Saturday, December 15, 2007

FIVE ‘STANS, IRAN and GULF STATES TOUR – OCTOBER and NOVEMBER 2007


FIVE ‘STANS, IRAN and GULF STATES TOUR – OCTOBER and NOVEMBER 2007

My mother and step-father had been posted to Iran in the early 1970's and I had worked in Saudi Arabia in the 1980's and 1990’s so I had a desire to more fully explore the countries of the region.  In the fall of 2006, I took a cruise down the west coast of Africa and on that cruise I met a couple from Poway, CA that own Advantage Travel and Tours.  They added me to their mailing list and when I received their newsletter in early 2007 I saw that they offered a tour of the Five ‘Stans and Iran in the spring and the fall of 2007.  They also offered a tour of Saudi Arabia and one of the Gulf States.  I waited until they had completed the spring trip to see if they were able to successfully tour Iran without trouble.  I called and reserved a spot on the fall tour and asked if I could follow the tour with the Gulf States Tour.  They asked me if I would like to share a room with one of their clients who I had met on the Africa cruise.  This saved me the single supplement.  They also arranged for me to join a couple from their Saudi Arabia tour to tour the Gulf States.  This journal documents my observations and thoughts on a tour of Central Asia, Iran and the Gulf States.
Map of the tour route:


Oct 17 (Wed) Depart U.S.
At 10:45AM I was picked up at my house by the same driver that had picked Judy and I up on our China flight in July.  He is Burmese and we had a great discussion about the current events in his former country.  The check-in and wait for the flight went OK.  My seat in coach was a middle aisle with the two middle seats empty.  I was not in discomfort and was able to read and sleep on the ten and one half hour flight to Frankfurt.
Oct 18 (Thu) Frankfurt
The plane arrived in Frankfurt on time at 10:30AM.  The Frankfurt terminals are under restoration and the Lounge near my gate was closed so I had to take a train to another terminal and much to my surprise I didn’t have to go through a security checkpoint like last year.  I had a three-hour layover.  The lounge was crowded and the internet was not free so after a bit to eat I took the train back to my departure terminal.
The flight to Almaty was not full; again I was in a middle aisle seat with an empty seat on my right.  Across the aisle was Dr. Jerry Ray Willis, a “good old boy”, Chiropractor, from Wytheville, Virginia, who would be my roommate for the Five Stans and Iran trip.  I vaguely remember meeting him on the African cruise the previous year.  We were the only members of the group that were not flying in a day in advance so after introducing ourselves we sat back to sleep.  The flight first landed in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and offloaded most of the passengers.  We remained on the plane and stretched out to sleep.  After we were airborne again I engaged in a conversation with the couple at the end of my row.  They were from Washington, DC and were on their way to Almaty to adopt a baby boy.  They both worked and had been married just one year and wanted to start a family right away.  Their research had convinced them that Kazakhstan had the best process for adopting a baby.  Apparently they will have several to choose from and can obtain health records and have a Doctor of their choice check out the baby before they adopt it.
We arrived just before midnight in Almaty and were met by a driver that drove us to the Hotel Otrar, Gogol 73, 050002, Almaty, in a right-hand-drive van although the streets are set up like Europe.  The driver told us a few second-hand vehicles are imported from Japan and their steering wheels are not converted.  Almost all of the other cars we saw had a left-hand drive.  There was a mix of European, Korean and Japanese cars on the road and no American cars.
Oct 19 (Fri) Almaty, Kazakstan
When we arrived at the hotel there was a note at the desk informing us that tours would start at 9AM.  I was unable to find an outlet next to bed so I had to string an extension cord across the room for my Sleep Apnea Machine.  I set the alarm on my Treo for 6:30 and fell into a deep sleep.  We started the routine where Jerry Ray showered and shaved first and then went to the hotel lobby to handwrite his journal while and showered and shaved before joining him for breakfast.
Breakfast was in a large room shaped like a yurt (the local nomad tents)  it had beautiful murals on the walls.  When Jerry Ray and I walled in Bob and Cathy recognized us and introduced us to the group.  All are seasoned travelers.
Bob and Cathy own Advantage Tours.  It is a two-person agency.  Cathy is the President, a Chinese Vietnamese who met Bob when he was stationed with the US Navy in Saigon in 1972 and then corresponded with him when she attended college in Vancouver.  They married in 1975.  Bob graduated from the Naval Academy in 1969 and spent 20 years in the US Navy specializing in Asia.  During his last tour in San Diego, Cathy started in the tour business taking tours to China when it first opened tourism.  With Bob’s travels in the military and Cathy’s knowledge of arranging tours, they formed the company to arrange travel to exotic destinations.  I met them on my Africa Holland America Cruise last year.
I recognized Ed and Gloria from last year’s Holland America cruise to Africa.  They are a couple from Tulsa, Oklahoma who took early retirement at age 50 and have been traveling for 15 years.  They spent years without a fixed home touring the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, and South America in motor homes.  She writes travel articles for RV and Travel Magazines and they have co-authored books on the Rocky Mountain passes.
“IQ” and Maggie are an Arab couple from Los Altos Hills, CA.  IG is a Jordanian who attended the University of California-Berkley in the 1960s and stayed working as an Electrical Engineer.  Eventually, he started his own company to test microchips and has recently sold it and travels extensively.  Maggie is from a south Lebanese Catholic family that immigrated to Egypt.  She was born in Egypt and came to the US when an older sister married an American who encouraged her brother to attend university in the US.  Her brother contracted cancer and her mother came to the US to help him before he died.  Maggie joined her mother and graduated from USC.  She taught French in Palos Verdes and then Arabic in the Military Language School in Monterey, California.
Mary Jane and Louise are a couple of old friends from Bethesda, MD, who travel together.  Mary Jane has a 90 year-old husband who uses a walker and not lives in Florida.  Louise is 80 and has traveled all over the world on Earth Watch projects.
At 9AM we met our guide, Shamil and started our tour of Almaty by walking across the street to Panfilov Park.  In the middle of the park is a large church constructed entirely of wood (not even a nail).  The building was very impressive and the inside very colorful.
Shamil lead us through the park which had a number of Russian monuments and statues.  We boarded a bus to drive to the Fine Arts Museum which didn’t allow photos.  After a tour of the museum, we drove to the downtown area where we stopped to take photos of the Central Blue Domed Mosque.  The next stop was the Central State Museum which displayed the history of Kazakhstan on multiple floors.  No cameras were allowed.  It was an impressive museum.
Back on the bus we drove south out of the city into the mountains for lunch.  The driver had a little trouble finding the restaurant at the winter park resort and we took some interesting drives up dirt roads and after getting directions from a local we arrived in the parking lot of a large “party hall” building with no activity around it.  Shamil directed us up to an area with a group of yurts (the name of the local nomad’s tents).  Inside one of the tents was a table set for us and we had a big lunch of salad, roasted horsemeat, boiled mutton on a bed of pasta and steamed dumplings.  Bob produced a bottle of vodka for a toast to the beginning of the trip.  Shamil gave us each a felt hat worn by the natives and we had group pictures taken in them.  Shamil gave us a little of his background.  He is from the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) and will be with us for several days.
When we returned to the bus Shamil briefed us on the scenery.  Our lunch overlooked the Medeu Russian Olympic Ice Skating Training Arena, and above what appeared to be a reservoir was actually a dam to prevent avalanches, rock slides and floods from descending down the Malaya Almatinka valley to the city.
We drove down to the Arena and walked up to the ice rink where couples were skating – some good some beginners.  Shamil told us that 122 world records are held at this skating rink and the stands hold 10,000 fans.  As we descended back to the bus I noticed a number of wedding parties below with White Stretched Limousines.  The couples were having their wedding photos taken with the Ice Area in the background.  From the Area we drove up to the dam which is 6,000 ft above sea level) we discovered that the Chimbulak Ski Resort behind it and more wedding parties having their pictures taken.
Back in the city we stopped at the Kazakhstan Museum of Arts which had the paintings of artists banned during the Soviet period.  I enjoyed the sculptures.  In the lobby of the museum, we listen to a boy’s choir.  From the museum, I walked up the hill to Resublika Alanghy, with its monuments and the “Monument to Independence”.  Around the monuments were the white limousines and wedding couples having their pictures taken.  Many of the couples were the same ones I saw at the rink. Shamil told us that the custom in this region (the ‘Stans) is to get married on Thursday, Friday or Saturday and have your picture taken by the monuments of the city.
Dinner was in the hotel in a room next to the large room I had breakfast in, that room had a large party including belly dancers which I observed in a hallway next to our table wanting to perform at the party.  I ate at a table with Lou and Mary Jane.  Jerry Ray sat at a table with IQ, Maggie, Bob and Cathy.  After eating the ladies left along with IQ and Maggie.  I joined Jerry Ray, Bob and Cathy and was immediately asked if I believed that Israel should be a nation recognized by the world.  It turns out that I missed a heated discussion on the Palestinian problem that they had had with IQ and Maggie.  They are very anti-Israeli, the US and the West attitude towards Palestinians.  Once I was “accepted” by Jerry Ray, Bob and Cathy as a Republican with views similar as theirs I was invited to join them across the street for a local beer.  We had a nice time getting to know each other better and we discovered that we were sitting outside a local night club where the belly dancers were practicing before going in to do their dance.
Oct 20 (Sat) Almaty—Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
We checked out of the hotel and loaded the bus with our luggage.  During that procedure, the driver broke the passenger door handle which meant that until it was repaired they had to use a screwdriver to open the door at every stop.  We were a half-hour late starting out and the traffic in the city clogged our route so it took an hour before we fully exited the city on our way to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan along the foot of the mountains that form the border between the countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
As we drive I saw fields of wheat, barley, corn, and some cabbages.  There were also a number of monuments along the road – Shamil told us those are the local leaders who are honored for protecting their areas.  He also told us about walnuts.  They are native to Kazakhstan, and were discovered by Alexander the Great when he took his warriors through Central Asia and some of the men became ill.  He sent for the local doctor and told him that he had two days to make the men well or else he would be killed.  The doctor brewed some tea from the walnut leaves, he cooked some of the shells and made broth from them, and he gave them some of the meats to eat.  The men got better, Alexander liked the taste of all and took some of the nuts back to Greece with him.  And now, Greece claims to be home of the walnut – but it really came from Kazakhstan!  Good story!
 In the open fields, I saw cows and sheep, some horses.  We passed many country cemeteries some with very fancy headstones or tombs.  Shamil told us that the early people of this area were all nomads and because they never had a real home, moving constantly and living in yurts they wanted to have a "fancy" or beautiful place for eternity.  That conflicts with the Islamic belief of very plain gravesites.  Muslims believe that only fresh-clay bricks should be used so that over a period of time the marker will fade into the ground, just as their bodies will.  But many Muslims today also build the elaborate baked-brick edifices for their tombs.
At one point where a monument and a cemetery were together we stopped for a photo op.  As the photographers took photos, a man walked from a nearby house and talked to Shamil – telling him that he was the 7th generation from the hero on the horse monument.
The road did have a form of “truck stops” and we stopped at a restaurant complex for a bathroom and snacks stop.
We arrived at the border crossing, at a small town called Korday.  I walked to the Kazakh immigration window and got stamped out of the country and then walked across the bridge on the River Shue, which divides the countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan at this point.
