Steve's Cycling Blog

‘Things’ have improved, in that trips to the loo were not required in the night, but I was still feeling pretty ropey this morning.

I had some breakfast, which for a change didn’t make me feel any worse than I did, and then a chat with Luke about going to the hospital for some medical tests. It seems that’s not going to work out – there is some question as to if they’ll even do them, and then results will take 48 hours by which time we’ve not only left the town, but we’ll have left the country as well!

So – keep hoping things get better and if not we’ll try and get tests done in Mary on the next rest day when we’ll at least be in the same country for the foreseeable future (at that point).

Later in the morning I was feeling somewhat improved and based on reports of those who had been wandering yesterday afternoon decided to head out into the town and see what I could see.

In short, it’s pretty impressive – take a look at the photos below and you’ll see what I mean. The buildings are in the same style as Samarkand but all much more closely grouped together as this is a much smaller city, which gives a much stronger impression of what the city was like in its heyday.

I took in the central area buildings, and then headed out to find the smaller and more remote  which is featured on the cover of the current edition of the Central Asia Lonely Planet which has been acting as our bible (should that be Quran?) over the last couple of months – I think photoshop may have been involved in the LP version – the colours seem somewhat more saturated than in my version of the shot.

Chor Minor au natural

Back at the hotel and a group were heading out for a late lunch on a rooftop terrace which looked down on the main town square giving us some excellent views. The beetroot salad and dumplings were also rather tasty and sat better in my stomach than any meal has in the last week!

A still-functioning madrassa from the restaurant terrace

I wandered a little more but by now it was getting hot, and I was tired, so I headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and to try and get some blog posts uploaded. The nap worked, but the internet didn’t so I did lots of the former and little of the later!

Michael and I headed to the terrace restaurant across the road for some dinner which means that for the first time in a week I’ve eaten three meals in a day which is something of a miracle and while I still feel somewhat nauseous most of the time I think I’m finally on the mend – let’s hope so!

I’m glad that I’ve been able to see more of Bukhara than I managed of Samarkand as these were two of the places which I was most looking forward to visiting on this trip so to have missed out on both would have been very frustrating.

The week ahead is looking somewhat manageable, though I hope I’m back to decent health by day three as that looks like it could be pretty tough going in the heat if I’m still not well.

Karakum Crossing stage details