After having a pretty tight itinerary the last couple of weeks it was great to arrive in Bukhara where we would have four full days to explore and relax. Bukhara is Central Asia’s holiest city and was the capitol of the Mangit dynasty from the 16th century until the Bolsheviks came to take over. Today the city is much smaller than Tashkent and Samarkand, but it still has a really good feel to it. Everything is built around stone pools and canals and even after Samarkand we were still blown away by some of the Great Mosques, Madrassas and Minarets that the city had to offer.
Having three days with a guide gave us some more information than just si Ole explanations about sights and histories. Our guide also told us about about the traditional way of getting a girls parents respect and permission to mars their daughter. The men would visit the parents home and first show that they were healthy enough to eat a lot of plov. They would then have to chop wood with an axe and carry their daughter seven rounds around a bonfire to show that they were strong enough. They then also had random tests to show of they were polite enough, like putting salt instead of sugar into the mens tea to see how they reacted to the taste. One should also try to marry around eighteen years old, so I think there would have been no hope for me to have gotten a wife in this country..
Me and my travel company Robert got to have a quality man day at the end of our stay where we first went to th barber shop to get a one dollar shave and then went over to a traditional Hamam (Turkish bath) for some spa time. I had first thought that a Hamam was more about skrubbing and less about massaging, but here it was quite the oposite. With just a tiny cloth wrapped around our waists the massage boys pulled our legs and arms in ways I had never imagined possible. Our joints cracked to the point where I almost wanted to give in, but after it all was over it felt so great. I felt like a jellyfish and slept well my last night in Uzbekistan.
