Travelling Shorts

Bits of Bukhara from a month in Uzbekistan. Entry one of a few.

Having failed in my attempt at finding an internet cafe to do some work, I have moved into a room in the old city where I can just enjoy being in Bukhara for a little bit longer. Bukhara is, as you would expect, exceptionally charming and an easy place to spend truckloads of time. Since arriving, I have checked out the beautiful old Khanqah of Nodir Devonbagi, which has brilliant frescos that look like the ones at Naksh-e- Jahan in Esfahan, as well as the first mosque of the city, which was built on top of a Zoroastrian temple and which doubled as a synagogue for a while. They are both museums now.

Speaking of synagogues, there is one tucked away in one of the alleys, one of two in Bukhara and the one the Iranian architect I met in Khiva told me about. It has an armed guard in front of it. I wonder if that's new or is always the case, and I mean to go peek inside at some point, if I'm allowed to. Beside it are some of the homes of the famous Jews of Bukhara, people who were prominent members of the society here and whose houses look like any other house in Bukhara, except for the writing in the frescos which are in Hebrew.

Bukhara is unlike Samarkand in that it is a bit like Khiva - a complete, navigable old city which has been heavily restored and is now repurposed for a new era of travellers, a different sort, but people who are passing through, just the same. It is separated from the modern city. Samarkand on the other hand, feels very much more like a contemporary city across which all its incredible heritage structures are strewn. A little like Delhi. Yesterday I took some tea at an old mosque which has been converted into a tea house; the table I sat at was beside the now disused mihrab. That such a thing is possible in a practicing Muslim country is simply wonderful.

Some of the frescos here also remind me of the Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore and Multan of course has the same sort of tile work - all of which is very reminiscent of Iran. Pakistan is quite consistent with the architectural and aesthetic styles of this part of the world. This becomes less true further into India where the Islamic style becomes distinctly Mughal, and by the time it gets to Bangladesh we are borrowing greedily from the Palas.

In Bukhara I have found the sort of place I am always looking for. A place I can read a book undisturbed, on the balcony of a cafe that was once a 17th century mosque, or in the courtyard of a converted caravanserai, in a city where wanderers and travellers have come and gone from as long as anyone can remember. It feels like a part of that caravan trail I stumbled upon in Iran, and in Old Delhi and in Kathmandu and Tunisia and Byron Bay and Cape Town and on and on - a feeling of places the world comes to, or maybe just people like me do.

The Pakistani looking boy at the 15 dollar a night, amazing, heart of old Bukhara converted heritage home I'm staying at works twenty-four hours because he has a loan to pay off and what choice does he have as the economy is bad right now, he says. It's just him and his mother and he is the man of the house. He is English educated, has lived in Bangkok for many years, and is just like 'us', yet is fighting battles just like 'them'. What do I really know about people and how hard they have it, traipsing through as I do on my unearned good fortune? And how do I make good on it? How how do I get to deserve what I have and how do I remain grateful, humble and useful to the rest of humanity?

These are questions I ask myself as I turn on the TV to find, fantastically, the Baburnama being read out in a Turkic language on a Radio TV channel called Radio Kitob. All the stuff of legend and history seem to present themselves to me as a sort of living and lived reality in both Iran and Central Asia, exciting my soul to no end! I understand none of it but some words are familiar - ‘Rabia, Babur, Afghanistan, Ghengiz Khan, Turkestan, Andijan, Bukhara, Samarkand, Ulugh Khan’.

What are the chances that I, a son of South Asia, will come upon this reading in Uzbekistan, where of course Babur was from, but where, I had thought, he was relatively obscure. Not so it would seem, as his book is still among this evening’s entertainment here. As always, life feels like a perfectly customised experience, every time I step out into the world.

The next day, by about the middle of it, the sun begins to sting. A slow, shaded existence is everything one asks for in this heat, and the old city offers that in spades, in its many covered bazaars, alleys and eateries, surrounded by trees. Perhaps that’s why so many great minds came from this city - it forces you to step out of the hustle and to be with yourself, and maybe to think.