 Shamil took all our passports and entered the Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Republic) immigration room.  Just as we'd arrived at the border the sun had come out and it was quite warm.  So I enjoyed waiting for him and watching the people who'd been to Bishkek for the day to shop and carrying their goods back to the more-expensive Almaty side of the border.
Once we were all in Kyrgyzstan we stopped for some snacks as the day had gone past lunchtime, and then while driving into Bishkek Shamil gave us some information about his country.
Some 90% of the country is mountains.  The highest point is Mount Victory which is 7,439 meters.  There are two other over-seven thousand meters high.  Five million people live in the small country, which is one-third as many as what is in Kazakhstan.  The country occupies the central part of Central Asia.   Kyrgyzstan has a minimum wage, too – but it is $150/month.  Quite a difference and it shows in the prices for goods, especially food.  Gold mining is a major income for the country, but they have no oil.  They buy fibers from China and make textiles, and several service companies do repair work.
The early-day nomads lived in the mountains and the valleys and today 80% of the people live in two valleys of the country (the Shu River Valley and the Naryn River Valley, on the other side of the Fergana mountain range).  Many of them are in the Lake Issyk-Kol area. The country began from the 40 tribes of the region and they are represented in the country's flag which has 40 spokes coming from a sun.  Shamil told us to pronounce the country: kur-ges republic or kur-ges- stan.
Bishkek has about one million people, is the capital of the country and is 30 kms from the border.  There are 28 universities in the city, including the American University of Central Asia.
When we reached Bishkek we stopped for lunch at the Captain Nemo restaurant before checking into the hotel.  Lunch was a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, then a plate with rice, french fries and a crepe of a thin bit of lamb wrapped around cheese and mushrooms, dipped in egg and flour and fried, then tea.
First tourist stop in the city was the Ala-Too Square, where we watched the changing of the guard at the historical “checkpoint” at the former Lenin square in front of the STATE HISTORICAL MUSEUM.  Next we visited the museum.  It displayed yurts, a mummy, carpets, embroidery and open-air balbals (Turkic totem-like gravestones).  The highlight is the mural-cum-shrine to Lenin and the Revolution upstairs.  Former US president Reagan is immortalized wearing a skull, astride a missile and grinning wildly.  Nazi Germany is depicted as a rampaging bear, while Mother Russia is a beautiful woman clutching a white dove.  Few displayed had English plaques and lighting is minimal.
Next stop was a tour of the opera house.  My roommate, Jerry Ray, is an opera fan and he bought tickets for the evening’s performance.
We checked into the GOLDEN DRAGON HOTEL at about 5:30.  Our room was large, with, extra chairs, safe, ironing board and iron, big desk, big TV, coffee pot and mini bar, but even though the hotel is new and claims to be 5 stars they have no mattress on the box springs.  I slept on top of the comforter to get a little cushion.  (So it is not just the Chinese that don't know how to configure a hotel bed.  Shortly after check-in, Jerry Ray headed off to the Aida opera and I went to dinner at the Arzu Restaurant.  After dinner, I attempted to access the internet without success.  The hotel staff told me that they have not been able to configure Windows Vista to work with their LAN server.
Oct 21 (Sun) Bishkek
Jerry Ray and I have worked out a schedule where he raises first to shower, shave and get dressed.  I then take my shower while he goes down to the lobby and writes his journal.  I then join him and we have breakfast together.  The hotel breakfast included a mix of European and Asian food.
At 8:00 AM we left for the day’s tour of Lake Issy-kul, a popular resort area lined with hot springs, around 140km east of Bishkek.  The lake is 5,250 ft above sea level, measuring 105 miles long and 43 miles wide, Lake Issy-kul is the second largest alpine lake in the world after Lake.
As we headed out of the city, Shamil gave us some info about the city of Bishkek.  Nice location one-bedroom flats sell for about $30K, lesser areas sell for about $20K.  The city now has quite a number of Chinese immigrants since the China border is 300 miles to the east.
The road was rough and there were few villages along the way.   We went through some police checkpoints, made some bathroom stops at very decrepit, dirty bathroom stops and it rained all morning as we drove to the lake through the 40 km-long Chong-Kemin Valley with rocky hills on the sides.  The valley is famous locally as the birthplace of deposed president Akaev.
 We drove by a old Russian Air Force Base, with a missile mounted on a base out next to the road; Shamil told us the base is now used by the CIS, which is the association of the old Soviet republics and stands for "Commonwealth of Independent States."
 In some places along this route east, we were parallel to, or actually back into, Kazakhstan.  At one point the road crossed a river which is the dividing point between the countries.
At the little town of Tok Mak, best known for their Sunday animal bazaar (which I didn't see), we made a turn to head off the main road at this place and headed to an old settlement, the 10th-century Karakhanid ruins, but now referred to as the Burana Tower, an 11th-century monument that looks like the stump of a huge minaret.  A mound to the northwest is all that's left of the ancient citadel of Balasagun, founded by Sogdians and later, in the 11th century, the capital of the Karakhanids, which was excavated in the 1970s by Russian archaeologists.  On the other side of the citadel mound is an interesting collection of 6th- to 10th-century balbals (Turkic totem-like stone markers).
It was still a light rain and the road from the parking area was a little muddy.  We first stopped at a small museum which contained 11th- century Christian carvings, Buddhist remains, and Chinese coins, as well as info on local literary hero Haji Balasagun and his masterwork, the Kutudhu Bilik.  Next door are the foundations of several mausoleums."
Leaving the museum the rain had stopped and the group hiked to the top of the hill to look down into the excavated mausoleum openings and see a few walls.  On the way down the muddy hill, I slipped and fell on my back with my head taking a good bounce.  I did not lose consciousness but had a headache for quite a while.  My backside was covered by mud and as Jerry Ray, Bob and Shamil climbed the tower, I returned to the van and the driver helped me wash the mud off.
When we drove back to the highway toward the lake, we encountered snowflakes, floating down.   All along our drive to the lake we enjoyed seeing cows, horses and sheep, a few times up close and personal as cows or sheep crossed the road right in front of the van.  By and large the valleys we drove through were barren; we could tell there should be mountains around us but they were covered by clouds all day, and we had a stream alongside us for a while.
We drove through the Shoestring Gorge (Boomskoe ushchelie) which is 40-km long and landslide-prone, also slightly sinister.  A howling wind blew up in it most of the time, and we did have a good tailwind.  We saw a monument honoring the 1916 Soviet uprising in the valley.  We stopped for lunch at a poor restaurant along the way, where we could order what we wanted.  I ordered Russian borscht.
After lunch the snow stopped as we approach the town of Balykchy, where we had another checkpoint (looking for drugs and we had to pay an "eco-tax" to enter the Biosphere area around the lake).  Shamil told us that the town's name means "fisherman" and has a population of about 300,000.  A short drive later we were at the lake and the sun came out.  The lake’s name means “warm lake” which is the result of extreme depth, thermal activity, and mild salinity.  This ensures the lake never freezes and has a moderating effect on the climate, plus abundant rainfall which makes it something of an oasis through the centuries.
After tsarist military officers and explorers put the lake on Russian maps, immigrants flooded in to find low-rise, laid-back, rough and ready towns.  Health spas lined it shores in Soviet days, with guests from all over the USSR, but spa tourism crashed along with the Soviet Union, only reviving in the last few years thanks to an influx of moneyed Kazakh tourists.  The lake was used by the Soviet navy to test high-precision torpedoes, far from prying Western eyes.  An entire polygon or military-research complex grew up around Koy-Sary, on the Mikhaylovka inlet near Karakol.  In 1991 Russian President Boris Yeltsin asked that it be continued but Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev shut down the whole thing, ordering it to be converted to peaceful pursuits.
We turned north of the lake to an area of ancient petroglyphs, some dating from 1500BC, and a group from 8th century BC to 1st century AD.  This was the extent of our drive east.  On the way back we stopped at a beach and a cemetery for photo ops.  We had a refueling stop and also stopped at a roadside fruit stand to purchase some fresh fruit.
It was 7:30 PM when we arrived back in the city stopping the Monarch restaurant.  The meal was the typical salad of tomatoes and cucumber in vinegar and oil, then a soup (this time cream of mushroom with clams in it) and some minced lamb on a skewer with gravy over it and some rice, then a scoop of ice cream with fruit for dessert and green tea.  I enjoyed the rice, the fruit, and tea.
We were back at the hotel about 9:30, and I headed out to an internet café to learn that the Red Sox had won the sixth game of the American League Series, over the Cleveland Indians, so a seventh game is necessary.  I was able to send out an email.
Oct 22 (Mon) Bishkek—Tashkent, Uzbekistan
I was able to sleep late and not check out until 11:00 AM.  After checkout we set out to tour Bishkek.  First stop was the Manas Square where we saw this hero's statue, with his great saber flared out behind him.  Manas is the country's national "George Washington" and revered for his writings.  He wrote about the country's history and its culture.  His advisor, a man, is remembered by a statue on his left; his wife is represented by the statue on his right.  The building behind the Manas statue is a symphony hall, and the busts placed on pedestals in the garden areas are of those who retold Manas' stories.
Next, I walked along and through Oak Park square – by the American University of Central Asia, which was opened by Hillary Clinton, while Bill was president.  Then by a building from 1953 that is used for the country's Parliament.  Then on to Victory Square – a famous landmark for the city of Bishkek.  I saw wedding parties there – of course!  The monument in the center of the square is to honor the locals who fought in the great World War (II).  The granite sculptures were built in 1983 on an old green- market site.
Lunch was at the Condor Restaurant.  It was the best meal I'd had yet.  It began with a series of salads, served family-style: carrots grated with corn and a mayo dressing, some lettuce, tomatoes, marinated meat, a chicken salad with grated cheese on top and containing green peas and corn; then a vegetable beef soup, followed by a plate of chicken stroganoff, rice, and steamed veggies.  Dessert was a fresh fruit compote and green tea for the last course – all very good.
After lunch we drove to the downtown area where we walked to the post office where many of the group bought stamps and to mail postcards.  Then we walked to the department store SAM, where we could shop for souvenirs.  It had multiple floors full of electronics, clothes and souvenir type items.  It was crowed so after exploring all the floors I sat outside to watch the people.
 Then it was time to head to the airport.  We went by an American Air Force Base, now called GANSI, in honor of one of the 9-11 New York tragedy – Gansi was a firefighter who gave his life there.  The Air Force Base shares the runway with Manas International Airport and the ramp outside the terminal had a number of KC-135s and C-17s.
Our plane was a TU-154G; we flew on Uzbekistan Airways.  It was Russian-built and not a pleasant ride since my seat was broken.  We were served a supper of a sausage, a dried-up small zucchini, a small serving of a strange-tasting cream cheese and a hard roll.  It was only a one-hour flight, and we changed time zones, going west far enough to move one hour back.  We landed at Tashkent, Uzbekistan; walked to buses that took us to the terminal, went through immigration, got our luggage then qued up to go through customs.  The lines were very long and I got in the first one I came to which was shorter than the others.  It turned out I was in the Uzbekistan citizen line but they processed me anyway so I was the first of our group to exit the terminal.
I found a young man with an “Advantage” sign and with him our Uzbekistan guide named Bahkram.  He told our group to call him “Bek”.  We found our bus in the parking lot with our driver named Urenbi (ur-en-bye) and we are to call him "Bye."  On the way into the city, Bek gave us some general information: Tashkent has a population of 3 million; it is 3000 square kilometers.  The country has 447,400 sq km and is just bigger than the country of Sweden.  The climate in the area around Tashkent is like Arizona with highs as much as 136oF and lows of about 25oF.
