Jordan: from the sea that you cannot swim in to the desert that will take your breath away

Border crossing between Syria and Jordan was my easiest and quickest yet since the start of my trip in July in China. It only took 1 hour, there were clean(ish) toilets, duty free shop and currency exchange that wasn't trying to rip you off. Impressive and civilized! And the first hours of driving in Jordan after crossing the border create the first immediate impression: there is much much less trash along the road than there was in Syria. So far, so good!

Here's my brief impressions and memories of the key places I visited in Jordan:

Jerash, located 48 km north of Amman, is one of the largest and most well preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world outside Italy. To this day, its paved and colonnaded streets, soaring hilltop temples, handsome theaters, spacious public squares and plazas, baths, fountains and city walls pierced by towers and gates remain in exceptional condition. The ancient city preserved today was the administrative, civic, commercial and cultural center of this community, while the majority of the city's citizens lived on the east side of Jerash Valley. Jerash was hit by the Persian invasion of 614 AD and the Muslim conquest of 636 AD. A series of earthquakes in 749 AD did serious damage to the city and hastened its decline, and its population sank to 4000. The Crusaders described Jerash as uninhabited, and it remained abandoned until its rediscovery in 1806, when Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, a German traveler, came across and recognized a small part of the ruins. The ancient city was buried in sand, which accounts for its remarkable preservation. It has been gradually revealed through a series of excavations, which started in 1925, and continue to this day. I was fortunate to visit the place at sunset which - yet again - made for some amazing photos.

Petra is without doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tourist attraction. It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time". UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage." Petra was chosen by the BBC as one of "the 40 places you have to see before you die". The long walk to the Treasury, among the amazing walls formed by red, white and yellow rocks is truly a unique view. Although quite crowded at this time of year, Petra is so big and spread out that you can easily find a less frequented hike where it's just you, the rocks and the amazing temples and monasteries carved in rock. You can easily spend a day wandering the various sites, getting lost on the hiking trails or just climbing a rock somewhere and sitting on it until sunset watching the people below... I absolutely recommend a visit to Petra at least once in everyone's life.

Swimming (kind of) in the Dead Sea: Deep in the Jordan Valley and 55 km southeast of Amman, is the Dead Sea, one of the most spectacular natural and spiritual landscapes in the whole world. Dead Sea is actually not a sea at all, but a lake that's made up of about 30 percent salt. It is the lowest body of water on earth, the lowest point on earth and the world's richest source of natural salts, hiding wonderful treasures that accumulated throughout thousands of years. As its name evokes, the Dead Sea is devoid of life due to an extremely high content of salts and minerals which gives its waters the renowned curative powers, therapeutic qualities, and its buoyancy, recognized since the days of Herod the Great, more than 2000 years ago. And because the salt content is four times that of most world's oceans, you can float in the Dead Sea without even trying, which makes swimming here a truly unique experience not to be missed: here is the only place in the world where you can recline on the water to read a newspaper.There is no such thing as swimming in the Dead Sea. Your feet and shoulders rise and float above the water, no matter how hard you try to make them go under the water. They just refuse. And a tip for those of you who want to try "swimming" out here: do not shave at least two days before you plan to take a dunk in the Dead Sea, and be prepared if you have any open cuts or sores while you're swimming, as you will quickly learn the real meaning of putting salt in one's wound.

Wadi Rum desert: this absolutely breathtaking desert near Aqaba used to be a rest stop for all the caravans travelling between Asia and Europe. The sand in Wadi Rum has this amazing shade of darkish red (which - on the downside - gets absolutely everywhere, and I mean everywhere including your teeth and private bits. And there are no showers anywhere around so you learn to live with the sand for a while...). There are also rocks scattered picturesquely around the desert. Interesting fact: T.E. Lawrence, the famous British explorer also known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a big fan of Wadi Rum, used to live here around 1917. He described his adventures and love for this part of the world in a book called "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", the title of which comes from the name of one of the desert rocks in Wadi Rum. We spent several hours driving jeeps deep into the desert, climbing rocks and watching the sunset. And then we spent the night in a Beduin tent camp under the stars. Unforgettable...

