Once upon a time, there was an enormous inland lake, called the Aral Sea. It was the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, supporting fishing fleets and ferries, and tempering the entire regional climate. Then, in the 1950s, some bright spark who had failed to complete his geography degree, decided to redirect the rivers feeding the lake, so that more cotton could be produced. The business case ran thus: BENEFITS: More cotton DISBENEFITS: Destruc...

After the whole Abdoujaparov revelations, which for many, including us, have overshadowed even the MPs' expense debacle, we felt we needed to take some time out to just relax and think about things. Therefore, we headed to dusty Bukhara, another city on the Silk Road, and have spent four almost sedentary days lazily exploring the mazy streets and splendid architecture, interspersed with visits to the local tea house and a healthy dose of plov (the Uzbek national...

I am sorry to break it to you like this, but I have received massive Djemolidine Abdoujaprov news from a local Samarkand taxi driver. Previously, I had thought that the Tashkent Terror, hero of the Uzbeks, and second in local historical stature only to Timberlane (the only Uzbek ever to murder over 1,000,000 people and still have statues erected in his honour) was a legendary figure for local school kids to look up to. But no. It turns out that Abdou turned hi...

Samarkand is proving to be not the most attractive city but not the most unattractive. Undoubtedly the countless Mausolea are beautiful and the Registan - the tilting, 15th-century Medressa - is breathtaking. People have been nothing but charming, interested and welcoming. But the architecture of the fairly modern city that has developed around the historic monuments is rather unexciting. Neither unpleasant nor attractive or even stylish. Very plain. We are stil...

Hello from Samarkand. Before telling you about the wonders of the jewel of the old Silk Road, though, an administrative matter.... Check out the album on this website. It's got about 50 of our photos - view them as a slideshow and you can read the anotations. Even if I say so myself, there are some right crackers on there! Ben, thank you for your help in getting these up on the site. Anyway, back to the travels. Last you heard, we were in Khorog, in south ...