We drove directly to the Radisson Hotel, north of the city.
Oct 23 (Tue) Tashkent
With the one hour time change, I would have liked to have slept a little longer.  I had an excellent breakfast and started the tour at 9AM.
Tashkent is often called the most “Western-style” city in Central Asia.  Bek told us that the city prides itself on their trees and it is a crime to damage a tree.  Many people are employed keeping the city looking good.  It was the fourth largest city in the old USSR.  Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev were larger.
We went just a few blocks to our first stop, to take photos of the Amir Timur Museum which was built in 1996, then walked across the street and into a park of the same name and to see a statue of Timur.  Timur lived from 1336 to 1405 and was the grandfather of many famous Uzbek leaders.
Next we drove over to the Navoid opera and ballet hall, built from 1939-1947 with one of the first fountains in the city, placed in front of the entrance.  The center of the fountain has a sculpture of a cotton ball.  The music hall was built by Japanese people who were brought here during the time of Stalin, and then forced into working on projects such as this when they did something to displease officials.  Over 1500 of these people were eventually executed by Stalin.  The first performance was done in 1939 and is has 1410 seats; operas are offered in Uzbek, Russian and Italian.
Our next stop was the Museum of Applied Arts in an old orphanage building for Jewish children.  About 80 children were housed here.  The Uzbek man who built the house spent one year building it and five years having all the artwork done on and in it.  The building was renovated in the 1990s.  The Museum had displays of Embroidery, ceramics, and paintings
As we left the museum, driving along a street with some nice houses; Bek told us houses can go for as much as US$10 million.  There are some very well-to-do people in Tashkent.
Navoi Park was our next stop. It is the largest park in Tashkent with a huge statue honoring the founder of Uzbekistan and a leading author of Uzbeck literature.  The park also has the People’s Friendship Hall and the Wedding Palace.  Across the street is the Abul Kasai Medresse, which is now a handicrafts center.  The workers make and sell their wares on-site.  (A medresse is a medieval high school usually teaching only religious subjects.)
It was now time for lunch and we stopped at the Shumbola Restaurant.  We ordered from the menu and I had a delicious meal.
After lunch we drove to the “Old Town” section of the city and stopped at an Islamic Center where they had displayed of old Korans.  Following the Islamic Center we stopped for a photo-op at a statue honoring the survivors of the 1966 8.0 earthquake.  The USSR reported only 14 deaths but it is now known that over 2,000 people died and over 3,000 people were displaced.
We drove over the Anhar River, which separates the Old Town from the new part of the city, went by Independence Park with its eternal flame, fountain and the Senate House, by the Romanov House and to the History Museum.  It was a typical history place – not that interesting.  Across the street, we walked to a nearby subway station to see the fancy interior.  There were chandeliers and the place was immaculate.  (No photos were allowed)
At 6PM we attended the performance of the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, from the Scottish work "Lammermoor".  It was sung in Italian, set in Scotland and the storyline was: During the time of James II, the king decided that his sister Lucia should marry his rival Ravenswood to solidify the empire.  She had fallen in love with another man (not royalty) named Eduardo, then she heard that he didn't want her so she went ahead with the wedding to Ravenswood.  Eduardo showed up at the wedding and said he did want her, so she killed Ravenswood on their wedding night bed, went mad and then killed herself.  When Eduardo learned that he killed himself, too.
After the opera we had a late dinner at the Afrosiyab,a shish kaboba restaurant with a piano player that played my type of music.  I guess when he saw the age of our group he knew what to play.
I was able to stop at an Internet Café near the Hotel and was able to check my mail and the news.  The freighting news is that Bob and Cathy live on a four acre home in Poway, CA.  The last update they were able to get indicated that the fire is a mile and a half from their house.  I read in the LA Times (which I get on line) that many buildings in the Poway area have been evacuated and that the Malibu fire is burning away from Topanga Canyon so Woodland Hills is not in danger.
Jerry Ray skipped dinner because he stayed up late the last three nights reading and writing his journal (he is also a scotch lover) and I think we both are coming down with colds.
Oct 24 (Wed) TashkentPenjikent, TajikistanSamarkand, Uzbekistan
We checked out of the hotel early and started out at 7:30AM for the drive to Samarkand with a detour to Penjikent, Tajikistan on the way.  Bek gave us more info about Tashkent and Uzbekistan.  The world's 9th highest communications tower is near the city center.  It has restaurants in the central part.  The city is 460 meters elevation, flat and the greenest city in Uzbekistan.  The country is 88% Muslim.  The minimum wage is less than US$12 per month.
The road was well paved, with cotton fields just after we left the city, and later wheat, corn, non-tropical fruit trees, grapes, sunflowers.  I saw stork’s nests and few storks feeding in the grain fields.  Also saw melons and pumpkins in one area.  Other places I saw cabbages, potatoes and onions in large farms.  On a small farm I spotted several men out pulling up carrots.
There is a little friction between the governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and the highway to Samarkand passes though Kazakhstan and the border was closed so we had to take a side road that went from Sirdaryo to Guliston, then back to the main road.  (adding 40 minutes to the drive).  Along the detour there were not any rest stops so we just stopped along the road by a cotton field.  Bek told us that UZ is the oldest country in the world to raise cotton and is 7th in production.  Shortly after that cotton field we entered a desert area and passed through "The Gates of Timur," where many Uzbeks lost their lives.
About 1 PM. we reached the Tajikistan border, did more paperwork, went through immigration and customs, and then met our guide on the other side.  It took us 1 ½ hours to get through all the formalities there.  Needless to say we were really hungry by the time we arrived in Panjikent, which was only about 15 minutes from the border crossing.  Our guide Niyozkul (pronounced neu-school) had prepared lunch for us at his home which he advertizes as a “Bed and Breakfast”.  Unfortunately the toilet was under repair and we had to use an ancient out house.
Niyozkul gave us information about his country: 93% of the country is mountainous; the highest mountains are about 7,000 meters, and the lowest point in the country is about 3,000 meters.  Seven million people live in Tajikistan and 70% of them are Tajiks.  The population of Panjikent is about 40,000.  The city was considered an important crossroad of the old Silk Road, it was a favorite of Alexander the Great and impressed Ghengis Khan.  Many of the surviving attractions date from the time of the 14th-century tyrant, Tamerlane (Timur). The surrounding areas though have taken on a less flattering Central Asian sprawl.   The city has a multi racial and multi lingual population.  It was destroyed by the Arabs, and the original town's ruins were never built on, leaving an intriguing excavation site for us to visit.
After lunch of tomato salad, barley soup, potatoes and other veggies in a broth, then a tasty pilau (pilaf) of rice, squash strips and four small pieces of beef, then green tea – we went to the nearby: RUDAKI MUSEUM.  In the museum are reproduction frescoes and tools from the nearby Neolithic site of Sarazm and a copy of documents found at Mt Mug, where the Sogdians made their last stand against the Arab invaders.
We reloaded the bus and drove to the ruins of ancient Penjikent, founded in the 5th century and abandoned in the 8th century.  At its height the settlement town was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the Silk Road and a rich trading center, whose palace was decorated with ornate hunting scenes and pillars carved in the shape of dancing girls.  Since the ancient city has not been built upon since it was abandoned I can make out the faint foundations of houses, two Zoroastrian temples and the shop-lined bazaar of the main shakhristan (town center), as well as the obvious citadel to the west, but the best of the frescoes (some of them 15 meters long), sculptures, pottery and manuscripts were long ago carted off to Tashkent and St. Petersburg.  A small museum chronicles the excavations.  Surrounding the site are scattered remains of a rabad (suburb) and necropolis.
Niyozkul told us the ruins were discovered in 1932; papers were sent to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, who validated all the materials and began excavations.  In 1946 Russian archaeologists began working here, but not much has yet been done.  The wife of the discoverer is carrying on the work now, but slowly.  He pointed out the four areas of the ruins: the citadel where the king lived, the housing area (150 homes of 2-3 floors), the rabad is where they raised their crops and the necropolis, or the cemetery area.
Back on the bus we started back to the border along the way we passed by the statue of Devastich, who was the last leader of the first people of this area.
At the border we had some difficulty getting all our people quickly processed.  IQ and Jerry Ray carry a large amount of US Dollars that they plan on using to buy Iranian carpets.  At each border crossing we have to declare the amount and they are always questioned taking time.  It was after 6:30PM before we started back on the road to Samarkand.  It was about an hour drive to the PRESIDENT PALACE HOTEL in Samarkand.  There was no internet connection in the room but there were two terminals set up in one of the shops off the lobby.  I was able to send out an email.
Oct 25 (Thu) Samarkand
Samarkand is one of the major cities on the Silk Road.  The importance influenced me to provide the following detailed descriptions of the city before I record my day’s activities:
Samarkand was Central Asia's commercial, cultural and academic center in the 14th and 15th centuries and one of Central Asia's best places for a glimpse of pre-Russian Turkestan. Originally founded around 2500 years ago, nothing survives from that time period.  Surviving structures are typically 500 to 700 years old and have been declared a World Heritage site.  The impressive Registan Square has an ensemble of majestic, tiled madressahs.  Although restoration is still in progress, the exquisite mosaic decorations and architectural details are excellent.  Tourist sites include: Bibi Khanym Mosque (built by Timur's Chinese wife and once one of the Islamic world's most spectacular buildings until it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1897), Gur Emir Mausoleum (tomb of Timur and his three sons built in 1408), Silk Road Bazaar and the Shahi Zinda necropolis, reputed to be the finest example of decorative majolica tiles and the impressive astronomical observatory of Ulughbek (Tamerlane's grandson), an outstanding leader, humanist and scholar in his own right.
History – Samarkand (Marakanda to the Greeks), one of Central Asia's oldest settlements, was probably founded in the 5th century BC.  It was already the cosmopolitan, walled capital of the Sogdian empire when it was taken in 329 BC by Alexander the Great, who said, ‘Everything I have heard about Marakanda is true, except that it's more beautiful than I ever imagined.'
It was a key Silk Road city, it sat on the crossroads leading to China, India and Persia, bringing in trade and artisans.  From the 6th to the 13th century it grew into a city more populous than it is today, changing hands every couple of centuries – Western Turks, Arabs, Persian Samanids, Karakhanids, Seljuq Turks, Mongolian Karakitay and Khorezmshah have all ruled here – before being obliterated by Jenghiz Khan in 1220.
In 1370 Timur decided to make Samarkand his capital, and over the next 35 years forged a new, almost-mythical city - Central Asia's economic and cultural epicenter.  His grandson Ulugbek ruled until 1449 and made it an intellectual center as well.
When the Uzbek Shaybanids came in the 16th century and moved their capital to Bukhara, Samarkand went into decline.  For several decades in the 18th century, after a series of earthquakes, it was essentially uninhabited.  The emir of Bukhara forcibly repopulated the town toward the end of the century, but it was only truly resuscitated by the Russians, who forced its surrender in May 1868 and linked it to the Russian empire by the Trans-Caspian railway 20 years later.  Samarkand was declared capital of the new Uzbek SSR in 1924 but lost the honor to Tashkent six years later.
Orientation – A map of Samarkand's center shows the city's Russian-Asian schizophrenia.  Eastward are the tangled alleys of the old town, whose axis is pedestrian Tashkent kochasi.  Across town, shady 19th - century Russian avenues radiate westward from Mustaqillik maydoni, the administrative center of the modern city and province.
