Bukhara is only a couple of hours away from Samarkand on the comfortable fast train (the same one I took from Tashkent). The weather changed more quickly. The rain was coming down in sheets as we arrived. I was the last off the train, covering my rucksacks in waterproofs and hoping it wasn’t too far to the transport – the Bukhara train station is not in Bukhara at all, but in Kogon, 10 km away, known as Bukhara 1. The taxi drivers were there, touting; it is not easy to drive the price down when you are getting soaked, and they know it. (Managed to get it to half of the asking price.)

The beauty of Old Bukhara was not diminished by the rain, just different. The houses are built very close and the narrow streets all seem to connect – I found several ways to get to my hotel, though at first it looked like it was in a cul-de-sac. With a 16ct hoja’s tomb in the middle of the yard/parking area. There are many old mulberry trees around, and some truly old cars – like this Moskvich.

The space around the madrasahs and mosques, forts and palaces has been cleared and paved with marble, a far cry from the dust (or, as on my first two days, water and mud) of the past.

Most of the students’ rooms in the old madrasahs are now crafts and souvenir shops. Silks, embroidery, miniatures, tat, books, gold, silver and copper, hats, ceramics. (Some old madrasahs still use the spaces for learning, but most are now given to tourist trade, an important part of the local economy. Though people are quick to point out that (new) Bukhara is a thriving town with a variety of industries and enterprises.)

Uzbek food is quite rich – lots of meat and dairy, very tasty breads, lots of pickles and dried fruit (in winter), plenty of nuts and seeds. And ubiquitous chai. Samsa, the Uzbek pasty (beef, chicken, mutton, potato or pumpkin filling with onion and spices), is available on many a corner at lunchtime: the earthenware round ovens (tandir) are fired up in late morning and the queue forms quickly once the samsas that have been slapped onto the hot sides of the oven start being scraped off.

On a day trip out of the town (very flat landscape – after all, Bukhara was an oasis in the desert), besides the impressive mausoleums and places of pilgrimage, the Khan’s lovely summer palace with peacocks strutting in the garden, there was a ceramics workshop that has been in the same family for 300 years – they somehow even managed to carry on during the Soviet era when private enterprise was not encouraged. They still use the same techniques in making the ceramics, including powering the potters’ wheel with their foot. The family is moving with the times though – they have a language school upstairs and I met a group of students learning English. Very polite and a bit shy, but it didn’t take them long to ask if I had an Instagram…

I did enjoy the hamam. Tucked away behind the giant minaret, it has been serving women of Bukhara since the 1500s. (There is also a men’s/mixed one, from the same period.) I came at the right time – no other customers – and Mahfuza took her time to sit with me and was wonderful in explaining the role of the hamam in women’s life in the past – a club where women could discuss matters freely, where young women were prepared for marriage, pregnancy and after birth care and also where Khan’s harem candidates were spotted. I took a walk afterwards, and near the Chor Minor madrasah (The 4 brothers) a girl with her grandparents asked me (in English) where I was from, how old I was, if I liked Bukhara, did I have children… she was clearly gifted – she has only been learning English for a year…:)

These last two images: one saddened me – the camel in front of the Bukhara Fort, looking out of place, muzzled, there for us to climb on and have a photo taken. The A frame ladder didn’t make it into the photo.) The other amused me – here, too, someone threw the scooter into the canal. Getting it out was not easy – too heavy to lift with one hand, so they had to go fetch a rope…)