Silk Road Day 20: Samarkand

This morning we went to Registan Square to see it properly in daylight. It is an amazing sight. And the weather co-operated with sunshine and a lovely blue sky.

(Panoramic shot - six photos stitched together)

A dodgy policeman offered to let some of us climb to the top of one of the minarets that is off-limits to the public, for the enormous amount of 5,000 sums each. That's about $3USD. We ended up paying $5USD each and four of us climbed. It was terrible and if I'd known what it was going to be like I wouldn't have done it; dirty, steep, dark, narrow, dank... not fun.

Later we visited another mosque and the central market - I bought a lovely scarf.

In the afternoon we had several options so we chose relaxing. Kendall slept and I read the rest of my book (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest). Had dinner at a local restaurant with an Uzbeki fashion parade which was quite good.

My left leg hurts from climbing the damn minaret.