Most sights are within a couple of kilometers west and north of the Registan.  The newer downtown area is also centered around a pedestrian thoroughfare, Navoi.  A useful tourist landmark, roughly betwixt the city's two halves, is moth-balled Hotel Samarkand on the park- like boulevard called Universiteti."
A major attraction is THE REGISTAN.  It is an ensemble of majestic, tilting medressas - a near-overload of majolica, azure mosaics and vast, well-proportioned spaces – is the centerpiece of the city, and one of the most awesome single sights in Central Asia.  The Registan, which translates to ‘sandy place' in Tajik, was medieval Samarkand's commercial center and the plaza was probably a wall-to-wall bazaar.  The three grand edifices here are among the world's oldest preserved medressas, anything older having been destroyed by Jenghiz Khan.  They have taken their knocks over the years courtesy of the frequent earthquakes that buffet the region; that they are still standing is a testament to the incredible craftsmanship of their builders.  One look at the already crumbling blue dome of the recently rebuilt Bibi-Khanym Mosque nearby demonstrates clearly the inferiority of th modern methods.  The Soviets, to their credit, worked feverishly to protect and restore these beleaguered treasures, but they also took some questionable liberties, such as the capricious addition of a blue outer dome to the Tilla-Kari Medresss.
Ulugbek Medressa on the west side is the original medressa, finished in 1420 under Ulugbek (who is said to have taught mathematics here; other subjects included theology, astronomy and philosophy).  Beneath the little corner domes were lecture halls and at the rear a large mosque. About 100 students lived in the two stories of dormitory cells here.
The other buildings are rough imitations by the Shaybanid Emir Yalangtush.  The entrance portal of the Sher Dor (Lion) Medressa, opposite Ulugbek's and finished in 1636, is decorated with roaring felines that look like tigers but are meant to be lions, flouting Islamic prohibitions against the depiction of live animals.  It took 17 years to build but still hasn't held up as well as the Ulugbek Medressa, built in just three years.  In between is the Tilla-Kari (Gold-covered) Medressa, completed in 1660, with a pleasant, garden-like courtyard.  The highlight here is the mosque, intricately decorated with gold to symbolize Samarkand's wealth at the time it as built.  The mosque's delicate ceiling, oozing gold leaf, is flat but its tapered design makes it look domed from the inside.”
I woke up early to see if I can get the Red Sox game on the internet.   Two other groups are in the hotel right now: MIR's 5 ‘Stans trip and the Lost Cities group which is arranged by CCS and runs through various museums, History Channel, et al.  It turned out that the Lost Cities Group had rented the Internet terminals.  I was able to watch the first game of the World Series over the shoulder of one of the Lost Cities Group members.  Fortunately, we did not have to start until 9AM so I was able to watch the whole game.  The Red Sox won game one!
The first stop was mausoleum Timur built-in 1404 to hold his grandson and proposed heir Mohammed Sultan, who died at age 19.  Other people important in Timur's life are also buried there.  His teacher is buried in the grave marked #4.  Temur wanted to be buried at the feet of his teacher who had given him all his knowledge.  The teacher's marker is the one with the dome on it.  Temur's gravestone is a dark green jade.  Other graves are of his sons and grandsons.  And the special grandson Ulegbek is buried at the feet of Timur.
Bek pointed out to us that there are 63 ribs on the dome, which represents the age of Mohammed when he died.  The minarets here were restored in 1986.  And on the outside of the mausoleum was a large "vat" that is believed to be Timur's bath.  Another large stone nearby is believed to be his throne stone.
On either side of one of the medrassas are two columns that like beautifully decorated in blue tile smokestacks.  The one on the right side of the building is curved.  Bek told us that it was bent during the restoration by the Russians.  Embedded in one of the stair steps that had been remodeled I discovered a cap form a classic style coke bottle.  Here we were walking around century-old buildings and we get quickly brought back to the twentieth century.  I would love to know how many years that bottle cap will survive.
Next, we went to the Registan.  We saw a medrassa, which is a school, here.  We had a musical concert at one of the shops, where a man demonstrated the rubob, guitar, tambour, homra (was invented about 12 years ago by a man of the same name), another instrument that I didn't get the name of, then a chung (which is like a hammered dulcimer but has a much tinnier sound), nay or nigh (which is a flute made of bamboo and he did some of the Sounds of the Dessert on it), lapschong (Jew's harp which he made sound like a digeridoo) and a dirab (like a tambourine).
Then to a carpet shop in the Registan, then into the mausoleum part where we saw the grave of the founder of the Uzbeks, Shibaqan (aka Shayban), a grandson of Jenghiz Khan.  Next we went into a mosque-medressa that was named "covered in gold."  There Bek told us that 99% of all Uzbek Muslims are Sunnis.  In one section of the Registan we saw pictures and a model of the restoration work done.  This religious place had a lot of shops – reminded us more of a market than any religious place.  Many of the medressas' former dormitory rooms are now art and souvenir shops.  In the high season a variety of traditional shows are put on for tourist in the Sher Dor courtyard, including mock Uzbek weddings and kurash, a form of Uzbek wrestling.  There are also tacky evening sound-and-light shows put on for tour groups in the square, which can usually can be watched for free from afar.
Bek told us that Timur's other name was "Tammerlame" which means "limping leader." (He was wounded in his battles) and that Samarkand is 2750 years old.  Samarkand was chosen as the site of the base of all operations throughout Central Asia because of the pleasant climate (doesn't have extreme temperatures), is at the intersection of main routes through the area and on the main Silk Road.
Lunch was at the Besh Chino Café and Bar, a “well known” local restaurant. We were served salads, bread, noodles soup, plov (rice, yellow carrots and some meat), and green tea.
After lunch we went to the Bibi Khanym Mosque, which was built by Timur's second wife, a Chinese woman.  It was built to be a "Friday-praying" mosque, but it was never safe for use, so was closed immediately.  It has never been used, it seems.  At this place we saw a bookstand out of stone and the inside are ruins only.  From the end of the 14th century it has been used for other purposes; it has been a cotton storage facility, during the Soviet era it was a garage, one niche was used as a place to burn books.  The Mosque is northeast of the Registan, was finished shortly before Timur's death and must have been the jewel of his empire.  Once one of the Islamic world's biggest mosques (the main gate alone was 35 meters high), it pushed construction techniques to the limit.  Slowly crumbling over the years, it finally collapsed in an earthquake in 1897.
Legend says that Bibi-Khanym, Timur's Chinese wife, ordered the mosque built as a surprise while he was away.  The architect fell madly in love with her and refused to finish the job unless he could give her a kiss.  The smooch left a mark and Timur, seeing it, executed the architect and decreed that women should wear veils so as not to tempt other men.
Recent restoration, though shoddy in places (note the tiles falling off the cupolas), has reinstated the main gateway and several comes. The interior courtyard contains an enormous marble Qaran stand that lends some scale to the place.  Local lore has it that any woman who crawls under the stand will have lots of children.
Then we went to the necropolis Shah-I-Zinda where Bek took us into the side room where Abbas, a cousin of the prophet Mohammed is buried, through the "Doors of Paradise, which are open to all who are believers."  While we were there a few Muslims came in, entered another side room and did their 3:30 prayers.  It was restored in 2005 has been called an abomination by some, but this avenue of mausoleums remains Samarkand's most moving sight.  The name, which means ‘Tomb of the Living King,' refers to its original, innermost and holiest shrine - a complex of cool, quiet rooms around what is probably the grave of Qusam ibn-Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is said to have brought Islam to this area in the 7th century.
A shrine to Qusam existed here on the edge of Afrosiab long before the Mongols ransacked it in the 13th century.  Shah-i-Zinda began to assume its current form in the 14th century as Timur and later Ulugbek buried their family and favorites near the Living King.  These tombs featured the finest un-renovated glazed tile-work in Central Asia until they were controversially restored as part of the Karimov administration's drive to ‘beautify' Uzbekistan's architectural monuments.  While still stunning, the tombs have undeniably lost some of their power.
The most beautiful tomb remains the Shadi Mulk Aka Mausoleum (1372), resting place of one of Timur's wives, second on the left after the entry stairs.  The exquisite tile-work here was of such exceptional quality that it merited little restoration.  Shah-i-Zinda is an important place of pilgrimage.
Next we climbed steps to other rooms in the avenue of mausoleums.  Then we walked through the adjacent cemetery, where we saw a number of very expensive grave markers.
Our next stop was a rug factory; Ed, Gloria and I stayed in the bus while the others went in to see how the rugs are made.  The three of us have seen enough rug factories.
Our last stop was Ulubek's Observatory where we saw how he did his celestial observations and mapping of the stars.  The observatory was built in 1420 and destroyed by fanatics in 1449.  A museum at the site also gave us a good history of the area and told more about the observatory where Ulubek’s pioneering astronomic research was performed and documented in star catalogs and astronomic tables.
When we returned to the hotel the Lost Cities Group had checked out and the internet terminals had been removed.
On the way to dinner we stopped at a winery for wine tasting.  It was a great experience and we had a good dinner afterword.
Oct 26 (Fri) SamarkandBukhara
Today’s agenda is to drive from Samarkand to Bukhara along the old Silk Road.  I have either an allergy attack or a cold so I am taking pills that make me drowsy.  The rest of the group are also feeling under the weather so the van is quite as we drive through country.  Before we left the hotel I was able to see part of the Red Sox – Rockies second game of the series. 
An hour out we stopped at a village for a rest stop.  All the buildings were mud adobe type.  The land in the area was barren.  A river near by provides water for a village garden.  The outhouse was a concrete building a fair walk down the hill from the houses.  When I returned after taking my turn in the outhouse which just had a small hole in a concrete floor I found a display of locally made carpets.  There was an old woman with a weaving machine sitting outside with an extension cord strung out a window.  Her daughters were doing the selling.
Before we re-boarded the van I dug out a short wave portable radio that I had bought along specifically to listen to the games.  Unfortunately, I could not find the game on the radio but I did find a BBC station and heard “   2 to 1, and that is sport news.  I listen to the BBC for hours and they never repeated the World Series news so I spent the whole trip wondering which team won.  Very frustrating!
We drove though a number of small villages for another hour or so and stopped at the Orient Star Hotel in the city of Shakhrisabz.
The background on Shakhrisabz from Lonely Planet is:
 The city has a population of 75,000 – it is a small, un-russified town south of Samarkand, across the hills in the Kaska-Darya province.  The town is a pleasant Uzbek backwater and seems to be nothing special - until you start bumping into the ruins dotted around its backstreets, and the megalomaniac ghosts of a wholly different place materialize. 
It is Timur's hometown and one upon a time it probably put Samarkand itself in the shade.  Timur was born on 9 April 1336 into the Barlas clan of local aristocrats, at the village of Hoja Ilghar, 13 km to the south.  Ancient even then, Shakhrisabz (called Kesh at the time) was kind of a family seat.  As he rose to power, Timur gave it its present name (Tajik for ‘green town') and turned it into an extended family monument.  Most of its current attractions were built by Timur (including a tomb meant for him) or his grandson Ulugbek.
Bek gave a little more information about Uzbekistan: There are a total of 130 ethnic groups in the country; 75% of the people are Uzbek; 6% Russian; 4% Tajik, 4% Kazakhs, 11% other.  Marriages are arranged, but only with the approval of both the bride and groom.  The newly married couple lives with the groom's family.
