Trip to Uzbekistan Part 3 - Samarkand

Our train didn't leave Bukhara until late afternoon on Tuesday.  In the morning after breakfast we went one last time to the market.  This is where Nika helped Sophia buy her outfit. See below. Sophie got the floor model of an outfit and really bartered her way to a price that was more affordable. Nika bought a similar outfit when we were in Samarkand.

The outfits are quite striking on both girls.

Sophie with her prize!

Sophie and Nika in their outfits.

After visiting the bazaar, we hung out on the plaza for awhile, got some lunch, and then got picked up by our cab driver from the day before and got taken to the train station.  The train station was full of foreign tourists getting ready to get on the fancy train to Tashkent.  

Our train was a slightly less fancy train.  When we were getting ready to get on the train we saw a group of returning sportsmen who were met with a band (horns and drums) and great fanfare.  The sports group had loaded up with bread in Samarkand, which is famous for its bread.  It was quite a sight.

Waiting with a bunch of tourists. There was a big group of American tourists who were going through Central Asia with their last stop in Kazakhstan.

On the train to Samarkand

In Samarkand we got two taxis to our hotel.  They got split up, but we managed to meet at our hotel which was centrally located in town.  The hotel itself was interesting.  The floors were covered in rugs and the clientele mostly seemed to be religious folks from various areas of the world.  We had a room on the first floor and the girls had a room on the second floor.  It was about 8:00 p.m. and dark when we arrived.  We checked in and then walked out and found a restaurant to eat in - a little Italian cafe a few blocks from the hotel.

Upstairs where girls had their room (lots of nice rugs on the floor).

We had nice breakfasts at all of our hotels.  Lots of good fresh fruit.

After we woke up, we ate breakfast at our hotel and then went out walking to explore.  We had mapped out our day, planning on having a relatively light day of walking and seeing since we had gone quite hard in Bukhara for three days.

Our hotel was in the center of the city and so walking to the main sites was very convenient.  Our first stop was at the statue of Timurlan (Tamerlane), who was a warrior who became the most powerful Muslim Leader of the 14th century.  His statue was in a traffic circle near our hotel and his mausoleum complex was just a few blocks away.

The Mausoleum was very commercialized - a number of tour buses pulled up at the time we were there, so it didn't have the same feel as some of the complexes we saw in Bukhara, which were quieter and more reverent.  Temirlane was a pretty horrible human being, so maybe reverence was the right feeling anyway....

At the mosque/mausoleum complex.

After visiting the mausoleum, we walked to "registan", the old center of the city which was the area of the kings.  The whole complex included a number of mosques and Madrasahs as well. We were really impressed with the parks and walkways throughout the center of the city.

Walking to registan.

Looking out at Samarkand.

Approaching Registan.

Amazing inlay work on the restored buildings.

Registan from the front entrance.

Mosque.

Lexa and Papa resting on a bench.

More amazing tile inlay work inside a mosque.

Nice inner courtyard in the rear mosque complex.

Furniture and other crafts.

Mama and Polina posing.

Veronika posing (one of just a handful pictures of her since she was our main photographer for the trip).

We really enjoyed the registan complex. We learned that one of the leaders, Ulugh Beg, had built an observatory in the 15th century. His work was the basis for a lot of later astronomical work by astronomers in Europe, including Copernicus. There was a really neat museum with displays about the science and about his life.

We saw a bunch of weddings while we were there. In fine Soviet tradition, the wedding party goes and gets photographs at all the landmarks.  If I was getting married in Samarkand, I'd go get my picture taken at Registan as well.  I got my picture taken with my wife, but it was 17.5 years too late!

After walking through the complex, we stopped at a little outdoor cafe and bought ice cream and water to eat.  Everyone was very happy about that.

Ice cream break. Notice the nice park behind us.

After our ice cream break, we took a walk to the main bazaar in town: the Siyob Bazaar.  It was down a nice road.  It had everything that we wanted and needed and we loaded up on treats (nuts, fruits, and local candy) for us and for others.

The bazaar with a selection of nuts and fruits.

We ate lunch with the locals at a local shwarma place and walked back to the hotel.  After resting for a few hours, we went out for dinner.  Yulia had looked up a restaurant, but we couldn't find it, so we went back to where we had eaten the night before.  We saw a sign for "KFC" and were curious.  A woman came out of the cafe and told us that they had KFC there.  We took a chance.  We were the only customers and it was a bit dark.  We were not sure because the prices seemed high (they were for massive portions it turns out).  We ordered KFC (which was just fried chicken) and some other dishes.  We ended up with a nice meal for a good price and a very interesting experience.  We have real KFC in Kazakhstan and I'm not sure that they want their name appropriated this way in Uzbekistan!

