Next stop on our Silk Road extravaganza: Samarkand. Yep, that’s right, the big daddy of the Silk Road cities, home of the famous Registan amongst a bunch of other pretty cool monument-y type stuff. More Silk Road-y than you can shake a stick at.

Or so you’d think. In reality, the city of Samarkand is very, very Soviet, with just a few scattered monuments (albeit large, fabulous and highly significant monuments) here and there to remind you of the glorious past. The vast majority of the old city has been destroyed over the years – partially by earthquake to be fair, but mostly due to the fact that the Soviets really didn’t like it (having been to a few parts of the old town, you can half see their point – no drainage to speak of so the old town really does stink). Hence the old winding alleys full of mosques, mangy dogs and charm have been replaced by glorious wide avenues, plenty of concrete, and a bewildering array of non functioning fountains.

Oh, and those monuments. They were amazing, particularly the interiors, although to James’ and my by now jaded eyes, they compared somewhat unfavourably to the sites in Bukhara – not for any lack of splendour, but due to their rather antiseptic nature. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, time for my regular and learned discourse on restoration – and Samarkand has had the romance restored right out of it. You can’t really blame the Soviets given that the buildings were all clearly only holding themselves up through some feat of minor miracle when the restoration work started, but the end result is magnificent, but soul-less.

Fortunately for us, we were able to locate Samarkand’s alternative soul, in the rather unexpected guise of a carpet workshop of all things. There we spent a happy couple of hours listening to the carpets being made (the sound of each strand being knotted is oddly like a harp being plucked) and listening to our guide give a heartfelt description of the tradition of hand carpet making throughout the Central Asia region. We left several hours later with a severe hankering for a truly beautiful carpet, a much greater knowledge than before of the various gradings of carpets in the world, and a strong sense of disgust at those pesky Chinese and their modern, machine made, synthetic carpets. All I need to do now is to develop a true love of overcooked fatty mutton and I’ll be good and ready to be assimilated into the Central Asian world.

Sat back in New York planning our trip, I’d sort of thought that all of the “cool” Silk Road stuff would be in Uzbekistan, with its mighty threesome of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand – some serious names to conjure with.

One of the really nice surprises of our trip thus far, then, was how much of the Silk Road we actually encountered in Turkmenistan (not that I have a particular positive bias towards Turkmenistan or anything, you understand J). And not just in the ancient ruin sense either – parts of rural Turkmenistan actually FEEL more Silk Road-y than the far more famous Uzbek sites do, particularly as you head north through vast tracts of desert (more desert-y than ever now, what with the ever diminishing Aral Sea), complete with extremely camel-y camels that wander across said desert in rather regal fashion….unless they’re being herded that is:

Camel herding meets the modern age

The ruins, also, are surprisingly fabulous. Anyone remember the Parthians, favourite baddy stars of many a Latin textbook? Well, their capital city was here. And several hundred years (and some zealous restoration) later, it’s still in surprisingly pretty good nick:

Current best reconstructed guess as to what Nissa looked like in 3rd century….BC. History’s LONG in these parts

And that’s before you get to the great granddaddy Turkmen ruin of Konye Urgench. This was once perhaps the Silk Road’s largest and most beautiful city – until Genghis Khan decimated it….then it was rebuilt and once more became perhaps the Silk Road’s largest and most beautiful city – until Timur the Great (Tamarlane to us) decimated it again and rather more thoroughly this time just to make sure it didn’t overshadow his new posterchild city, Samarkand. Yep, the most historic Silk Road city you’ve never heard of:

Konye Urgench – the minaret, all 59m of it, was built in the 1320s. You just can’t get the workmen these days

Most of all though, what really made us feel be-Silk Roaded in Turkmenistan was the amazing hospitality of the people we met here (special mention here to our driver and his wife, who put up two hairy westerners and nearly made them weep with their amazing level of kindness….well, that and the 5 kilos of food we each ate. This is NOT the part of the world to come to if you want to lose weight!!). To them and to our guide S, a heartfelt thank you for an unforgettable trip.

One of the moderately strange things about our epic journey is that, given the amount of far flung and exotic places we’re going to, we end up transit-ing areas that would usually form epic destinations in and of themselves. Perhaps the classic example here is Beijing – which I recall going to only a few years ago as the highlight of a visit to China, and which this time round we passed through, for a day or so at a time, either side of our trip to North Korea. A place to eat some tasty food, get some laundry done (surprisingly difficult – the phrase Chinese laundry evidently needs re-working) and to marvel at the modern, global big city stereotype that is Beijing nowadays.

Also to go visit the Forbidden City and Tiannamen Square and get our first go-round at the great debate on modern restoration programmes. The Forbidden City was touched up pretty zealously pre the Olympics – whilst some areas of faded grandeur remain, the majority of the larger sites have been thoroughly worked over with a good coat of paint and plenty of gold leaf. Many complain that the City has lost its romance, its air of history – but on this occasion, I’m actually on the side of the restorers. Grass growing from the rooves has its own charm, but I just can’t picture the Emperor-gods of China, or more particularly the famously bloodthirsty (and quite probably mad) Empress Cixi in this placidly tranquil environment.