After visits to the hotel's western-style toilets we walked to a square with a statue of Timur.  After taking a photo op of the statue which was surrounded by wedding parties lined up to have the bride and groom having their pictures taken in front of the statue.  I remarked to Bek that it seemed that the brides did not look happy and he replied that it was part of the tradition for the brides to look embarrassed with their heads down, the groom should look serious while the groomsmen and bridesmaids whoop it up.  We have observed a lot drinking by the wedding party members in all the cities.
We walked across the square to the WHITE PALACE which was the summer residence of Timur.   Timur was born here into a well-to-do family and he built this great palace, named Ak-Saray between 1380 and 1400.  It was later destroyed by the King of Bukhara in the 16th century.  The steps into the towers were 100 on each side, with one step high and one low, to accommodate Timur's lame leg.  We saw a number of wedding parties posing for photos around the statue of Timur which is on the south side of the palace.
Today there's actually little left of Ak-Saray except for bits of the gigantic, 40-meter high pishtak, covered with gorgeous, un-restored filigree-like mosaics.  Ak-Saray was probably Timur's most ambitious project, 24 years in the making, following a successful campaign in Khorezm and the ‘import' of many of its finest artisans.
We re-boarded the bus for a short ride to the Kok-Gumbaz Mosque, Dorut Tilyovat, and Khazrati- Imam Complex.  Kok-Gumbaz is a large Friday mosque that was completed by Ulugbek in 1437 in honor of his father Shah Rukh (who was Timur's son).  The name, appropriately, means ‘blue dome.'  It has been in an almost constant state of renovation for years.  The palm trees painted on the interior walls are calling cards of its original Indian and Iranian designers.
Behind Kok-Gumbaz was the original burial complex of Timur's forebears.  On the left, as you enter the complex is the Mausoleum of Sheikh Shamseddin Kulyal, spiritual tutor of Timur and his father, Amir Taragay (who might also be buried here).  The mausoleum was completed by Timur in 1374.
 On the right is the Gumbazi Seyidan (Dome of the Seyyids), which Ulugbek finished in 1438, as a mausoleum for his own descendants (although it's not clear whether any are buried in it).  A walkway leads to a mausoleum complex called Dorus-siadat or Dorussaodat (Seat of Power and Might), which Timur finished in 1392 and which may have overshadowed even the Ak-Saray Palace.  The main survivor is the tall crumbling Tomb of Jehangir, Timur's eldest and favorite son, who died at 22.  It's also the resting place for another son, Umar Sheikh (Timur's other sons are with him at Guri Amir in Samarkand).
In an alley behind the mausoleum (and within the perimeter of the long-gone Dorus- siadat) is a bunker with a wooden door leading to an underground room, the crypt of Timur.  The room, plain except for the Quranic quotations on the arches, is nearly filled by a single stone casket.  On the casket are biographical inscriptions about Timur, from which it was inferred (when the room was discovered in 1963) that this crypt was intended for him.  Inside are two unidentified corpses.  The local guide told us that the two corpses were of women, believed to have been some of his ‘unofficial' wives.
We spent some time in the shopping area and re-boarded the bus for a ride to a country restaurant for lunch.  They served us samsas (pie dough with soft potato filling, but can sometimes have meat), red beets salad, rice, and corn salad, bread, soup with potatoes, rice and broth, and a main dish of cooked potatoes and carrots.  Dessert was a small sugary cookie.
We were back on the road by 2 PM – I saw lots of desert scenes, then a gas field, storage farm and rail yards for sending off the natural gas, at sunset I saw the red ball of fire going down in the west as I watched a full moon rise in the east – at the same time!
At 6PM we arrived at the Omar Khayyam hotel in Bukhara where we had a welcome drink of local wine and some snacks:  sugar peanuts, sesame candy, and mints.  The hotel has a unique location in the picturesque old part of Bukhara city. The hotel is situated within walking distance of the cities ancient monuments.  As soon as I checked in I rushed to their single Internet terminal and read the recap of the game and finally discovered that the Red Sox won the game.  The fact that Schilling was able to do so well gave me hope the Sox will win the series.  It had been a frustrating day listening to  BBC News over and over without their repeating the score after the one partial report that I heard in the morning.
Parked in front of the hotel were three 1930 era cars, (a Bentley, a Bugatti and a LaGonda) and a European Army Truck.  The cars are taking part in the Amsterdam to Beijing Classic Car Endurance Rally 2006.  Eighty-five cars, ranging from 30- to 52-years-old, are entered at a cost of $64,000 each. They left the Palace on Dam Square in Amsterdam on July 15, 2006, the 400th anniversary of the painter Rembrandt's birth.  They follow the Silk Road trough 26 cities.  They store the cars in the winter which is why it is scheduled to take two years to arrive in Beijing just before the Olympics.
We walked down the road to the Chasmai-Mirob Restaurant.  We had a private room upstairs open on one side to afford us a fantastic view of the beautiful building and monuments of Bukhara
Oct 27 (Sat) Bukhara
Our day began with meeting our guide, Masuma (ma-su-ma), in the hotel lobby at 8:30.  I learned that the city is now about 2500 years old and has a population of 270,000; the city has always had many ethnic groups here.  We drove by the famous Ark and noticed the nice modern city park just across the main road.  As we drove through the city to our first stop I kept noticing how the tile designs and colors are the same or similar to all we've seen so far on this trip: blue flowers, swastikas, trim in yellow and white.  As we drove by a compound of poor housing, Masuma told us that is housing for Iranian refugees with their own Shiite mosque in it.
Our first stop of the day was the Ismail Sh   Mausoleum, which is the oldest monument in all of Central Asia.  At the time of its construction, Bukhara was the capital of a vast empire which included all of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, under King Bukhara.  Built for his father, Ismail and several other family descendants are buried in this place, so it's really a family mausoleum.  It was made of high-fired bricks with glaze, which is why it had held up so well.  The walls were restored in the 1930s; the doors are from 2005.  I took photos of the building reflected in the pool – shades of Angkor Wat!  The pool was full of stagnant water and I read in the guide that the city has over-200 pools that have been breeding bugs over the years so that this has been the city of plagues in the past.
Next, we walked over to the Chashma-Ayub Mausoleum-museum with a new memorial tomb just across from it.  The tomb is in the small original building behind a spring.  We walked along the street, saw the new memorial, walked to the Bolo-Hauz Mosque.  This place has a tower, a mosque left of the old complex and I went inside to get some photos.
Then we walked over to the Ark – aka The Citadel, which is a huge, impressive complex.  I went inside, into a museum, then into another courtyard which was the coronation area; the last ‘crowning' here was in 1911 when the last emir was crowned.  Then into the greeting courtyard where one enterprising salesman had set up a throne and had robes for ‘kings' or ‘queens' to wear and allow their photos to be made.  Next, I went into a museum that wound through a number of rooms and covered the history of the country and the city for several centuries and up to the present time.  In the educational museum, I saw various musical instruments and a storyboard telling us that in the 19th century Bukhara became an emirate or semi-colony of Russia.   This was a major museum of Bukhara and all of it in these various rooms of the Ark.
We rode in the bus to have lunch in the courtyard of a home owned by some Russian people.  The place is named "Corner of the Fortress."  We had low tables and our knees bumped constantly.  We had the typical salads, bread, Fanta, soup, veggie plate of carrots, potatoes, onions, and tomatoes boiled together, tea and melon dessert.
The afternoon tour began at the Kalon Minaret which is a mosque beside a minaret on the right side, a medressa on the left side, which is still used as a boy's school.  The nearby domed building is now a library for the students.  About 165 boys go to schools go here.  The mosque is all restored and is the largest mosque in Bukhara, holding about 10,000 men.
Then we went into the medressah, where Masuma told us the students have lessons in Uzbek, Arabic, Persian and some Russian.  It is still a working school and we were not allowed to go beyond the lobby area.  The students live on the top floor and classes are held on the lower floor.  The staff at this school are especially well-educated, so this is the "premier" medressah of the city.  The students have finished the first 9 years of regular school, so they are 16 when they arrive here, they stay (room and board) for four years.
Next, I walked by the Amir Kohlon mosque, through a covered bazaar named Taqi- Zargaron bazaar.  I went to the Ulugbek Medressa and saw the Abdul Aziz Khan across the way with scaffolding and a stork nest.  Then the group did some shopping and I walked to the Maliki Attar which is now a carpet museum.
Following the carpet museum, I walked to a covered bazaar, called Taqi Sarrafon, where money was traded, and which is part of the Lyabi – Hauz.  I walked by some silly camel statues, where Bob posed for some of us; then I saw the statue of Hadja Nasretdin Afandi (who is known under other names in countries like Egypt, Turkey, Palestine) but he was from Bukhara and quite a folk hero.
Jerry Ray and I had a beer while we waited to attend a folklore show in Nadir Devon Beji with have two phoenix birds and the God of Sun over the arch.  The folklore show has in addition to the music and dancing, present a collection of clothes made of traditional fabrics (silk, shanatlas, cotton) and also evening gowns with traditional gold embroidery. 
The program had some dances done by six young women in elaborate national costumes, interspersed with the 5-model fashion show and was very well done.  The music was provided by a 7-piece band, of men playing various local instruments.  Also, a young woman served as an MC and an older man was a singer – well he made noise anyway.  Approximately 170 patrons were there and we had a sufficient meal, but nothing special.
Oct 28 (Sun) Bukhara—Khiva
We were up early for a scheduled 6AM departure for the long drive across Uzbekistan to Khiva.  I was able to briefly see the start of the third world series game but there was no score when I had to leave.
The route was void of villages or rest stops as we drove across the Kyzylkum Desert.  Remaining me of my drive from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.  A couple of hours out we stopped at an abandoned complex of buildings in the desert where the ladies could be afforded some degree of privacy.   The building the woman visited had toilet paper and a bed.  Neither building had roofs.  Another hour later we did find a sort of rest stop with a bizarre outhouse down the hill.  It had a floor of boards with space between them which gave us a great view and odor associated with its function.
As we drove Bek gave us some more information about Uzbekistan: Tourism is 20 times as much this year as it was last year.  Every tourist hotel has been booked and it is hard to find busses to take the people around the country.  The residents pay 46% income tax but medical and education is free.  The pension payment is about US$100 per month.  The official unemployment rate is 15% but everyone knows it is really about 25%.
We drove along the edge of the Oxus River which forms the border at this point with Turkmenistan and at noon stopped for lunch.  Bek was talking up a great place but when we stopped there he was told that they were not serving lunch today, so we drove down the road to another place.  It was very plain with long oilcloth covered tables.  We ordered fish and headed for the outhouse which required our walking through the kitchen where they were gutting the fish.  Not a sight for squeamish customers.  We had a lot of drinks at lunch since we can't take booze into Iran.  I don't know why so many of the group people felt the urge to buy booze during the tour because we could order it with most of our meals (I generally had beer at every meal and usually someone bought a bottle of wine at dinner) but anyway having it at this meal offset the restaurant conditions.
We drove along the canal coming off the Oxus River (also known as the Ama-Darya), we crossed the river, saw a train, got our desert and sand photos saw a camel alongside the road but didn't have time enough to grab a photo, entered into irrigated land where cotton, rice, fruit, and hay are raised.  We took back roads into Xiva (in local language or Khiva in English) and arrived at the Hotel Malika Khiva just across the street from the West Gate entrance to the old city of Khiva.
