From Samarkand I caught another train to get to Bukhara. Getting the ticket was a nightmare. There was one window open at the station. And a big group of people was crowding in front of it trying to be the next in line. Luckily I`m quite big and I had my big backpack on so it wasn`t any problem getting to the front of the line.

Arriving in Bukhara I found a mashrutka that took me into town. I checked into a nice hotel with hot shower, private bathroom, cable TV, air con, etc. Bukhara would be my very last stop on this trip. From here I had decided to fly back to Tashkent and then to Copenhagen. So I figured it was ok to splurge a bit. The room still wasn`t more than 12 dollars per night.

I spent 4 days in Bukhara just wandering around the town. It`s only a small town. But it`s really fascinating to stroll around there. It`s said to be the holiest city in Central Asia. There are more mosques than you can shake a stick at in Bukhara. Everywhere are mosques, and medressas, and caravansaries. Just like Samarkand Bukhara is a very famous city on the old Silk Road. But the main difference between Samarkand and Bukhara is that where Samarkand has monuments spread out and nothing very interesting in between. Bukhara has an old town centre that`s almost entirely old buildings, or new buildings built in the same style as the old ones. So it`s a very nice place to wander around and loose yourself for a few days. Every day I went out walking with no particular aim. I just wanted to see as much of the city as I could and to take lots of photos of it.

Like Samarkand there was blue majolica tiles everywhere on the old buildings. It was far from as extreme as in Samarkand though. A lot of buildings just had a natural earth color but with very nice carvings on them. On the whole I think the monuments of Samarkand were far more impressive, but Bukhara was a better place to be. You had to walk quite far to get to the new part of town where the buildings were the more Soviet style and off course not very interesting.

Because of what had happened to my cousin I had completely lost interest in sightseeing. So instead I just wandered around Bukhara looking at buildings. I looked around in the souvenir shops a bit as well just to make the time pass. The only souvenir I bought was a Turkmen style hat. It`s a hat that looks like as if I had put a whole sheep on my head! It`s one of the few souvenirs I`ve bought on this whole trip. And I only bought it to have fun with my parents when they pick me up in Malmö.

After 4 days in Bukhara my time was up. And I caught the evening flight to Tashkent to start my homeward journey.