2017/09/12

Day 45: Samarkand

My hotel and breakfast are reminiscent of Marrokko. Everything is very nice. I meet Michel, a French guy from Toulouse, who speaks good English and we have a nice and interesting chat at breakfast. He will also drive - by train - to Bukhara the next day and stay there in an accommodation of a french friend. He offers me to ask if there is room available for me and in the afternoon I find a note on my door that a room is reserved for me. Great.

In the morning I walk to the National Bank, get a number for queuing and change money (US$ 126) and I'm a millionaire for a short time. Meanwhile, a person enters the bank, carrying money in several plastic bags - quite strange. I also find out later that most stores have automatic cash counters - well, otherwise you would spend an incredible amount of time counting money.

Next station is a SIM card store. The guys behind the counter serve 5 people at the same time and stay absolutely calm and never loose overview. So I get a SIM card, despite jostling Uzbeks, against whom I wouldn't have any chance.

Then I search - and find - a place where I can get black market gasoline and try to check with the guy there, that he's at the same place tomorrow for "refueling".

Yesterday evening, I walked through Samarkand by night and took a lot of photos, now I want to explore the city by day. First to the Registan again and paying 30,000 Som (about 5 euros) entrance - there are actually only souvenir shops inside and it is very touristy. The buildings nevertheless are very impressive.

I walk on to another Medresa and stroll through the old Jewish quarter. It still reminds me of Morocco, not so crowded, not quite as lively and the sellers far from being so intrusive.

In the early evening I relaxing on a bench. I walked about 25 km during the day. A young woman joins me on the bench with her 9-month baby and tries out her English; she is on a walk with her sister, who also has a small child. We chat a bit and if I did understand her correctly, she has to wait for her child 8 years and the name of the child is connected with this 8 years of waiting. When I want to say goodbye with the reason that I'm hungry and have to look for a restaurant, she says "no way" and invites me to dinner at her home. She insists and it finally would have been to rude to refuse that invitation. I get to know her husband, who is just leaving to attend a wedding, and also a 13-year-old nephew, who speaks English quite well, and so I enjoy a really nice evening in a family.