As the last blog ended with us dragging the sump guard and exhaust noisily through the streets of Bukhara, you can guess how our morning in Bukhara started. We woke up early to find a mechanic after having a few beers over dinner with a collection of other rally teams - We met a team from Scotland in Nukus, and we met them again in Bukhara along with three teams we had passed through the Iranian border with. After eating breakfast I asked the woman at reception if there was a mechanic nearby who could fix our car, she looked confused then said "No". I'm not saying she was lying but we were pretty confident we could find one, so we set off driving around the streets of Bukhara. After a while we decided she might actually be telling the truth, there might actually be no mechanics in the entire city. We stumbled upon a petrol station that had two large closed doors that looked like they might be hiding a mechanic or two. I got out and peered through the window of the door and saw what appeared to be a mechanic's workshop, but was lacking the important human. A friendly man approached me as I stared at the locked door in wonder, I assumed he was the mechanic and gestured that we had a problem with the car. He nodded like he knew the solution to this particular metallic problem, and whipped out his mobile to yell down the phone at someone. My assumption changed to thinking he might well be calling the mechanic to come to us. He hung up and gestured for me to follow him to his car. Having learnt yesterday how Uzbek people solve problems for tourists through magical mystery tours, I jumped in the car as he began driving away. I leant out the window and told Chris to follow us - feeling bad that he'd missed out the fun of yesterday, or so we would at least be kidnapped together.

 

I'm not too sure why I was needed in this young man's car, we had found our hotel by blind luck last night, so I am hardly the most useful navigator in the car. Luckily he didn't seem to want my help as a guide, but we did manage to swap some conversation about without speaking the same language, mainly names and where we were from/going with a strangely small car. We arrived at a fully functioning mechanic's garage, even if it was just a shed with an inspection pit dug into the concrete floor slab. They sanded down the rusted exhaust connection and set about rewelding it, the welding torch was wired expertly into the plug socket with two bare wires. The guy then set about reattaching the sump guard with bolts lying around his workshop. Once they were happy it was connected to the car the man dragged me back to his car as if we were ditching Chris with the bill, but his plan failed as Chris got out of the mechanic’s just in time to follow us back to the petrol station where we settled the bill - of which I hope he gave some to his mechanic friend.

 

Now that we had most things that should be attached to the car firmly reattached we spent the morning wondering around Buhkara. We walked through the old part of town and admired its level of old-ness, then pressed on towards Samarkand. The drive between Buhkara and Samarkand was short and sweet. We met a team on the road called "Scone to Mongolia", a team I had followed on Facebook before the rally so had recognised the car. In the run up to the rally they had held a competition where a link to a "hidden page" was hiding somewhere on their website, and whoever found it first won a plate of scones. As they hadn't removed the link from the top banner I found it within seconds and was awarded scones. I was fully expecting to be given scones and jam on the road to Samarkand but nothing materialised, which made the drive a little less sweet then previously described. With the lack of scones souring my taste for this convoy we lost them on a straight road, admittedly it was accidentally. We arrived in Samarkand early enough to do some touristy sight-seeing, so checked into a random hotel that was reasonably price and set off into town.

 

One factor in our hotel choice was the proximity to something that looked like it might be one of these "sights" the guide books talk about. We walked across the street to what turned out to be a mausoleum and paid a random woman for entrance. The inside had air conditioning which is odd, it was also tiled and had three tombs within the large structure. To avoid the taxi drivers gathering outside upon hearing of our arrival we snuck out the back exit into the non-touristy part of town. By taking some random turns down the back alleys we arrived at the roundabout next to our hotel. Like the expert sight-seers we are, we wondered in the vague direction of tall buildings which looked fancy. When we got to the fancy buildings they were in fact more sights, we paid another entrance fee to another random woman to get into the complex of three buildings. Each large building contained a court-yard surrounded by shops selling tourist tat. As we sat on the steps to one building contemplating our new tourist lifestyle a policeman approached us. He offered to let us climb one of the towers of one of the buildings if we gave him some money. Opting for the adventuring lifestyle we've become accustomed to we accepted and followed him to a small hatch at the corner of one of the buildings then climbed up an old sandstone spiral staircase. At the top of the tower was a small flat surface to crouch on and peer over the edge, feeling underwhelmed we turned round and went back down the stairs to find more sights. We walked to the next tall fancy buildings, one of which turned out to be an old mosque. Now experts at the whole entrance fee thing they like here, we went directly to the old woman at a table. There was nothing inside the mosque, just an open grass square and four walls. After a quick dinner we gave up on the tourist life and went back to the hotel.

 

The normal looking hotel we had checked into in daylight was not the hotel we arrived back at in the dark as things took a distinct turn for the weird. We took the lift to our room and found that the hallway lights only lead to our room, the maze of other corridors were in complete darkness. There was WiFi in the lobby, so Chris went back downstairs while I explored the dark corridors. When I had decided the hallways were sufficiently creepy I returned to our room fully expecting to see a ghost inside. I grabbed my phone took the lift down to the lobby to use the WiFi. The lift opened to the sound of piano playing and more dark hallways. As I headed to reception I spotted the old man manically playing the piano in a dark corner of the room. The reception was now completely deserted making the 70s styling of the hotel all the more weird. I couldn't see Chris so kept walking to explore the rest of the lobby area, I passed a "buisness centre" which looked like it hadn't been touched since the 70s and made my way to the "Muesum Bar". The Muesum bar was of course also in complete darkness. I turned round and passed "Night Bar" but resisted the welcoming lure of the dark stairwell, I found Chris sitting on the seats next to reception who agreed how weird it all was. I was busy admiring the selection of world clocks hanging above the reception proudly displaying completely wrong times when an old man wearing a t-shirt and no trousers causally wondered in from outside. There appeared to be more people staying outside the hotel than within, as the car park was filled with Italian camper-vans. We gave up on the WiFi to explore more of the hotel, the lady at reception had cheerfully told us there was an outside pool we could use when we checked in. The pool was, as is a common theme in this hotel, in complete darkness. The pool was in the centre of the hotel, allowing a good view of all the rooms without lights on. Back inside the hotel I could hear music playing, so walked down a dark corridor to find a fully stocked bar with lights on and music blaring but with no one inside. There was a level below the lobby, the stairs circled down with a huge unlit chandelier hanging above. At the bottom of the stairs was a dark open plan room stacked to the roof with chairs. Going back to our room I was fully expecting to find two young twin girls waiting in the corridor and then the lift doors to open and a wave of blood to come pouring out.

 

Before going to the lift I asked the man at reception if the border crossing was open between Samarkand and Dushanbe as I had heard rumours that it was closed. He seemed certain it was open, but then again I think he might be stuck in a time warp with the rest of the hotel and can't be sure which year he was referring to. Assuming we don't wake up in an abandoned shell of an old hotel, we will try for the border crossing tomorrow.