Casually gatecrashing a wedding

Central Asia - Samarkand

30/09/2016 22 °C

After a relatively quick drive of just 5 hours from Bukhara, where we debated what is and what is not a country for a "visited countries" list, we arrived in the historic Silk Road city of Samarkand - one of the real highlights of the tour.

Family photo

After checking in at the hotel we headed to a fancy restaurant for a meal in our tour guide's home city. Upon arrival we found that a local wedding reception was taking place downstairs and so from the balcony next to our table (and with a vodka shot each) we enjoyed watching the local customs.

Local wedding

After Ian threw down some notes to the wedding below, a member of the wedding party then came upstairs to invite us down! Next thing we knew we were in the wedding party itself, even dressed in our sweaty tourist day-wear. With our evening becoming longer by the time dessert was served up, we were ready to go - but as it was extremely tasty I wasn't going to let this go to waste and helped myself to six puddings! We then made our way back to the hotel, stopping off at the night-lit Registan square.

Inside the Ulugh Beg Observatory

Our full day tour of Samarkand started after breakfast at the Ulugh Beg Observatory, before heading outside the city to a silk paper factory and back to the Afrasiyab Museum. On our return into the city we headed to Timur's mausoleum, the Gur-e-Amir, before lunch. After another 4 course meal, we finally visited the grand attraction, the Registan - a large public square surrounded by three madrassahs.

Registan

Taking in the views we walked around the complex before being let free for some hours in the afternoon to explore Samarkand by ourselves.

Inside the Tilya-Kori Madrasah

I headed to the supermarket opposite to grab some snacks for the next few days - which despite not being much added up to 24,000 som. Paying in 1000 som notes I then found that in order to count cash, the Uzbeks use casino style note counters! I then headed to the tourist street to buy myself a souvenir before going back to the hotel for a rest and to make use of the free WiFi.

Local Show

We were treated to a theatrical show showing us the history of Uzbekistan through traditional costume, performed by locals - which as usual meant mostly ethnic Uzbeks, as well as the odd Russian chav. We then made our way to dinner where yet another local party was going on.

Gur-e Amir

With one more look at the Gur-e Amir complex, this time by night, we then made our way to the train station for our overnight train to Termez.

By this point I had grown quite close to several members on the tour, and James and Christine had quickly become my travel mum and dad. As we boarded the four berth train carriage we coincidentally ended up in the same cabin! To add to the hilarity, we then called over Daniel, who I had first met on arrival at Ashgabat, and was my travel brother, to join us in our family cabin!

After being given our bed sheets for the night we then all settled down for our train ride to the Afghan border.