My room is next to the Traders Gate, one of several gates around the city. I like to imagine that some 800 years ago, merchants from all over the world came to just this spot to display their goods at a sort of Silk Road trade fair. There would have been a stall from Bangala too no doubt, selling pearls, agarwood, fine muslin fabric, bronzeware, maybe some jute, perhaps a rice wine or two - for which the Bengalis would compete with the Japanese traders across the aisle. We might have brought Rajshahi silk as well, but the Chinese trader at stall number 53 would have had all the customers.

Respite from the heat comes as the day becomes cool because of an overcast sky. It is very likely to rain. I am beginning to feel anxious to carry on exploring Uzbekistan, and lovely as Bukhara is, I am keen to move on now. I'm torn between going south to Termez on the Afghanistan border, with its deep links to Buddhist And Zoroastrian culture, and the syncretism that arose there. It is a major Sodgian city which also may have been the site of the city Alexander built and where he met his beloved Roxana. It is also where the great Sufi Tirmidhi is buried and where his namesake the dreaded hadith theologian was born. Or I could go north, to Tashkent and then to Andijan to the fabled Ferghana Valley and the birthplace of Babur.

Many people I know seem resistant to the idea of a rambling life like this. I wonder if they think it's difficult. But if you are hardy, not too fussy, able to be spontaneous, easy with disruptions and wiling to roll sleeves and trousers up, its a wonderful, easy life. But communication is less easy here, English is bare and my Uzbeki barely able to go beyond a greeting at the best of times. Russian is widespead but unfortunately not the particular coloniser’s tongue that I am familiar with. Languages are such important things, it makes all the difference in how much you can really become involved with a place, and I wish there was a way to jab myself with the one I need every time I go somewhere new, so that I could become instantly fluent.

When I was younger, I used to buy CDs of local music wherever I went. It was among the things I had to bring back. These days I just Shazam a lot, but something of the charm of discovering and collecting music from around the world has been lost in this conversion. 'To bring back ' I wonder what that means in the alchemy of travel. What part does that component of the experience play in the transformation of a person's spirit? I am increasingly losing the sense of there being any place I would regard as 'back' and while this can induce a measure of melancholy, a loss of the shore, of any opportunity to measure the distance run, it is also beginning to feel closer to the truth. We don't travel back to any point in our journey of life. We only move away from the point of origin, until we fall off the earth altogether.

There are many madrassas all over Uzbekistan. Most of the grandest structures in every city are madrassas - colleges essentially - and decorated so beautifully. The love of education and knowledge, presuming these were not just seminary schools (and they weren’t) is truly inspiring. Scholars from across Central Asia and the wider Muslim world once flocked to these cities for their schools and universities, giving rise to a raft of famous scientists, doctors, historians and theologians.

I watch a darling little girl get up and dance to her little heart’s delightful content in a public square, where traditional folk music is being played live, as part of the festive atmosphere that is being spun for the Gold and Jewellery Fair that the city is hosting later in the evening. Everywhere there is music and revelry, infectiously high spirited and, like in Khiva, accompanied by the easiest of smiles. People here love to dance, especially the women, and they go at it everywhere. Old, young, hijabi, even the street sweepers. Everyone gets into it, unabashedly and with great big smiles. It's the most wonderful expression of joyous abandon, scattered and shared around with everyone. A land where the women are happy and dancing is a good land.

The atmosphere also gives it the sense of a great Silk Road bazaar, with shops and stalls all along the way, wherever you walk. People are trying to sell you something everywhere, enticing you, pleading with you, and you might expect snake charmers and jugglers to appear at any moment too. It is a carnival of commerce and very thrilling. I almost wish I had something to sell too. Craftsmen work in front of their shops - woodwork, metal work, painting, embroidery, their craft preserved and passed down for a thousand years or more, right here on these very streets.

And of course there are carpets, hundreds of them.