Ah, Tashkent. You dusty, smelly, beauty. You wizened old crone, at the heart of the old Silk Road. Tashkent is a peculiar meeting place between old, historical city, and recent Soviet metropolis. And despite what the guidebooks might have you believe, it has more than a small amount of charm. Mosques and medrassas might provide the colour and art. However, a genuinely efficient tube network, and an easy-to-follow road network make it an easy place to navi...

A brief note to say that we may be out of internet contact in Turkmenistan until 12th June. We will be back in blighty for just two nights in June and in Oxford all day on 14th June. If you are free, please do come and see us for a BBQ and a catch up! We'll be at Laura's mum's at Bartlemas House. No mobiles but the landline is 01865 250690 and the postcode is OX4 2AJ. The house is up the unmarked lane between the big oak tree where the brick house is and Bartlema...

Nukus Art Museum really lived up to its name. The adjoining ferris wheel was only marginally less exciting.

I can confirm, categorically, that Nukus is the least interesting place we have visited so far. The 'newly renovated' Hotel Nukus leaves so much to be desired that it has set a new benchmark. You might ask why we have come here and we have been asking ourselves the same question. The hugely promising Nukus Art Museum promises to waste literally minutes of our time with its doubtless impressive collection of things we have already seen, poorly displayed and dimly ...

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...