I got up early to drive into Bukhara while Jennifer was still in bed and, while stopped at a traffic light, had a nice conversation with a man in an alongside mashrutka. He threw some little white apples through the passenger window. I think they are hard and rather bland but the Uzbeks love them. We passed the 5-star Rangrez hotel (which Tripadvisor says is “superb”, and it is) and decided we needed some luxury after the previous night even though all the bite lumps had gone down. After checking in, we walked to the Char Minar (four minarets for a demolished madrassah) where we bought some cushion covers and t-shirts in 2018. Although the area has become touristified with stalls selling tat, the lady in the shop inside the actual building with the four minarets still hadn’t got round to getting a card machine, so we went to the Lyab-i-Hauz (“By the Pool”) to get some Uzbek soms. The Lyab-i-Hauz is the last remaining of 120 pools which served as the water supply for Bukhara until the Soviets filled them in in the 1920’s because they spread diseases. The Lyab-i Hauz survived because it is the centrepiece of a magnificent architectural ensemble, created during the 16th and 17th centuries, which has not been significantly changed since. Surrounding the pool on three sides, t consists of the Kukeldash Madrasah (1568), the largest madrasa in the city on the north side of the pool, and two religious edifices built by Nadir Divan-Beghi: a khanqah (1620, meaning a lodging house for itinerant Sufis) and a madrasa (1622), which stand on the west and east sides of the pool respectively. We went to look at the madrassah, which was locked.
In 2018, the area was rather scruffy, but in the sense of typical Central Asian charm. Now it has been horribly touristified. The pool is surrounded by restaurants, so you can barely see the beautiful buildings. The very old tree is still there but on its last legs. The statue of the Laughing Fool and his donkey (a major feature of Uzbek folklore) has disappeared to be replaced by hideous plastic life-sized camels for the tourists. The visit was very disappointing, although we had a nice meal brought by a 14-year-old waiter with 3 words of English who forgot more than he remembered.
Me after a night of scratching
Stupid plastic statue of a camel driver
The ancient tree
The madrassah at Lyab-e-Hauz