Bring on the glitz and the dancing girls – but make sure to keep the oil cauldrons nice and hot whilst you do so.

One of the lighter points of relief, at least from my perspective, during our trip to North Korea, was our visit to the USS Pueblo. Most of you reading will have no idea what the USS Pueblo was or what it represents, but to the North Koreans, the capture of this US “spy ship” (“scientific research vessel” under US terminology – as ever, who really knows the truth) inside (or, again per US version, just outside – truth where art thou?) the country’s sovereign water represents the singular high point in the country’s continuing anti imperialist battle since the Korean war armistice was signed.

As an aside, the North Korean view of the Korean war is pretty simple – the American aggressors aggressed (in some manner never very clearly specified, presumably having to do with the fact that there were US troops on the ground in South Korea but who knows), the DPRK troops retaliated and ultimately conclusively won the campaign, in the only known defeat of US forces. The Korean war is a sufficiently grey and murky zone that you’ll hear quite loudly my total non-comment on this subject, other than to say that this particular telling might not be so widely recognized in the West.

You can understand, though, with that background, that the DPRK was pretty excited, after its unprecedented whipping of the US Army in the war, to then also be able to capture one of its spy ships, including all the crew bar one who tragically was killed during the boarding process; for said crew off their own bat and with no undue pressure to then author and sign a confession of their transgressions; and for America to issue a statement confirming that Pueblo had been spying, and an assurance that the U.S. would not spy on DPRK again in the future, in return for the release of the crew. (Again, just to avoid charge of bias, the US version here is that the crew members were imprisoned, starved and tortured; and that the Pueblo commander eventually signed a confession under threat of having his entire crew executed in front of him). And the whole thing does look pretty damning, really, what with the large tiers of radio equipment on board, plus the battleship grey colour of the ship – I mean what research vessel do you know that’s painted battleship grey? Although of course it wasn’t at the time of capture, that’s just a paint job put in place by the DPRK for added authenticity….

Anyway, lighter point of relief, I hear you ask somewhat quizzically? Well, yes. Despite the difficult and possibly quite tragic backdrop to the affair, the tour of the vessel was fabulous. “Here is the radio room from where the imperialist spies unlawfully gathered secret information on our country – but to no avail.” “Here is the bridge from where the cowardly imperialist captain surrendered his vessel. Acknowledging our [DPRK’s] superiority, he immediately confessed to us the number of crew people on board.” And, my personal favourite, during the video describing the whole affair, “The American imperialist was so confused [during the occasion of signing up to the agreed US confession] that he FORGOT to date the document!!”. It’s like something from a bad comedy, with a sturdy uniformed lady DPRK soldier as your charming hostess. It was all just so refreshingly, honestly, un-reconstructedly cold war. This is a country that’s still very much at active war with America, if only America would notice.

Plus you get to play with the machine gun. It’s the perfect day out for all the family.

I could have sworn I saw a capitalist just now…

I’d love to write all about my impressions of North Korea, but I’m not really sure that I saw it.

What I did see was the face that Pyongyang chooses to show to foreign visitors, and a carefully coiffed, immaculately made-up face it is too. Life for the 30% or so of North Korea’s population who are Pyongyang residents looks pretty good. The city is clean. There’s bright new shiny buildings constructed purely for the benefit of the workers and the newest even have paint all the way round (not just on the street facing half of the building). There’s funfairs, circuses, a wonderful park. And there’s lots and LOTS of stupendously large statues of the great leaders and their supporters in the great revolution. People are neatly and smartly dressed, down to the natty Dear Leaders’ pin that every single Pyongyang resident I saw wears (these are given to every individual who chooses to join the Vanguard – kind of a young communists movement – when they are about 13 and retained carefully thereafter for life.).

There are even things in the shops, although I didn’t actually see people in said shops. No time for frivolous shopping when there are so many great group activities for one to indulge in. All paid for by the State, naturally. Mass dancing events spontaneously organized by the university study groups to celebrate National Day (those students really looked like they were having FUN!). Group bowling games. Extra study courses (as sanctioned by your boss of course) where such study is expected to make you a more effective employee and therefore contribute more effectively to the State’s progress.

Life here is taken pretty seriously. We went to see numerous statues, mainly bronze and monolithic and of course very impressive, we bowed a lot. We went to see feats of civil engineering, we oooh-ed a lot. We went to see Kim Il Sung’s birthplace, we aah’ed a lot. We went to see the heavy industry museum whose highlights included a display of the different tensions of copper wire that North Korea produces, we ooh-ed some more. Cataclysmic boredom threatened more than once – this is a place where you have to work at your fun, and that includes the tourists.

As light relief, we went to see some students at the local school putting on a show. Aaah, we thought, some delightful little snotty nosed kiddies singing off-key and simpering. Oh no. North Korea doesn’t display its amateurs, these kids were in the final years of the Vanguard equivalent of stage school. Polished doesn’t even begin the describe the level of finish these kids had achieved in their acts. Perfect timing, perfect execution, perfect smiles. Nature tamed.

So was I impressed? Sure.

Did I like it?…..Hmmmmm, come back to me on that one.