Silk Route Scouting Report – Samarqand, Uzbekistan

We travel not for trafficking alone

By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:

For lust of knowing what should not be known We make the Golden Journey to Samarqand

James Elroy Fletcher 1913

I have arrived in Samarqand and, though it has been wet and windy and certainly not conducive to being a tourist, I am now thinking that when the tour arrives here in September the original plan for one rest day will not suffice and a change in the schedule is needed.

No other place generates the same aura and images of Silk Route than Samarqand and now that I have been here I would say justifiably so.

So, dear participants, pump up your tires and get in shape because the original plan of three days from Bukhara to Samarqand will be reduced to two. Thus you will be able to enjoy this wondrous place for an additional day.