Syria: the ancient art of storytelling and the castles of every child's dreams

Crossing the border from Turkey to Syria was pleasanty quick (only 2 hours) and followed by a night of "bush" camping in a parking lot of a local gas station. But it was free, came with clean toilets and the seaside was just across the road, which made for a great swim and an amazing sunset views.

Aleppo was the first big city we visited in Syria. The Citadel (which I was fortunate enough to visit at sunset) is pretty spectacular. It sits on a hill in the center of the city and is visible from almost anywhere. Usage of the Citadel hill dates back at least to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC but the current structure dates from the 13th century. And the added fun factor came from our hugely entertaining, slightly bizarre and definitely memorable local guide who was an extremely loud older gentleman (maybe half deaf, hence loud??) talking in a strong accent with great passion about the city history and the customs (at at some point mentioned something that I understood to be - but maybe it was his accent - penis perfume...). 

Another amazing place in Aleppo is its main covered souq. All of the shopping your heart could possibly desire from gold and silver, boxes, clothing, fabric and soaps can be found here. I quickly found that many show owners spoke bits and pieces of Polish, which quickly led to funny conversations, including one of my fellow travellers trying to marry me off in exchance for some camels...

One of my personal favouite experiences of Aleppo - and of the whole of Syria to be fair - is the amazing sound of the calls to prayer, coming very loudly from every minaret in town (and there are quite a lot of them!) 5 times a day. It's fascinating and quite enchanting to listen to them - everything slows down for a bit, restaurant owners turn off their music and (what's different from calls to prayer in Iran) the mosques seem to be talking to each other: a call to prayer from one mosque is answered by a different "song" from another mosque. Around Syria I have listened to those mystic religious "performances" with up to 6 mosques getting involved in the "song"... Amazing... I got to truly love these sounds of Islam and it doesn't bother me that in some places, especially in the Syrian countryside, they come as early as 4:30 in the morning!

Damascus - also known as the "city of jasmin" is the capital of Syria and is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. The old-walled city, in particular, feels very ancient and largely consists of a maze of narrow alleys, punctuated by enigmatic doors that lead into pleasing, verdant courtyards and blank-faced houses. The old city still has an authentic medieval feel to it, although this is vanishing very fast due to the increasing tourist traffic. One of my favourite places in the city - Souq al-Hamidiyya - is a broad (and crazily busy!!) street packed with tiny shops and is entered through columns from a Roman temple built on a site that had been occupied by an even older temple. The smells of spices, the screaming of the shop owners at each other and at potential customers, the music of calls to prayer, the noise of excited local children crowding the famous ice cream shops (slabs of ice cream rolled in pistacchio - yuuuum!) - it all creates a memorable atmosphere, which you just want to return to night after night. And it makes for some amazing people watching! At the end of Souq al-Hamidiyya stands the great Umayyad Mosque. It was an Assyrian temple, then a Roman temple to Jupiter, a church when Rome converted to Christianity, then a mosque and a church together, and finally a mosque until now. All the symbols are still pretty much there and some Christian drawings can still be very clearly seen on the walls inside. Damascus also has a Citadel (at the other end of the souq from the mosque) but it's not overly impressive if compared to the Aleppo Citadel and its crazy guide. 

One of the truly unique experiences in Damascus is visiting the Al Nafura (The Fountain) Cafe after the sunset prayer for a sample of some Arabic storytelling called hakawati. It's evidently a dying art in Syria and it's passed from one generation to another to keep the tradition alive. It's quite a view to see the storyteller (the hakawati) clad in flowing Arab dress and a white skullcap seated on an elevated chair and, surveying the people below, reading / acting the stories from his book. Every now and then he would point his walking stick at someone in the audience and ask them to repeat certain phrases (which if you don't speak Arabic can be quite entertaining for the locals and for the storyteller). It's all in Arabic so the exact meaning obviously escaped me that it truly was as if we were back in the Middle Ages when one of the most preferred types of entertainment in the Middle East were the storytellers with their tales of war, chivalry, love, oppressors, rogues, and romance. 


