Khiva - Uzbekistan

Khiva! Kim thought we arrived into faked world. Something designed and built for tourists. We crossed the West gate of the fortified city and walked to Meros Guest house. The whole city inside the walls is a frozen city in time. Frozen architecture at its best! Old origin since the 8^th century, it remained a minor outpost until its reconstruction at the end of the 18^th century. It was one of the horrible slave market of Central Asia.

Some of its 60 000 local people still live within the walls and most of them live immediately outside. We are happy to be among the few tourists (mostly European) wandering around here although the season has started yet.

We are progressively travelling from the outer posts Khiva, then to Bukhara and finally to Samarkand. Each city grows in intensity and quality of architecture and presence of history and, of course, traces of the Silk Road.