there were no lights on the doors were all shut up and locked! It was before 11 so I wasn't even super late!!

Finally found a doorbell hoping not to wake up the whole hostel, the famous grandma opened the door, put one light on let me get to the door of the dorm and shut of all the lights.  I have to say I definitely wasn't feeling very welcomed into this what was supposed to be amazing hostel.

Regardless of these events I slept well in the full dorm of only one person ...me! A plus in the morning was a great breakfast eggs, bread, fruit, amazing pancakes, apricot jam and of course tea.  This definitely didn't disappoint and set you up for a good day of sightseeing.

At breakfast I met two girls from Bangalore who were travelling.  We chatted and then went on our way.  Map in hand I headed off.  Again the sites didn't disappoint.  The colours, the structures and the grandeur of them all was amazing.

At the first place randomly in one of the arch ways was a barbers... He came and spoke to me and I asked if he could cut my hair ... No problem he said 50000som(4$) ok when in Rome as they say.  What started out as a hair cut finished being a full massage 😂😂 still for the grand price of 4 bucks! Super random but not a bad massage! 

I continued on my merry way visiting sites on the way to the bazar.  The bazar where you can buy everything from beautifully coloured zips to fancy washer drivers.  There was also the food part.  I met up with Elana and we browsed the stalls. Trying lots of different dried fruits, one guy gave us a cup of tea.  We went into an area where there was music playing and a woman dancing so naturally I joined in.

We danced to what seemed like music with an Indian influence.  All the ladies around were clapping, laughing and enjoying the show.  It was lovely to see everyone smiling.  This part of the market they were actually selling cheese.  A popular snack here are these hard cheese ball things.  I have to say as an avid cheese lover these things are disgusting.  It's like eating really bad smelling chalk.  But I tried ! 

We ended walking around the market for a while, taking in the smells of the spices, fruit tea and the fruit.  Always a must when you go to a new place.  It's great to see the locals buying and selling products.

As we left the market the temperature had vamped right up.  I chose to sit under a tree outside one of the oldest mosques and just watch for a while.  It was great watching the men arrive and leave on their old bicycles and just to watch daily live out of the sun.

I decided to go back to the hostel for a little siesta and recharge.