There is no golden road to Samarqand

This is not entirely true, but it was only as we were leaving Tajikistan and chasing the sun into the Uzbek plains that one was found. The journey from Dushanbe was another stunning but patchy-road affair, with the four of us nicely filling a taxi. Careful thumbing of the guidebook landed us an idyllic camp-fire-by-the-lake-side night in a deserted soviet holiday camp at Iskander-Kul. The two-day finale of Tajik mountains through the windows gave us encore upon encore from rushing streams, crumbling cliffs, and houses in orchards up the slopes before the silk curtain finally fell to form a patchwork of crisp hills the melted into the plane and the eerie flatness of Uzbekistan. We walked from the arsy Tajik guards to the computerised Uzbek border post. Computerisation has not removed the paperwork, but has cunningly made the guards less arsy. They are now distracted playing duck shooting games.

Once again among other travellers, we now have a day to explore the minarets, maddrasses, mosques and bazaars of Samarqand before heading for Tashkent and the train to Moscow tomorrow.