Day 47
In the back of the Truck: Yvonne
Brenda is travelling in the front of the truck today and navigated the way to Khiva. After a few stops to confirm our route Khiva comes into sight. Brenda askes a local man where the hotel is, and all of a sudden his little son (about 3yrs old) is in the cab of the truck with her. The man is darts off on his scooter to show the way to the hotel. It is a two minute drive and everyone in the back is amazed at the event. As the day progresses and we our sight-seeing we realise that it is just the hospitality that the locals are showing. They would bend over backwards to help in any way they could.
In the front of the Truck: Brenda
I volunteered to be in the front of the truck to navigate for the day. The trick is trying to stay awake for the whole day. Will showed me the map and where we had to go and we set off for the main road, not like main roads at home these were tarmacked about 20 years ago and ore like a testing ground for tanks, but with “Galway Girl” (Will’s choice) blaring in the cab I figure it’s not going to be hard to stay awake.
 So after a few stops and jumping down to confirm we were on the right road we set off. When we hit Ugench, the main town on the way, I jumped out and ran around the corner to ask for directions and the person looked so confused, a European girl in shorts and a tshirt with a mp asking for directions to Khiva wih no mode of transport. I quickly showed them the truck and the pointed us on the right road.
When we got into Khiva we were driving around the walls looking for somewhere to park and a guy with his young son drives up on a scooter and puts the kid in the cab with me and directed us into the walls near the hotel. The poor child looked so confused he didn’t know what was happening but was happy enough once he could see his dad out the window. Once we were parked up I helped him down and he went back to his dad.
Yvonne

Khiva is a UNESCO heritage site so it is preserved as it has been for the last 100 years or more. It is all built in sand bricks or with a sand mix, wood and straw with blue/green tiles used to decorate every building. It is like stepping into the Disney movie Aladdin.

We catch our first glimpse of the Olympics today during lunch. Some of the swimming heats are shown so we are delighted. The food here is good, lots of kebabs and stew-like food which is lovely.
The rest of the day is spent sight-seeing in the many museums and skyping home.

Day 48
Yvonne
We spend the morning hoping between the museums again and trying to keep out of the heat as much as possible. For lunch we decide to find the food market and see what we can buy from the stalls. We immediately hit the nut stall in search of the lovely sugared peanuts we had a breakfast today. The market is bustling with locals buying everything from nuts and spices, fruit and veg to clothes and material. It is great to see what life is like here on a normal day.
We end up eating at a little restaurant off the market as they have little hot food on sale. We become the main attraction in the restaurant with all the local men trying to talk to us in a mix of English, French and Russian.
The evening is a leisurely stroll through the city again and Brenda buys a traditional dress, which is very cool! That’s Hallowe’en sorted for the next few years.
Day 49
In the back of the truck: Yvonne
Today is a long drive day. We leave Khiva and make our way towards Bukhara. The roads are atrocious and we are all get a bit shaken about in the back of the truck. Most of us spent the time between sleeping and trying to read our books. The road does improve after lunch though so we make our target and bush camp close to Bukhara the desert.
In the front of the truck: Brenda
It was back on the road today to Bukhara, I was still navigating we head for the main road out of town and on to a really bad road with loads of creators and every car and truck was doing their best to pick out the best of the road which was any part of the road possible, there were obviously no road markings. The most annoying thing about it was there was a concrete road beside it with mounds of clay on it in intervals so it could not be used, gurr. It was like the never ending road from hell with nowhere to stop for hours and hours, we ended up having lunch at 3 in the afternoon when we finally got to the end of the road and turned on to a much better one.
After lunch we headed on hoping to get much further than the estimated 60km we had travelled earlier. We figured out where we were and at around 7 we started looking for somewhere to camp for the night. It wasn’t easy in a big flat dry desert, but eventually we found a small hill to camp behind and set up for the night.
Yvonne
After dinner one of the girls is heading to her tent when we all hear her scream. She has seen a big spider. It gives us all the heeby-geebies and we are all a little on edge for the rest of the night. Thankfully we don’t actually see any.

Day 50
Yvonne
We are up bright and early today to make the most of our day in Bukhara. Brenda is in the front to finish off the drive. We arrive just after 8 and take the hotel by surprise. They are very good though and have our rooms ready in a flash. We then head out for a bite to eat and a stroll through the city. The main attraction, the Arc, is closed for reconstruction as part of the walls collapsed recently. We are all disappointed but there is plenty more to see. It is a bit like Khiva but on a bigger scale with modern buildings and streets in between the older buildings.