Krak des Chevaliers - another amazing place we visited in Syria. Standing as high as 2300 feet above sea level this Castle of the Knights considered the greatest fortress in the world. With its command over the valley between Homs and Tripoli, and being a model of perfection of medieval fortification, this Castle was never besieged or taken by storm. Exploring the many rooms, kitchens, towers, dungeons (including a challenge our guide gave us to find a secret passages under the castle) truly felt like an ideal hide-and-seek adventure for little boys. The history of this magnificent fortress is not very well known, it was given to a Kurdish garrison by the Amir of Aleppo in 1031, taken over by the Count of Toulouse in 1099, then by the Latin prince Tancred in 1110, and then by the Hospitallers in 1142. After that the Krak was kept in the hands of the crusaders, although it was damaged by a couple of earthquakes, and was rebuilt in its final form in the 13th century. It only fell to the Mameluke Sultan Baibars who resorted to a trick, in which he forged a letter supposedly from the Crusader commander in Tripoli that said that they should surrender, and so the greatest fortress in the world fell.

Istanbul, Turkey: I missed most of Turkey but I got my Ethiopian visa!!!

Originally I was planning to spend only few days in Istanbul. My Dutchman was flying in for almost 5 days (and we were both ecstatic about a chance to spend some time together after 3 months of not seeing each other). After those few days I was due to meet up my new group of travel companions and drive around Turkey to sightsee other parts of the country before crossing into Syria. Well... My plans ended up changing quite a bit and all because of Ethiopia changing its visa requirements. Before, it was possible to apply for an Ethiopian visa in any Ethiopian embassy around the world (so I was planning to do that in Sudan or Egypt). Now it's required to apply in an Ethiopian embassy in your country of residence. So that meant I needed to send my passport to London... And wait in Istanbul for however long it takes to process the visa and send my passport back to me... Oh well, I am learning very quickly that flexibility is one of the most important virtues one should develop on these kinds of overlanding travels... So I am flexible, not stressing about somethings I have absolutely no control over and I am perfectly willing to spend extra few days in Istanbul, which is after all an amazing town, very friendly for tourists and wonderful for walking around. In the end it turned out that I had to spend an extra week in Istanbul. Of course - typical for me - I had some "interesting" adventures in the process of getting my visa and receiving my passport back: the Ethiopian consul decided to go on a short holiday when my passport was already in the embassy and there wasn't anyone else who could sign my visa (that caused 1 day delay), then the embassy lost the copy of my bank statement and I needed to find a way to send it again from Istanbul (that caused another day delay) and then even DHL ended up disappointing me because they couldn't deliver to Istanbul on weekends (so I lost another 2 days waiting for Monday to come). But now I have my passport, I have my Ethiopian visa and I am ready to go back on the road!

The positive side of my "forced" prolonged stay in Istanbul is that I really had more than sufficient time to explore the city, see every sight in the book and just aimlessly wander the back alleys for hours on end, which is often the best way to find off-the-beaten-track treasures and to make new friends. The mosques (especially the Blue Mosque), Hagia Sophis, Topkapi park and palace, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, the Asian side of the river - these are only some of the most beautiful and only some of my favourite places in Istanbul. I even went to the cinema to see "Eat, Pray, Love" and it was even shown in English and not in Turkish (althoght I was ready for the adventure of watching a movie in the local language!)...

The not-so-positive side of my longer-than-intended stay in Istanbul was that my new travel companions went ahead without me to explore the rest of Turkey and I unfortunately missed all the attractions in the country outside Istanbul. But such is life. My priority at the time was to get an Ethiopian visa. Turkey is not going anywhere and I'm sure I'll visit it again soon... Ballooning over Capadocia is supposed to be an unforgettable experience and may be even better if I do it with family or friends...

The Iranians are among most welcoming people in the world and their boys among most flirty men on the planet

Finally, I am in Iran! After a relatively smooth border crossing from Turkmenistan (only 5 hour wait at the border among very nice immigration officers) I find myself in the country of blue mosques and amazing landscapes  (anything from desert to almost tropical water-rich views in the mountains). Iran is the country of my Central Asia and Middle East trip that I’ve been most excited about due to its exotic feel, fascinating and sometimes controversial propaganda about the country that we’re fed in the Western world and, probably most of all, wanting to observe with my own eyes how the everyday life of the Iranian people (especially the women) is influenced by the strict rules and restrictions of their religion.

