Stopover - Riga (Latvia)

Riga's historic old town

The Journey commences

Tashkent Railway Station and a rather strange statue - a 20 hour train trip to Urgench (Khiva) awaits! Isn't it about time I retired from this lark!

Khiva

The preserved (if in places overly preserved) inner walled city of Khiva, a former slave market on The Silk Road - view from The Islom Hoja Minaret looking across to The Juma Minaret

Islom Hoja Minaret - the highest in Uzbekistan

Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum and the adjacent Islom Hoja Minaret

Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum - the site of many tombs of Khiva's ruling khans

The 19th century Summer Mosque - part of The Khuna Ark dating from the 12th century - Khiva's rulers own fortress

Guard duty! - a bored local at The West Gate of (Ichon -Qala) the inner walled city

The ambitious Kalta Minor Minaret built to see hundreds of miles across the desert to Bukhara! If completed it would have been the tallest minaret in the world. Building work stopped when the ruling Mohamed Amin Khan dropped dead in 1855 four years after work started - The Khan would surely have disapproved of hawkers selling the usual tourist junk next to his much revered complex

The Kalta Minaret and Mohammed Amin Khan Medressa now sadly used as a hotel

Sunset at the Mohammed Rakhim Khan Medressa

The Islom Hoja Minaret dominates the skyline

The Otabek B & B - notice a photo of the sinister President Karimov on the unit

Karakalpakstan - A Stan within a Stan

$100 lighter after paying a local driver to take me on a neck jarring, bone shaking 12 hour (740 kilometre) day trip into the semi-autonimous region of Karakalpakstan with its blighted landscapes, blighted people and dying towns. Here is the gateway to the region and one of many police checkpoints

If he can get across then surely we can get across!!! - a 'temporary' pontoon bridge

The road to nowhere - and I'm praying we don't break down!

A solitary vehicle approaches on a stretch nearing Moynaq

The end of the road and the end of the World! - Moynaq and the tragedy of The Aral Sea - once the 4th largest inland sea in the world. The Soviets in their wisdom diverted two rivers to irrigate cotton fields. Subsequently the sea dried up. The Aral Sea once lapped against the signpost - now Moynaq a former fishing port stands 150 kilometres from the water..... check the irony of the fish still on the entrance sign to town

Moynaq - formerly on shore of The Aral Sea

Once a thriving fishing port the receding sea decimated the town's economy - most people left. Forlorn women sell fish from a small reservoir, a pathetic remnant of the sea

The destitute town has a 'Wild West' feel to it.....

Even this remote outpost could not escape the tentacles of The Soviet apartment block! At least they can enjoy satellite TV!

Ethnic Kazakhs were formerly nomadic fishing people

Government propaganda adorns telegraph poles

'Peace and Prosperity' no doubt!

The Ships' Graveyard

The Moynaq War Memorial - a once clifftop viewpoint at The Aral Sea. Recognised as the World's worst manmade ecological disaster, the sea's shrinkage has wreaked the climate and ecology and destroyed all indigenous fish stocks. Dust blown from the exposed bed has created vast salt and dust sandstorms mixed with chemicals used in cotton cultivation rendering the region of Karakalpakstan an apocalyptic nightmare. Not that the Soviets cared, they knew this untold suffering to the people would be an acceptable by-product of their late 20th century drive to expand cotton production. Looking 'out to sea'.....

The surreal sight of the 'The Ships' Graveyard'. Fishing boats were abandoned as the sea vanished beyond the horizon. Most were stripped down by desperate locals - a few beached ships that remain.....

Bukhara

From Khiva after fraught negotations with the shared taxi mafia - a nightmare journey - with countless police checkpoints, roadblocks and senseless detours it was a relief to arrive at Bukhara, Central Asia's holiest city - The Ark (a royal town within a town) dating from the 5th century is the oldest stucture in the city

The 17th century Juma (Friday) Mosque within The Ark

The Kalon Minaret built in 1127 dominates the Kalon Mosque (right) and the Mir-i-Arab Medressa (left)

Jenghiz Khan and his Mongol Hordes expanding thier great empire westwards captured Bukhara in 1220. Infamous for destroying everything in his army's path 'The Sacker of Cities' spared The Kalon Minaret as it so dumbfounded him.

Regretfully the haunting muezzin (the call to prayer) was outlawed by President Karimov in 1999 as a continued purge on the influence of religion - Perceived infiltration by Islamic extremists from neighbouring Afghanastan providing a convienient excuse

The 16th century Mir-i-Arab Medressa. Audacious and beautiful buildings decorated with tilework of abstract geometric, floral and calligraphic design topped with luminous blue domes are icons of the Islamic World

Tunnel vision! - The Mir-i-Arab Medressa from the entrance to The Kalon Mosque

Mir-i-Arab Medressa - unusually in Uzbekistan a fully working theological school

Entrance portal to The Kalon Mosque

Hushed silence in the sanctuary of The Kalon Mosque - imagine ten thousand crammed in for prayers!

Returning from prayers at an inner sanctuary

The Kalon Minaret from the sanctuary of The Kalon Mosque - the godless Soviets used this as a warehouse and was only opened for worship again in 1991

Ulugbek Medressa (1447)

Restoration of the crumbling 16th century Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa

Chasing the tourist dollar - Uzbek women dance a capitalist jig!

Faizullah Khojaev's house (1881) - Khoyaev plotted with the invading Bolsheviks to dump the last ruling Khan. Rewarded with chairmanship of the Council of People's Commissars of The Uzbek SSR, he received his comeuppance when he was liquidated by Stalin in 1938 and his entire family exiled to a Siberian Gulag

The Winter Guest Room

The Summer Guest Room - Orwell's 'some are more equal than others' springs to mind!

The servants did not do too badly either!

Lost in thought! - The harsh reality of a Bukhara back street

Nadir Divanbegi Medressa - once a Silk Road caravanserai