We come across a carpet market with carpets the size of the building fronts. They are huge!
A siesta is called for in the afternoon as we were all up before 6 this morning. We get to see a bit of the Olympics at this time too.
We get up and head for dinner someone suggested pizza, but it was closed so we had dinner by the mosque. Then another wander around the street stalls before bed.
Day 51
Brenda
We left Bukhara early the next day to head for Samarkand the main city in Uzbekistan. It was only a few hours’ drive and we had lunch in a big restaurant that looked like it was set up for a wedding, the food was good. We got into Samarkand and headed for the hotel it was very nice. We had to wait a while Karen sorted out the rooms and then we drove to where we were going to park. There was a man doing some roadworks and he went a bit crazy because we were going to destroy his newly fixed road so we had to park around the corner.
 We eventually got sorted, we were staying between two hotels around the corner from eachother one had a pool and wifi that wasn’t working. We put our things away and headed to the pool to cool off. It was a nice pool about 10 meters long and it was refreshingly cool. We sat about chatting by the pool and talked about getting dinner. We went across the road for dinner to a kabab restaurant, they did kababs, salad and drinks and that was it. We looked up the Lonely Planet guide (the bible) to see if there were any nice places to go out and found a blues bar so we headed there next.
It was a nice small bar with blue neon lights and a big double base attached to the ceiling.

 It was playing dvd’s of famous blues people including B B King. We met some more Mongol Rally people at the bar and also some Australians who were traveling in the area. It was a great night with lots of music including one of the Australians playing the piano and the guitar. Then back to the truck for some more music before bed.

Day 52
Brenda
We got up late and headed out to see the sights after some breakfast in the Italian restaurant. We wandered for a bit doing a few bits and pieces before going to the main sights at the registran. We got a bit lost there and ended up getting a taxi there. The registran is made up on three buildings two were part of a university and one was a market building. They were all tiled quite similar to the buildings in Khiva and Bukhara. It was incredible the detail that was involved in making them. They are in an earthquake area and apparently needed constant repairs because of the tremors. We also saw the mausoleum of one of the queens. The story goes that she commissioned one of the registran buildings and he architect fell in love with her and would only take a kiss as his fee so it was eventually agreed and the kiss left a stain on her cheek so she said that from then on every woman should wear a veil so as not to distract and tempt men other that their husbands.

After the mausoleum  we went to a mosque which was beautiful and then headed back to the hotel as it was getting dark. We got back had some food then headed for bed as we were up early to head for the boarded and we were unsure which ones were open to foreigners.
Day 53
Brenda
We were up and gone early and were refused at the first boarder outside Samarkand and had to head north and try and find another one open to foreigners. On the way we stopped for lunch by the side of the road and had some cold lamb which was expensive then we headed further north. We got to the border crossing at around 5 but were refused again and sent to another 45km away. We decided to bush camp for the night. We found a field that looked like it was used for irrigation purposes and camped there with our old friends the mozzies out in full force.
We quickly set up camp and cooked dinner and took cover in our tents ealy in the night. Yvonnre and I decided to watch a movie as we were not tired and stuck on the laptop and watched Empire Records. We had a good laugh to it and then went to sleep

Day 54

Brenda

We were up early again and headed for the third border crossing with our fingers crossed. We arrived at around 8 and they let us through the gates so it was looking good, we had to fill out yet another customs form and get our big bags scanned through and then back on the bus to go to the Tajikistan side, we got stamped in one at a time and then on to customs where we sat around waiting for about an hour and a half. We eventually got out and changed some money and headed on our way.
We stopped for lunch at a hut on the side of the road for lunch which had Cornettos. We all ordered out food but ours was delayed because he forgot our order. From there we carried on to the  Shakhristan Pass which was incredible with its amazing views and sheer drops at the side of the roads, we saw some nasty crumpled up trucks on the slopes were people had crashed. I don’t think many survive those crashes.

 It was getting dark as we got to the end of the pass and we found a spot in a quarry to stay for the night. We slept on the room with the sky just full of stars. Amazing

Now on to Dushambe and the Pamir Highway fingers crossed :)

We should update in about 2 weeks keep an eye on facebook.