I noticed an Internet Café in the building next to the hotel.  After we checked in I ran over to the Café to check the outcome of the ball game.  It was slow dial-up so I was only able to get the score and had to wait until the evening to get the recap from the hotels single terminal.  The Red Sox had won 10-5 and I whooped it up thanking the guys in the Café for letting me just log on long enough to get the score before I had to rush back to join the tour group.
Our local guide had arrived and the group assembled to for a walking tour of the ‘Ancient City.'  He told us this was the second UNESCO World Heritage site named in Central Asia.  I saw a statue of Al-Xorazmiu Hay Kalli who invented algebra and the word ‘algorithm' came from his name.  As we entered the city, we met a double wedding party coming out after doing all their photographs – it was brothers marrying at the same time, our guide told us.
We walked into Itchon Kala via the Father's Gate, now called Mother's Gate and also known as West Gate.  Then into Kuhna Ark, which was the palace of the Kahns.  Next, I saw the Kalta Minor Minaret, which is 26 meters high, multi-colored, with a medressah on it right side, green twin domes to the left and a well in the courtyard, then into the medressah of Mohammed Rakhim Khan.  Medressahs are Islamic high schools.  Inside one room of the school, I saw some photos of the last Khans.
Our next stop was the tallen minaret, Islom-Hoja which has 120 steps up it, then into the Pavilion Mahmud where I saw another well in a courtyard and people going into the mausoleum.  I learned about the man Mahmud and then went into the inner rooms ourselves, shedding our shoes.  Inside this small mausoleum is an inner room with Mahmud's tomb and the walls and ceiling are completely covered with tiles - Very ornate for this part of the world.
Then on to the complex of Islom Xoja – the first school in Khiva, with a museum of photography in the building with local and European architecture.  There were dishes, photos, a camera, and an old gramophone on display.  Next to it was a cemetery of wealthy people who wanted to be buried as close as possible to the great people.
This was followed with a visit to a Friday praying mosque Jama Masyidi Va Minoiessi – the oldest mosque in Khive and one of the oldest in Uzbekistan.  It is a sea of columns, but a restoration and only half its original size.  There once were over 500 columns, now only 220.  Our guide told us there are three types of mosques in Uzbekistan:
1.       Congregational – these are Friday praying mosques where the men go once on Friday to pray.  These mosques have domes and use the call to prayer.
2.        Neighborhood – these are small and located close to where people live or work.  They are very small and usually have no domes.
3.        Country – these are very large mosques that are only used twice a year on special religious ceremonial days of prayer.
Before dinner, we had a cocktail party in the lobby of the hotel.  Many members of the group had brought liquor with them and had bought wine at the wine tasting in Samarkand.   Since you can’t take alcohol into Iran everyone brought the liquor and wine that they had not finish to share with the whole group.  Dinner was a delicious salad, meat and potatoes and several bottles of wine that were not finished at the cocktail party.  It was the farewell dinner for Bob and Bek since Bob was not able to get a visa to enter Turkmenistan.
The room was not the best with a very thin mattress on the bed and no internet connection.
Oct 29 (Mon) Khiva—Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
I was up early to see Bob Parda off.  He was headed off to Tashkent, via Moscow on his way home to Poway, CA.  Breakfast was sparse – only bread, jam, and tea.  I headed to the internet terminal to watch the fourth game of the World Series.  At 8:30AM our local guide arrived to take the group for a second walk-around in the old city part of Khiva which I skipped to watch the game.  Just before the group returned from their tour the game ended.  I was ecstatic but I have to admit that it was not the same as when they won in 2004 and I was on the South American Cruise with my cousin from Boston (that night we were heard throughout the ship and I was hoarse the next two days).
Our bus arrived and we headed out, driving through some other small communities, one of which is named Boston, en route to the border with Turkmenistan.  Can you imagine that I drove by Boston, Uzbekistan on the day the Red Sox the World Series?
We had a very easy crossing with Bek shepherding us through on the Uzbekistan side and the driver and guide from the other side coming over to help us through to Turkmenistan side.  Olek was to be our guide for the next day, but I never caught the driver's name.
Our first stop was in the city of Dashoguz, where the driver stopped us at a corner where a man with a shopping bag full of money immediately appeared.  Turned out he was the "market (don't say ‘black market') man" selling local money.
Turkmenistan doesn't have Islamic signs.  Uzbekistan people have traditionally been agricultural and Turkmenistan people have been nomadic, so the work ethic has been different.  But now Turkmenistan is getting more industrious and has become a very rich country, with oil and gas reserves.  Gas is the number one export to Uzbekistan, Europe and Russia.  There are very few practicing Muslims in the country.  I see lots of big satellite dishes; I learned that the dishes and receivers must be purchased but the reception service is free.
Next, we stopped for lunch at the Nadira restaurant what was supposed to be the only nice restaurant in Dashoguz, the Nadira.  I had the traditional salad of cucumber and tomatoes, then lentil soup, a chopped beef grilled cutlet with fries or rice, beer, and tea.
After lunch, we headed out of the city toward the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Kunya-Urgench, where we stopped at the Mausoleum, which Olek told us that now it is not believed to be a mausoleum but used as a palace.  The reason for thinking this is that there are too many windows for a mausoleum, and the building is also the wrong style for a mausoleum.  Across the road is the greater part of the site.  The weather was not very warm and instead of walking the site we re-boarded the bus to visit the various buildings.
First in the site was the 14th-century Turabek Hanum mausoleum with beautiful blue tile ceiling in the dome (outside the building is just very ornate brown brick).  The tomb is in an area down some stairs.
Next was the Kutlug Timur minaret, which was started in the 11th century and listed as the 3rd tallest in the world.  The Kipshek Mosque in Ashgabat has the tallest and the second tallest is in Malaysia or Indonesia.  This Timur minaret (and the Timur whose statues I saw earlier in the trip – a different man with the same name), was 63 meters high and now only 59.5 meters as the top has fallen off.
I then walked over to the Sultan Tekesh mausoleum with a pointed blue tile dome (almost al the domes I have seen on the trip have been round) which is under restoration and had scaffolding around part of the dome.  This is believed to have been a Zoroastrian building because the bricks are from that time.  The Zoroastrians were pushed out by the Muslims.  The building is oriented true north-south, east-west  and the entrances are equally spaced in the building; the shape never could have been a mausoleum for that reason.  It was a palace for Horam Urgench with a famous library.  I walked by the Alow Pir building which was not described by our guide or in the UNESCO World Heritage Site literature and then up a hill to the Kyrk Moll mounds of graves.  It is a sacred place where the Kunya-Urgench inhabitants held their last stand against the Mongols.  It is also a superstitious site were women leave miniature monuments for the health of the baby and women roll down the hill in a fertility rite.  Several women were there when I arrived building miniature monuments with stones.  I waited for one to roll down the hill but they never did so I walked on to the next site.
Sultan Il Arslan mausoleum dates back to the 12th century.  It is a small building with a point roof that has flat octagon rather than round sides.  The plaque at the next site called it “The portal of an Unknown building” – 11 to 12th century.  I took some photos and then re-boarded the bus for a ride back to the town where we stopped at the Dashmetjt Mosque which is now a museum, and then walked around to see the Matkirim Ishan Mausoleum and the Nejameddin Kubra Mausoleum complex.
The town is called Kunya-Urgench which means “Old Urgench” and is south of the Uzbekistan border.  In Uzbekistan is the town of Urgench.  The area was a major city on the northern route of the Silk Road and competed with Samarkand to be the capital of the Empire.  The city was completely destroyed by Samarkand forces led by Timmerlame (Timur).
We drove to the Airport at Dashogus to board a plane to Ashgabat.  Dinner was snacks in the airport lounge.  Mary Jane and Gloria did not hold up well in the crowds as we waited to check-in.
I was assigned a middle seat on the Turkmenistan B-717 and found it occupied with a burly Russian with equally as large men on both sides.  They motioned for me to take the seat behind next to a teenage girl and across the aisle from Jerry Ray and Mary Jane.  She moved to the middle seat and I sat on the isle.  Another large man had the window seat which was reclined.  He flew the whole flight without buckling his seat belt and the flight attendants didn’t seem to care.  During their service, I noticed that Mary Jane didn’t respond to questions from the flight attendant.  She appeared to be passed out in her seat.  Approaching the Ashgabat Airport I noticed many brightly lighted buildings and boulevards and a trail of lights from the city into the hills.  The view reminded me of flying over Las Vegas without neon lights but still many large buildings with curved driveways in front that were brightly lighted.  From the air, the city appeared much more prosperous than any of the others we had visited on the tour.
When we landed Jerry Ray had to shake Mary Jane awake and she appeared very disoriented.  She had trouble identifying her bag in the overhead and Jerry Ray and I had to take turns guiding her to the terminal, gathering her luggage and getting her to the bus.  Olek had the bus stop to purchase water and ice cream snacks since we had not dinner tonight.
We checked into the PRESIDENT HOTEL which was the fanciest we have stayed at on the tour.  After getting to our room, Jerry Ray left to check out the bar and I hooked up my equipment.
Oct 30 (Tue) Ashgabat
When I arose and looked out the window the sight further confirmed the similarity to Las Vegas.  The Hotel row is on a wide divided boulevard along the south side of the city.  In back of the buildings along the boulevard is just flat barren desert land stretching to the mountains that form the border with Iran.  Many of the buildings have a large picture of the current Turkmenistan president hanging on the road facing side.
I am so impressed with the city that I think it is import to understand the background on Ashgabat.
Ashgabat was once an important stop on the Silk Road.  The name means “city of love” in the local language.  The Russians built a fortress here and it became the administrative center for the Trans-Caspian region on May 6, 1881.  An earthquake killed 170,000 people on October 6, 1948.  On October 27, 1991, the country gained its independence from the USSR.
The country has great wealth from its oil and gas enabling the government to provide free houses for all families.
We meet in the lobby to start the local tour.  Olec, our guide from the day before had been replaced by Aila (I-la) a young lady in her early 30’s.  We started out for the Nissa UNESCO World Heritage Site, along the way Aila pointed out one of Turkmenistan’s first President Niyazov’s pride project – the Walk of Health: a concrete staircase built into the side of the mountain with two trails of 8km and 37km (the string of lights I saw from the plane) for fitness walkers or joggers that meet at the Independence Park.
The Nissa site outside the city is ruins of the ancient capital of Parthian.  It is still undergoing archeological excavations and restoration in a joint effort between the Turkmenistan and Russian Governments.  From the bus stop, we climbed a long set of steps to a viewing platform.  The view covered the ruins and we could see off in the distance the new mosque, built by President Niyazov to honor his family that died in the 1948 earthquake.  This mosque was opened in 2004 and is the largest in Central Asia, holding 20,000 people.  It has minarets 91 meters high, a cupola that is 60 meters across and it has 48 windows for the 1948 earthquake.  We spent an hour walking through the ruins and then headed back to the city.
The first stop was the National Museum.  The bus driver asked Aila if it was OK to drop us off so he could get gas for the bus.  We walked up to the museum entrance at 10:30AM and found the door locked and the ticket window closed.  Aila started calling on her cell phone and finally discovered that they were close for the day (unannounced) and would not even open the door for our group.  She then tried to call the bus and have him return to take us to the next site.  To her surprise she could not get him to answer so after a bit she called her office.  They could not contact him either so the alternative was the Tour Agency used their personal car to shuttle us to the next stop.