Here are some main highlights of my Iranian adventures. Since it’s completely impossible to describe everything I’ve seen and done, and especially the impressions it left on me, you’ll just have to come to Iran yourselves one day!

We started off with camping in the Golestan national park. It’s pretty much the only bush / forest area in Iran and camping here gave us a unique opportunity to observe the camping rituals of the locals. Camping Iranian style consists of cramping your family and half of your house into a small car, pitching your bright coloured tent as close to the road as possible (presumingly so you don’t have to walk far to your car to get stuff) and spending next few hours cooking up a feast, playing very loud Iranian pop music from your car speakers and talking even louder (so you can hear each other over the music). There is even a prayer hall so there’s no excuse for not fulfilling every Muslim’s religious duty of praying 5 times a day... And then the funny part comes: Iranians don’t actually stay overnight in those tents in the national park, after the dinner and the (alcohol free) parting they drop down the tents, pack up their mountains of stuff and ... go home. Bit bizarre but better for us, as it gave us a quiet peaceful night in the national park after the locals went home! Also, camping in Iran gave me another unique opportunity to climb up on the roof of the truck and unload tents while wearing my mandatory Iranian outfit of hijab (head scarf) and a long black tunic 3 sizes to big! Not the easiest job in the world as the tunic kept getting in the way and got very dirty after about 5 minutes and the scarf kept slipping but hey, all in the name of memorable travel experiences, right?

I must admit, as much as I loved the hospitality of Iranian people, I struggled to remain 100% tolerant and open minded in respect to the attitude of women in this country. Everywhere I looked I saw restrictions imposed on women that don’t apply equally to men: having to wear at least the hijab and preferably the black chador at all times while outside your house (in storching heat!), not being allowed many social privileges such as singing in public, using most swimming pools etc. While I completely understand that many of Iranian women are very religious by choice and they’re follow all these strict modesty rules even if it wasn’t mandatory for them to do so. But with my Western eyes I view one’s individual freedom as a basic right and I cannot help but view this particular religion and culture as unnecessarily and unequally repressive towards one gender and not the other.

 Yazd: rustic, tranquil and with a beautifil old-city with sun-baked tiles and lots of little bazaars. The city is still the centre of Iran's oldest religion, Zoroastranism. The practice of this religion is temporary Iran is similar to that of pre-Islamic Persia. The worship focuses around fire, fire temples were constructed in villages and cities and at remote places such as mountain peaks or caves. With the coming of Islam in the 7th century AD Zoroastranism lost is dominant position, large numbers of its followers converted to Islam and many shrines were abandoned. But Yazd remains an important Zoroastranism pilgrimage centre and there are still 6 holy shrines in the region.

Shiraz: Shiraz is known as the poetic capital of Persia, because two of the greatest poets of the world, Hafez (1324-1391) and Sa'di (1209-1291), come from this city. Sa'di, the traveler saw a great part of the world before he finally settled in Shiraz, where he died. Hafez on the other hand, except for one very short journey, never even left his city. One of them most impressive sites in the city is Shrine of Shah Cheragh, the tomb of Seyed Amir Ahmad, the brother of Imam Reza, the 8^th Imam. It's Holy Place but open to non-Muslims providing that no photos are taken inside the complex and that women wear the chador. Going inside the prayer area during a noon prayer was a powerful experience: crowds of people in the midst of their prayers, rows and rows of women fully covered in their chadors sitting or lying on the floor and loudly reciting verses from the Koran. Islam is a very picturesque religion to watch: I fell in love with the ritual of the call to prayer, ablutions in the mosque pools, laying prayer carpets in the direction of Mecca, prayer stones arranged on the floor... But - as mentioned earlier - I cannot get my mind around the (in my opinion supressive and limiting) impact the religion has on everyday lives of women in Iran: the chadors, the hijab, having to sit in the back of the bus, not being able to enjoy dancing or singing in public... I can safely state I won't be getting myself an Iranian husband and relocating to Iran anytime soon!