"KFC"

Our "KFC meal"

Famous Samarkand bread.

After dinner we returned to our hotel.  We had an early start scheduled for the next morning.  Our whirlwind stop in Samarkand was over.  We really enjoyed the sites there, but felt that one day was enough to see them.  We  were glad to have the more authentic experience for longer in Bukhara, but Registan and the parks in Samarkand were truly beautiful and impressive.

Trip to Utah Part 1 - Road Trip to Las Vegas: Cove Fort and Mountain Meadows

We arrived in Utah earlier than usual this year and there was still a coolness in the air and plenty of snow on the mountains.  Because of the busy summer, we were not going to be able to see all of my sister Mican's family at our reunion in Payson later in June. Our daughters would miss seeing their cousin, Emma, who they really love a lot - especially after we lived down the block from them in Las Vegas for a year.  We decided that we would take a road trip down to see them.  We arrived on Monday afternoon, Tuesday I spent the day getting the car tuned, inspected, and registered, and Wednesday morning we left for Las Vegas.

The drive was beautiful.  Everything was green and the sky was dark blue and partly cloudy.  We decided that we would stop at historic Cove Fort.  It was a fort built to protect travelers going from northern Utah to Southern Utah and back. It operated for a number of years, but was never used as a fort since the pioneer settlers in the area had good relations with the native Paiute tribe in the area.  I had been before and taken a tour, but when we stopped with Yulia last time it was a Sunday afternoon and we only walked around the outside.

We had a very nice tour guide and we took the full tour.  We watched a video about the fort and the family that settled it - the grandfather of LDS church President, Gordan B. Hinkley - and how the Fort was built and how it operated.  Then we took a tour of the restored fort itself, including the barns and outbuildings.  It was very interesting and the girls had a wonderful time.

A beautiful drive - Yulia took this picture while I drove.

The girls getting ready to roll iron hoops - a pioneer pastime.

Looking through the Fort.

View inside the fort.

The kitchen. Meals were prepared for the family and for the travelers that stayed.

Looking down into the fort.  Look at that beautiful sky!

The girls up on the ramparts of the fort.

This was the station where the oxen were shod.  They had to be lifted since they couldn't hold up one foot like a horse during the procedure.

This was the hay crane, used to make haystacks and move hay into the top of the barn for winter.

This was a rock hauling wagon.

Inside the barn looking at tack. A riding saddle foreground and two pack saddles in the back.

The girls with their spinners.  They got to keep these and had lots of fun in the car with them.

Rolling hoops.

We stopped for lunch in Cedar City, Utah and filled up with gas.  Then we went around the back way and took the kids to see the different Mountain Meadows Massacre sites.  The Mountain Meadows Massacre was one of the great tragedies in Utah history and in the history of the LDS church. We spoke to the girls about the tensions that existed, the looming threat of the Utah war, and about the decisions that people made that ended up killing a whole group of Arkansas pioneers.  John D. Lee was executed for his role in the massacre, but for many years there was silence about the whole episode.  I recommend Jaunita Brooks book to understand the event.

It was a solemn afternoon, but a good learning experience for our girls.  The back valleys of southern Utah were beautiful and we had a very nice drive from Mountain Meadows through the Dameron Valley, Gunlock, the Paiute Reservation, and out to Beaver Dam in Arizona where we met up with I-15 and drove into Las Vegas.

One of the sites.

Talking to the girls.

Hiking up to the monument and overlook.

Looking down on the site.

At the gravesite.

Driving. What a gorgeous view!

This reservoir with waterfalls at Gunlock was awesome.  If we had more time we would have gone in!

Driving through the Paiute Reservation.

The desert was green sage, moving into Joshua tree desert.

We arrived in Las Vegas and had a wonderful greeting and a nice meal waiting for us.  The kids had a great time playing games and just hanging out together.

On Thursday our adventure was to go bowling at one of the Casinos.  I think it was Texas Station, but I can't remember for sure.  The kids had a lot of fun and we bowled two complete games, so we wore them out after a couple of hours of bowling.

On Friday we drove over to Henderson to a pool there.  It was a pool that we used to all go to when we lived here.  It is nice because it is indoors and usually not too crowded.  We all swam for a couple of hours and then on our way home we stopped and ate at a place called the Chicken Shack.  The food was pretty good and we all got plenty to eat.

We woke up on Saturday and got ready and drove back home to Payson.  We were glad that we could make it down to Las Vegas to see the Mayo family and to have a little adventure.  It was a nice way to start our vacation!

Playing games

Bowling!

Chicken Shack!

Fun times!

Mount Timpanogas as we are coming up over the ridge into Santaquin on our way home to Payson. I told you it was beautiful!