The next stop was the Monument to the Independence of Turkmenistan; we saw the 5-headed eagle which represents the 5 provinces of the country.  We also saw fountains, the gold statue of the president and learned that the monument is called "the plunger" by the locals.  The monument looks like a plunger because it has a 118 meter high spire raising from a dome shaped building with water flowing down four troughs on the sides into a pool ring that circles the dome.  The monument has large statues of historical leaders around the platform.  Down steps into the park area were more statues and a large gold statue of former President Niyazov.
The bus was finally found and we boarded it for a 20-minute drive to the center of the city.  Along the way we passed the monument to the Ruhnama, a book written by the first President; by the Olympic Stadium which holds 35,000 people; this is where the Independence Day celebrations are held, soccer is the main sport in Turkmenistan and games are played there, especially tournaments, also foreign performers are presented there; and a number of government buildings with gold statues of the former President.  We stopped across the street from a large plaza with the World Trade Complex at one end and the President’s Office building, the Congressional Hall on one side and the Arch of Neutrality.
The Arch of Neutrality has elevators that we rode to the top to get the great views of city and a terrific photo op.  I don’t know how many gold statues there are of former President Niyazov around the city, but I saw at least six.
By now it was time for lunch and we drove to the Asuda Nusay Restaurant for a great fish and chips meal.  From the restaurant we walked to a shopping center where I walked around the huge open central market while the others either went to a Carpet Factory or to the Post Office.
Next it was back to the Hotel for some rest before dinner.  Jerry Ray invited me to join him in the bar where I taught the bartender how to make a Manhattan (shades of Botswana when I did the same thing at the Elephant Camp).
At 7PM we left for the Turkmen National House Restaurant for dinner and a folk dance show.  We had lots of starters, a soup with mutton, potatoes and broth, then plov for the main dish, tea, sesame candy, fruit – plenty of food.  The dances were interesting, one was a brides' dance where Maggie was the bride and I was the groom.  The dressed me in native jacket and a huge wooly hat.  Another dance was the story of a girl losing her bracelet and the young man who found it wouldn't return it until she agreed to marry him.
Mary Jane had decided that after her illness on the flight in she did not want to venture on to Iran.  Cathy was already scheduled to leave tonight and Mary Jane decided to join her.  Starting tomorrow we are down to seven of us to travel on to Iran.

Oct 31 (Wed) Ashgabat to Mashad, Iran
We have completed the tour of the five 'stans:
·         Kazakhstan
·         Kyrgyzstan
·         Tajikistan
·         Uzbekistan
·         Turkmenistan
and we are now in Iran for a week before I go to the gulf states.  We followed the Silk Road to a great extent visiting all the major cities except Mary, Turkmenistan.  This morning we visited the Turkmenistan National Museum - fantastic!  I have not visited such a museum outside of the US, London and Paris that was so impressive.  It is new and was donated to the country by Turkey.  As I mentioned in yesterdays email the city of Ashgabat is like Las Vegas spread out  with no traffic. 
After the museum visit we rode to the Iran border in one of the worst rides we have ever taken.  We were crammed into a van the reeked of gas fumes driven by a burly Russian.  The road through the mountains had a lot of hairpin curves and he drove as fast as he could mostly on the wrong side of the road.  I was in the front seat asking him to slow down and he would turn to me an grin and I swear he would drive faster.
We eventually arrived and had the traditional hassle going through first the exit of Turkmenistan and then the entry into Iran.  Because the US is now fingerprinting arrivals entering the US, Iran fingerprints US visitors entering their country.  So few US enter at this crossing point they did not have the forms or the fingerprinting equipment we waited several hours while they had the forms faxed to them and enough copies made for the seven in our group.
The fingerprinting was a joke - they used a black stamp pad and pressed our fingers on the pad so hard that when it was placed on the paper it was just a big blob of black ink.  But they didn't complain since they have no procedure to use our prints and it was only for retaliation.  (Our guide spend 4 hours at JFK last month entering the US).  We have a guide who has spend extensive time in the US living in Santa Monica, Seattle and New York.
The ride from the border crossing to Mashad took 4 hours, half the distance over winding mountain roads and a slower safer speed with photo stops at Kurd Adobe villages.  The second have was on a four-lane divided highway.
We checked into the Homa Hotel Mashad 2, Khayaam Boulevard, K Mashhad.  The hotel had very large rooms with wireless internet!!
Tomorrow we tour Mashad which is a major religious site for Shiite Muslims and then fly to Shiraz where we start the drive to Tehran visiting ancient ruins along the way.  We spend two nights in Shiraz and two nights in Isfahan with a visit to Qom before our one day in Tehran.
Mashad is the most important pilgrimage site in Iran. Considered Iran’s holiest city, it provides a real glimpse into the religious life of the people and some of Iran’s best shrines.
So far the Iranian officials and people have been very friendly.  At one checkpoint the police stopped us just to welcome us to the country.
Nov 1 (Thu) Mashad
Our first full day in Iran is in the city of Mashhad in the northeast area of the country.  Mashhad is the site of the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza, the largest shrine in the world for one individual.  It is located in a 185 acre complex of buildings and plaza known as Astan-e Qods-e Razavi in the center of Mashhad.  A large portion of the complex is off-limits to non-Muslims.  Mashhad has a population of about 3 million and over 12 million pilgrims visit the Shrine every year.  It is the holiest place in Iran and for Shiite Muslims.
Our guide, Ali obtained head covering for the woman in the group which a helpful passer-by fitted on the women’s heads correctly.  It took Ali a long time to get the approval for the group to enter the complex.  While we waited Iranians would approach us and asked us where we were from.  When we told them we were from the US they welcomed us to Iran and told how glad we were visiting their country.  They shook our hands, had the woman hold their babies and took pictures of us shaking their hands.  We have just spent two weeks in the five ‘stans and didn’t receive this type of notice and reception.  The one negative was one of the women was wearing a blue and white striped top and had difficulty keeping her scarf on – she received a few comments to cover-up.
Eventually we entered the complex with the men and woman passing through separate entries where we were padded down and bags searched.  Apparently several years ago a terrorist smuggled in a bomb that killed a large number of people.  The crowds were heavy, but reported nowhere near as heavy as when school is out.  A sign outside listed the things you are not supposed to take into the complex.  The pictures included the standard items, guns, knives, cell phones, cameras, plus donuts, hamburgers, and French fries.
Inside we walked through the plazas as they were laying down large rugs for the upcoming noon prayer.  After seeing the beautiful mosques and buildings we entered the museums.  The first museum was called the Museum of Carpets, but it also contained gifts presented to the Shrine from all over the world. Such as paintings, vases, models of Mecca, etc.  The next museum we visited was the Muze-ye Markazi (Main Museum) which displayed historical items, costumes, weapons, dioramas of historical periods, etc.
After the tour it was lunchtime and Ali took us to the Moein Darbary Resturant best restaurant in town (according to the guide books and the Iranian-Americans we met there) for kabob.  The friendly staff sat us at a long table with Iranian and American flags at the end.  We had a great salad, soup and excellent meat.  We arrived before the normal lunch crowd and when we left people were lined up down the block to get in.  To facilitate fast turn over the tables have a dozen heavy clear plastic table covers and to clear a table after a meal they dump the leftovers on the cover remove the dishes and bundle up the trash and walla there is a fresh table cover in seconds.
Next, it was then back to the hotel for siesta and checkout.  On our way to the airport, we stopped at the Bazar-e Reza next to the Shrine.  The bazaar has two long corridors, four blocks long containing the usual shops.
We arrived at the airport, two and one-half hours before our flight.  There is only four check-in counters which do not process a flight until 90 minutes before the flight.  We sat in chairs awaiting the flight to be listed over a counter.  When it finally was listed there was a mad dash to line-up with our bags.  Ali was at the head (he had our tickets) and we waited 30 minutes before someone started processing us.  Gloria suffered an anxiety attack and suffered throughout the flight and the next day.  She is a large woman who usually takes charge and is really disturbed having to cover her head see the treatment of women in the country.  She also had a severe case of the trots and the “bomb site” style toilets upset her.
Eventually, we processed our luggage and passed through security.  Again I had the feeling that it showed since I set off the alarm and just pointed to my knee which they padded and let me through with my camera in my pocket and my Treo on my belt.  The aircraft was a Fokker 100 which has 2-3 style seats and holds 109 passengers.  The flight left on time actually rolled down the runway on the scheduled departure time.  It was a smooth one and one half hour flight to Shiraz with a dinner of chicken and rice.
We checked into the Homa Hotel, Meshkinfam Avenue, Shiraz for two nights.  The airport is some distance to the hotel and we were not able to get to bed until after midnight.
Nov 2 (Fri) Shiraz
Shiraz is often called the city of Roses and Nightingales. It is the cradle of Persian civilization and has inspired some of the finest Persian poetry and song.  It was the capital of Iran during the Zand Dynasty (1747-1779).  It is the southernmost city we will visit in Iran.
On display in the hotel lobby was the:
TOURIST’S OATH
Thank God that I have found the opportunity to travel and visit other countries and considering the fact that everyone should play his : her role in achieving peace and friendship in the world, I undertake to travel:
Sincerely, and consider others opinion open-mindedly,
Protect environment and natural resources during my journey,
Respect all cultures and customs of people whom I come across,
Befriend whom I meet during the journey,
Protect practically and theoretically all agencies, organizations
or people having other opinions and viewpoints.

Encourage others to travel throughout the world peacefully.
We started the day at the Eram Botanical Garden which has a beautiful 19th Century Qajar Place with a reflecting pool in front.  The Place is now a School of Botany which were not able to tour.  Down the road we visited the Mausoleum of Saadi and the tomb of Shurideh, two of the countries poets.  Ali recited several poems for us.  The site also displays the ancient aqueduct in which water flowed into the city from wells in the mountain above the city.  It is still in use today.
The next stop was Mausoleum of Hafez.  The story goes that every Iranian has at least two books in their house the Quran and the Poems of Hafez.  Ali again read us some Hafez’s poems.
It was now lunchtime and Ali picked the Soofi Resturant with a salad bar and taste Lamb Kabob with rice.  The flatbread was outstanding and we were able to see the open kitchen with the oven that they used to bake the bread.
After a siesta at the hotel we toured another Garden with a large mansion that is now a military museum.  It has beautiful grounds and served as place the Shah stayed in when visiting the city.  Our next stop was at the Nazzir-El Molk Mosque down an ally in a poor section of time.  It is one of the oldest most beautifully tiled mosques we visited.  It is rarely used and the caretaker had fun showing us postcards from Chicago and other cities around the world.  It had unique tiles depicting European buildings including churches with crosses on their steeples and stain glass windows.  Something you don’t see in pure Arab designed mosques.
By now the sun had set and we drove up to the Quran Gate to the city where we walked through the structure which is supposed to bring good luck.
Dinner was at another Traditional Restaurant where I had fried shrimp and great flatbread.
Nov 3 (Sat) Shiraz to Esfahan
This morning we departed early in a rather cramped van with all-out baggage occupying the two back rows of seats for the full day trip to Esfahan.  An hour north of Shiraz we stopped at the magnificent Persepolis complex.  It is one of the outstanding ancient sites in the world with vast stairways, columns, and stone carvings.  Construction started under Darius the Great and was used for 150 years as a place that Kings from all over the world would meet.  Although ruined it still has the lower structure in fair shape since for centuries it was covered by sand and was not re-discovered until the 1930s.