Oh, and I will remember Shiraz for another reason which is completely unrelated to Iran. It was over a nice cup of tea at our hotel in Shiraz that my crew leader informed me that Ethiopia just changed their visa rules and it's no longer possible for any nationality to get an Ethiopian visa on route (which was exactly what I was planning to do in Egypt). Now everyone who wants to travel to Ethiopia has to apply for their visa in the place of their residence before they leave home. Which for me means I need to mail my passport to the Ethiopian embassy in London and have it mailed back to me with the visa. The only problem is that I'm travelling and wasn't planning to be in one place long enough for my passport to make it to London and back. But traveller does what the traveller must do... Hence I'm changing my plans slightly and staying in Istambul few days longer than I was planning to. It will be a nerve wrecking experience to put my passport in the mail again after UK Royal Mail had lost it back in July! Believe me, this time I'm using the most secure mailing service I can find from DHL or another reputable international courier... And I will be camping in their office in Istambul until I have my passport (hopefully with Ethiopian visa in it) safely backi in my hands!

Persepolis: The magnificent palace complex at Persepolis was founded by Darius the Great around 518 B.C., although more than a century passed before it was finally completed. Conceived to be the seat of government for the kings and a center for receptions and ceremonial festivities, the wealth of the Persian empire was evident in all aspects of its construction. The splendor of Persepolis, however, was short-lived; the palaces were looted and burned by Alexander the Great in 331-330 B.C. The ruins were not excavated until the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago sponsored an archaeological expedition to Persepolis in the 1930s. Today the splendour is still easily appreciated: it's a vast site of impressive ruins, sculptures and palaces. The good news is that we were lucky to be there at sunset, which made for absolutely magnificent photos and ambience. The not-so-good news is that about 100 Iranian teenage boys from a local boarding school were visiting the ruins at the same time as us, which made for hords of boys following us and being at first sweet but then increasingly annoying with their 'what's your name', 'you have beautiful blue eyes', 'can I take a picture with you' and ' I love you'... I must say it was quite exhausting standing there smiling while tens and tens of teenage boys were lining up to take a picture with me! Oh well, another unforgettable travel adventure behind my belt...

Esfahan (sometimes also spelled Isfahan): by far the most beautiful city in Iran and one of the most beautiful cities I have seen anywhere in the world. I loved its breathtaking mixture of impressive blue-tiles mosques (my favourites were Sheikh Lutfollah, Jameh and Imam), beautiful palaces and gardens, Imam Square (the second largest square in the world after the Tiananmen Square in Beijing) and multiple bazaars and teahouses. And the people... It is truly impossible to overemphasize how amazingly friendly and warm Iranian people are in general but in Esfahan it took whole another level. The children want to know your name and practice their English, the women want to touch your hair and teach you how to wear the chador, the teenage boys want to practice their flirting techniques... All done in an enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere. I would love to come back to Esfahan some day...

Tehran: a huge crowded city of 14 million people and hence much more modern, noisy with much more hair sneaking out from underneath the girls' headscarfs and many more unmarried couples holding hands freely on the streets. And the traffic... Books have been written and movies made about Tehran traffic. Hundreds of cars, motorbikes and pedestrians squeezed into the streets, which seem way to small to fit all of them at the same time. Cars moving along on what seems like 5, 6, 7 traffic lanes while only 2 or 3 are painted on the tarmac. The orchestra of cars honking, brakes screeching, Iranian pop music blasting from the youngsters' cars. angry drivers shouting at each other or at stupid tourists trying to crossing the streets... It's all overwhelming, fascinating and exhausting at the same time. But the good news is that I have crossed quite a few streets in Tehran and didn't get hit by a car even once :-) Other than the traffic (which admittedly I did love to watch) Tehran has some amazing sights, my favourite of which was Golestan Palace, an oasis of peace, azure tiled palace and a quiet green park in the bustling city. But overall Tehran is too big and noise of a city for me. I was absolutely happy to experience it for few days, would love to come back one day in winter to go skiing in the mountain resorts around it but it's not a city which stole my heart forever.

Overall, Iran has been definitely one of my very favourite places on my Big Trip thus far, possibly even the most favourite. I may very well visit it again one day... But now, off to Turkey where I spend few days in Istambul with my cute Dutchman and then am catching my next Dragoman truck, which will take my through Middle East and Africa. Excited, excited, excited!!!

