Tim wakes up at 2.30, not believing it’s this early he also checks his phone, but it really seems to be 2.30. Not a time to go and explore a city, so back to bed, after lying wide awake for half an hour, and not believing the amount of light this time of night he checks his watch again, 3.07. This can’t be right, so he checks Olga’s phone, 6.07, shit half an hour late. How is this possible, looks at his watch and phone again, both say 6.07 now. No time to think about the strange workings of the mind or technology, it is time to go and explore the city.
Today is the day to get some shots from a different perspective, so these have to be done before there are too many people about. Tim makes his way to the wall where he found a good spot to be undisturbed yesterday. The sunrise and the light are perfect and after 15 minutes it’s time to move and leave the scene.
It’s still early, so we switch places, Tim watches the children and Olga has some time for solo exploration too.
We asked to have breakfast an hour earlier, so we can go and explore before everyone is tired. Zeno is very excited about a pigeon in our bathroom.
To give Khiva a second chance we buy the ticket for all the sights in the old town, it’s 200,000 sum, some 15 euro which is the most we paid to visit anything here yet. But ok, we’ll await our judgement on the value. We start with the ark, the fortified citadel, since it’s still Ramadan feast it’s extremely busy with Uzbek groups and teenagers. There are some panels on ancient Uzbek history and a small coin museum, it’s a random collection with no explanations, not the best start of our tour.
As we make our way round all the sights we remain unimpressed, most sights are 100 year old plain brick madrassas with a random museum consisting of some photos, a random picture and some objects inside. We’re not difficult to entertain, and we’ve visited some museums and it’s safe to say that these collections end somewhere at the bottom of our favourites list.
The one place that stands out is Tash Khauli palace. This 200 year old palace built by slaves for the Emir of the region is beautifully decorated with white and blue tiles and painted wooden ceilings. The palace has two different “museums” and entrances but their content has nothing on the palace.
We break early for drinks and after two more sites for lunch in the beautiful Teahouse Mirza Boshi with large wooden pillars. Lunch is limited to salad and soup which are fine. The children go for a midday nap and Olga joins them while Tim finishes his Korean book.
When everyone is awake again we try to visit the last things on the list, but beside the wooden mosque they are all boring. We head back inside waiting for our 18.00 reservation at the Terrace restaurant for a goodbye sunset dinner. The view is very nice, the food is ok which is a good summary of Khiva, great views, and boring content.
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