From Khiva to Amsterdam in 5 Days

In a period of five days at the end of our Silk Road journey we have seen remarkable changes in time and space. The change is more than appearance, environment and distance.  Life style, attitude, relations with the western world are only a few of the differences we experienced

Khiva is an intriguing walled city in Uzbekistan. Because it remains unchanged in many ways, it is a good example of what life must have been like on the Silk Road. We spent two nights here, but we fell in love with its many traditional charms. This town is a living museum, deeply rooted in the past.

Sunrise on one of the many minarets.

The wall and buildings are built entirely of adobe. The modern orange pipe brings natural gas to the residents who otherwise live a traditional village life.  The protuberances on the wall are graves. These are for defense. In Islam, it is forbidden to trod on graves.  

It just so happened that a bride and groom were having a photo shoot when we climbed to the top of one of the many towers in Khiva.  Old Khiva is in the background, the couple is wearing traditional dress with a modern twist, but the photographer had up to date photo equipment.

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan is a futuristic white marble city in the desert. It has many white marble buildings, wide boulevards and practically no people. It was quite a shock after falling in love with the hustle and bustle of Khiva. This is the final stop on our tour of the Silk Road.

This is an air conditioned indoor ferris wheel. Considering that temperatures get up to 130 F, air conditioning is a must. All the buildings in Ashgabat have a similar opulent appearance. Notice the lack of families lining up to take their children on this ride.

This is one of the many styles of street lamps in Ashgabat.  Note the white marble apartment building on the left.  All the buildings are covered in white marble. No marble is from Turkmenistan - it's imported from all over the world. I was easily able to stand in the street to take this photo as there is hardly any traffic.

Our final Road Scholar dinner was here at the Palace of Happiness.  This is where couples come to get married, or to get divorced.  Both are a source of happiness.  Although the building is red in this photo, it is white marble.  The white marble city is all lit up with colored lights at night.  I caught it in red, but it changed to a multitude of other colors.

Our flight from Ashgabat to Frankfurt departed at 3:30 am.  Given how exhausted we were, landing in Frankfurt was plenty weird.  The first item on our agenda was to get a decent cup of coffee.  

After three weeks of tea bag tea, or instant coffee, this coffee shop was perfect.

We haven't seen a newspaper in three weeks.  The first New York Times we see has a front page article about the World Nomad Games which took place in Kyrgystan while we were there.  We did not attend, but we were lucky enough to watch two villages play dead goat polo with one another so we understood what the article was about more than we would have had we not been in Central Asia. 

The final stop on this leg of the journey is Amsterdam, where we will stay with Iris' lovely parents, Carolien and Fritz. The first thing I saw when I was going through the airport was a display of bulbs!  We are in bulb country.

The huge ones in front are amaryllis.

The best part of this journey from the past (Khiva) into the odd future (Ashgabat) into the present that we know (the western world), is being welcomed with open arms by our friends from the Netherlands.