One more note, to completely change the subject... In the past couple of months on my beloved truck, which so is faithfully taking me across huge chunks of Asia, I have been conducting a litte informal survey among my fellow passengers. There are a few people here (some here with their partners, some without) who seem to have discovered the secret to the perfect relationship because after decades of being together they still seem ridiculously happy together. I wanted to take advantage of this unique opportunity of being surrounded by happily married or otherwise committed people and 'interview' them about what is the secret of a happy long-term relationship. What are the tricks? What works and what doesn't? What to watch out for? And voila, here are some of the trends that emerged. Nothing brand new or hugely surprising but rather a confirmation of the simple 'relationship truths', which all of us should remind ourselves of regularly...
- Love each other. All else will fall in place.
- Don't go to sleep angry at each other
- You have to be friends and share at least some of your respective passions and interests
- Don't over-analyze and over-plan every aspect of your future together. Whatever comes, comes and as long as you tackle it together, all will be well. And sometimes the fun is in the not knowing.
- You both should have the attitude of 'sometimes he does things for me and sometimes I do things for him'
- You should want the same things from life and share your fundamental values and principles
- Make each other laugh
 

Turkmenistan – strange police state where you get told off for photographing a donkey and taken to a police station for photographing a presidential palace

Turkmenistan is a strange mix of some of the most remote scenery on Earth and modern, futuristic city of Ashgabat. In the countryside you get the inhospitable Karakum Desert (which means Black Desert not because of its colour but because of its harsh and bleak atmosphere) and the Turkmen still living a fully nomadic lifestyle revolving around yurts and carpet weaving. In the city of Ashgabat you get a weird futuristic landscape of modern monuments and buildings, loads of presidential palaces and government building and a police officer on every corner to make sure you don’t photograph any of that. I am not kidding. One of us got stopped by the police for photographing ... a donkey in the countryside. Another got taken to the police station and deterred for couple of hours for photographing the presidential palace in Ashgabat (pictures had to be deleted). Couple of times I got stopped by the police outside our hotel and told I couldn’t enter it via a side entrance and had to go all around the building to enter via the main entrance. Why??? Who knows... Maybe the police bosses in Turkmenistan still believe in the Soviet rule of “everyone will have a job”... Well, the police force in this country must be the biggest employer here!

One of the strangest places I visited in Turkmenistan was Darwasa Gas Crater. One night, when we were camping in the desert, a small 4 x 4 picked us up at night in complete darkness and took us to a place like I’ve never seen before: imagine a huge hole in the ground (size of a football pitch) ablaze with fire fed by natural gas vents! Truly a scary and breathtaking sight! It was hot, it was bright as day, it was like seeing what Hell must look like. And for me, an employee of oil and gas industry, it was an interesting educational experience of what can happen when gas exploration and irresponsible drilling of huge holes in the ground goes wrong. This crater was evidently created about 30 years about when a gas exploration site exploded and the government hasn’t been able to stop it since. And there’s still enough gas left in the ground to keep it going for another 30-40 years!

Next stop for me on my Big Trip will be Iran. My visa has been granted by the Iranian embassy in Ashgabat and hence I now have a “great” photo of myself in my passport wearing a black hijab. Definitely not my best look. I’m off to the land of more blue tiles, mosques and interesting presidential figures (would be great to meet the guy and discuss world politics). I can’t wait to fashion chadors or at least hijabs every day...

The blue tiles and passionate men of Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is the one country on the Silk Road portion of my Big Trip that I did absolutely no pre-reading or research about. I knew nothing about it except where it is (vaguely) on the world map. It turned out to be Central Asia at its most exotic. It’s the land of the great Sultanates, the kingdoms that once controlled the trade and cities of the Silk Road, and – above all – of the most amazing cities I’ve seen thus far on this trip. Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva are the Silk Road at its best, the picturesque towns taken straight from the Alladin and 1001 Nights stories. They are beautiful to look at, safe to wonder around and adventurous to get lost in (which is almost guaranteed in the confusing maze of their old city alleys, especially given that they are no street lights and if you’re caught after dark without your flashlight, you’ll need a great amount of good luck or help from the locals to get back to your hotel).

Tashkent: it was the 4^th largest city in the Soviet Union. The old Tashkent was largely destroyed by earthquakes and Soviet planners. Today (at least to me) it still looks like it can’t quite decide whether it wants to be Soviet or Arab. These two influences are randomly mixed with each other in a schizophrenic cocktail of architecture, monuments, people’s clothes etc. But it is clean, safe and the people are so very welcoming. The Chorsu bazaar has the biggest and most picturesque fruit and vegetable market I’ve ever seen. The underground stations are decorated in beautiful paintings, tiles and sculptures – each station in different style - (although taking photos in the underground is forbidden and there are lots of police around to ensure this law is followed). The old city with its maze of mud walls and old traditional houses makes quite an impression (and it’s here, among poor old mud huts, that I stumbled upon a HUGE expensive looking Spanish-style yellow villa complete with a swimming pool, white columns on the porch and white wooden window shutters – it seemed so out of place in this neighbourhood, it must be worth millions and I still wonder which local drug lord owns it).

Samarkand: a romantic spot of the Silk Road. Gentlemen, if you’re ever planning to propose in Uzbekistan, this is the place to do it in style. The centre of the town (and seemingly the spot for a romantic date for all teenagers in town) is the Registan Square where the beautiful Medressas (Islamic schools) are loaded with ornate wall sculpting and the traditional tiles in every shade of blue under the sun. One of the best landmarks in the city is the Shakh-I-Zinda complex, which is basically a street with tombs for Timur’s family where one tomb is said to be that of Prophet Muhammad. Again, the blue tiles and golden walls and ceilings take your breath away. I also had a great opportunity to visit a silk carpet factory where not only one can go on a crazed spending spree buying carpets for many tens of thousands of dollars but also the owner (medical doctor, speaker of 7 languages and ex-employee of Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan) gave us a great tour of how his carpet workshop works, how the recruitment and employment of staff works (he’s a true believer in the saying that happy employees make better carpets, so the people here seem well taken care of with full benefits, including 3 year fully paid maternity leave!). This carpet workshop has been visited by almost every president and celebrity under the sun (including UN officials) and has been internationally recognized for its good labour practises (etc. no child labour).

Bukhara: if the primary colour of Samarkand was blue after its mosque tiles, the primary colour of Bukhara is light brown after the walls of its buildings in the old city. The old part of town is entirely UNESCO protected – and that means the buildings, the streets, the people. If anyone wants to build something new here or extend / change an existing building, extensive permissions are needed to ensure the continuity of historic and architectural styles. The buildings are absolutely spectacular, especially the Ark Fortress, the Ismail Samanid Mausoleum (I’ve never seen such a concentration of blue tile in one place!) or the Kalyan Minaret (aka Death Tower). I also had an opportunity to attend a concert of local music and dance, which was truly enchanting.

Khiva: it’s much smaller than the other great Uzbek cities of the Silk Road but also the best preserved Khanate. The old city is surrounded by the ancient walls and used to provide sanctuary for the Silk Road traders and travellers. To the eye (and the camera!) the old town is a beautiful mix of light brown buildings and the classic azure tiles of the mosques and medressas. And to top up a great day of sightseeing to The Juma Mosque, Islam Hodja Madrassa and many other amazing places, I took a chance to “invade” a very fancy swimming pool in a very fancy hotel (where I was NOT staying) and go skinny dipping J Truly a perfect ending to a great day out...

Oh, I almost forgot. I should probably explain the mention of the passionate men in the title of the chapter J Well, for some strange reason practically everywhere I went shopping or just browsing the bazaars, the Uzbek men were proposing marriage to me! I later compared notes with my other female travel companions and couple of them had similar “adventures”. The Uzbek men were all the time asking me if I have a husband and kids, and then would try to convince me to marry them. No matter that they already had a wife and kids! Evidently that’s not a deal breaker in Uzbekistan...  I did receive a couple of marriage proposals in Kyrgyzstan too but nothing to the extent of the frequency and passion, with which the Uzbek men kept on trying!