A few miles up the road we stopped the site of Noqsh-e Rostam which has four tomb sites carved into the side of a rock mountain.  It is difficult to describe  the stone reliefs that decorate each tomb.  They believe the tombs contain Darius I, Artaxerxes I xerxes I and Darius II.
We continued on our way north on a four-lane divided highway past granite rock quarries and across desert areas, much like parts of California or Arizona to Passargad where we stopped at a Restaurant for lunch of a traditional stew over rice.  The stew had beef, spinach and beans.  Up the road from the Restaurant is the Tomb of Cyrus the Great – out is an open field with a Mosque near it that was built using stone from the Tomb site.
Back on the highway, we continued north across the same terrain.  We had a rest stop at a Gas Station in a small village.  Every 23 km we passed ruins of caravan-serils which were the motels of ancient times.  Twenty-three kilometers was considered the distance that caravans could travel in one day and these caravan-serils were designed to provide rooms for the travelers and there animals with a large courtyard that served as a trading place for goods.  If caravan A was traveling north with goods needed in the north and stayed at a caravan-serils where a caravan was traveling south with goods needed in the south the travelers would often trad goods and turn around and head home.  After the sunset Ali had us stop at one of the caravan-serils that is being restored to serve as a hotel.  It was fun to tour the site as the caretaker turned on lights to show us the rooms under restoration.
We eventually arrived at our hotel in Esfahan, the historical Abbasi Hotel, Amadegah Avenue, which is a 500-year-old caravan-serils but has been expanded and modernized to be the top-rated hotel in the city.  It is so large my room was a five-minute walk through two giant courtyards up a stair, down a stair and down a long hall.  No internet in the room but there was free broadband hookup in the Internet area above the lobby.
Nov 4 (Sun) Shiraz
Shiraz is located in the middle of the country and is a very beautiful sophisticated city with a look of European tree-lined streets and Persian buildings.  In the center of the city is a plaza that is second only to Tiananmen Square in size.  It differs in the large Mosques at one end and on a side, the bazaar shops that line the plaza and the grass and fountains in the center with horse-drawn carriages you can ride.  The plaza was originally built as a polo ground.  We first toured the Ali Qapu Place, reportedly the first high rise in Esfahan (six stories high).  It has impressive tile work and some unique features.  In the entry room guards were stationed in the four corners and if the turned to the corner and spoke their words would bounce off the top of the corner and could only be heard by the guard standing in the other corners and not by people in the middle of the room.  The top floor is called the music room and all the tile design is in the shape of musical instruments.
Next we visited the Imam Mosque considered one of the most beautiful mosques in the world with rich blue and yellow colors.  Every inch above the lower wall is tile.  It is offset 45 degrees from the plaza to be oriented towards Mecca.  Under the dome is a spot that allows acoustics to amplify anything spoken to be heard throughout the vast room.  During prayer one person would stand there a relay the Imam’s words so they could be heard by the crowd.
We then visited Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque across from the plaza from the Palace.  It is also offset 45 degrees.  It differs from other mosques in that it has no courtyard or minarets.  It has underground tunnels that were used by the Shahs woman to hide out and/or exit when religious visitors visited the Shah.
Next we toured the Chehel Sotun Place with a large terrace facing a long pool (unfortunately empty at the time of our visit) with 20 columns.  Gloria suffered another bout of anxiety when her head covering fell to the ground.  The culture really is getting to her.  In the Place are large paintings on the walls depicting the history of battles.  Ali pointed out to us that one of the paintings depicts to woman in a lesbian relationship contrary to the Iranian Presidents statements.
Lunch was at the Hotel Julfa with a nice cream of mushroom and lemon soup and more kababs.
After lunch we returned to the hotel.  Most stores close for siesta until 4 PM.  I checked email and then started on a search to find a yellow hi-lighter.  I had two addresses near the hotel and set out to find them.  The first was sold out and after a long walk the second one was also sold out as I returned to the hotel I saw a group of schoolgirls and figured that they would best know where to find a store that would carry hi-lighters.  They had fun attempting to understand my request and once they did they produced one from their school bag and refused to take any money for it and insisted that I take.
Earlier at the plaza we were approached by many Iranians who were very friendly and wanted to talk to us all stating they were happy to see Americans visiting their country, assuring us that they are peaceful and indicating that their President is touched in the head.
We were scheduled to eat dinner in the Hotel - I missed dinner with the group, so I ordered a cheeseburger in the Coffee Shop.  What a mistake.  They didn’t use sliced cheese and whatever they used turned into soup on the meat.  The flavor was not good and thankfully I had also ordered a salad which was very good – so I didn’t starve.  Jerry Ray joined me.
We retired by 9:30PM
Nov 5 (Mon) Esfahan
Jerry Ray and I get up early, he showers first and then goes to the lobby and writes his journal.  We are usually, the first one at breakfast and then I have time to connect to the internet before we start our tours at 8:30AM.
Today, we started by driving along the Zayandeh River seeing the beautiful bridges.  We stopped at the Shahrestan Bridge which is one of the oldest, dating back to the 12th century.  It is a footbridge now, and we walked across the bridge and took pictures with the sun behind our back.
Next, we stopped at the Khaju, the most decorated of the bridges.  It is also a footbridge with a small place in the center where the Kings would sit to watch water sports in the river.  The bridge also serves as a dam controlling the water in the river and is a popular meeting place for people to just sit, talk and view the river.  The bus met us on the other side and we were off to the Vank Cathedral, an Armenian church with beautiful paintings on the walls inside.  Unfortunately, photos are not allowed.  There is a museum attached with historical references to the Turkish Genocide of the Armenians.
Our last stop before lunch was the Manar Jomban tomb with its shaking minarets.  The tomb was built in the 14th century with the two not very tall minarets.  When someone leans or shakes one of the minarets the other minarets shake in unison.  The explanation is the sandstone used to construct them contains feldspar which dissolves over time leaving the stone flexible.
Lunch was at a Traditional Restaurant at the plaza where Ali ordered varies stews.  Some we tested, some were strange.  I liked the walnut sauce over chicken the best.
After a siesta we started out again, this time to the Jameh Mosque which is the biggest mosque in Iran.  It has four iwans around a large courtyard.  It was originally built by Seljuks in the 11th century and added to by many different religious sects so it is an example of the various architectures and designs used in mosque.  Each iwan is uniquely different and has very different styles that differ for the other mosques we have visited on this trip.
Following our tour of the mosque, we headed for the Bazar-e Bozorg for shopping.  The bazaar stretches from the mosque to the plaza and we visited many shops.
Back at the hotel four of us dined in the hotel’s Traditional Restaurant which is buffet style.  This allowed us to take a taste of items before we had to commit to a meal size plate.  The salad choices were excellent and I bulked up on it and had small portions of various eggplant dishes.
Nov 6 (Tue) Esfahan to Tehran
Today is my last full day in Iran.  We checked out of the hotel at 8:30PM in our Toyota van with all of luggage.  As a result Gloria and Ed were a little cramped and Louise and I were in the single side seats.  The traffic in the city was light since it was a religious holiday.  North of the city we entered a toll road that would lead us to Kashan, Qom and then Tehran.  The terrain was flat desert with rocky hills in the near distance.  Again it reminded me of parts of California, Nevada, Utah, etc.  Near the town of Natanz we started to see to our west artillery emplacements, with only a few 10 by 20-foot buildings to be guarded.  Ali told us that we were passing the underground nuclear power facility and when we asked why it was underground he told us with a big smile they didn’t want to disturb the beautiful desert.  Eventually we came upon a complex which was more heavily guarded but had power line towers leading north towards the cities.  The site did not look like the nuclear power complexes we have in the us with the tall stacks.  We stopped at a rest stop/gas station to buy water and take a rest break.  There was one unisex room with a dozen “bomb site” stalls with doors.  Men, woman and children were flowing in and out of the stalls but it did not appeal to our woman.
Eventually we reached the outskirts of Kashan where we exited and entered the old section of the city.  Kashan is reportedly the city that the three wise men started their trek to see Jesus. We stopped to take pictures of the remains of the city wall and an ice house.  In olden times they would creat small ponds in the freezing weather, cut the ice and store it packed in
There is a story that when the Arabs tried to capture the city in the 7th century they found the wall impregnable so the Arab General had his men gather scorpions and throw them over the wall and the inhabitants surrendered. 
The major sites to tour in the city are the traditional houses built in the 1800s by wealth merchants.  The first house we stopped to tour is supposed to be the most beautiful.  It was closed for the holiday.  Across the street we were able to tour the Khan-e Tabatabei which has beautiful intricate relief designs carved into stone.  The house was designed with a central courtyard with a reflecting (not swimming) pool and on one end was the “exterior” rooms used for entertaining; the other end had the “interior” rooms where the families (father and sons families) lived.  Below their rooms were underground rooms that were cooler in the summer.  Off to the side were the servants quarters.
Around the corner we toured the Khan-e Abbasin complex which has six buildings and numerous courtyards.  The rooms had beautiful decorations and stained glass windows.  Ali reported that all other sites worth seeing in the city were closed for the holiday, so we boarded the bus and resumed our journey north.
At 1:30PM we stopped for lunch at one of the Toll Road rest areas.  It was similar to a stop on the NJ Turnpike with a large gas station next to a building of restaurants.  The parking lot was very crowded and a uniformed man was directing traffic and cars to parking spots.
Inside there was fast food on the left and sit down on the right with a very long line waiting for tables.  The restrooms were large and clean but without western toilets.  We elected to order from the fast food side.  Over the counter were pictures of the selection, including hamburgers, fried chicken and pizza.  I ordered fried chicken and a tossed salad.  The chicken arrived with coleslaw and French fries.  It was quite good although not the same flavor as KFC.  After the meal we stopped in the Ice Cream Shop and I had two scoops of a delicious coffee ice cream.
Back on the road we by-passed Qom, a scheduled stop to visit the shrine of Fatima, after Ali received word that it was too crowded to get in.  We pressed on to the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, an impressive site which had a large enough parking lot that despite the crowds we were able to find a spot to take photos.  The gold dome over his tomb has been removed and is under restoration.  There are two other domes and four gold minarets in the complex.
We arrived at our hotel at 5:30PM.  It is the former Intercontinental Hotel, Fatemi Avenue, but was renamed after the revolution as the Laleh International Hotel.  It claims five stars but the pool is dry, the room air conditioning has been turned off.  Our room was on the sunny side of the building and was 10 to 20 degrees warmer than the hall.  We complained and they send up a big fan and even with the window wide open the room was uncomfortable.  Jerry Ray and I eat in the French Restaurant on the top floor with a view of the city lights.  I had French Onion soup and Pepper Steak which was tough.  For dessert we had a nice flam.
The Internet room had one direct hookup and I had to wait to get on before dinner, but after dinner, I got right on but there were few messages.
Nov 7 (Wed) Tehran
My last night in Iran on the Five Stans plus Iran Tour was the worst.  The warm room, noisy fan and hard mattress combined for a restless night.
Breakfast was slightly different.  They had a chef cooking omelets and I had a nice one egg cheese omelet along with a taste orange I had bought in Esfahan and had refrigerated in the room all night.
After breakfast, I was able to get on the Internet with ease although they have charged me for one hour since I arrived and I have not been hooked up for more than 20 minutes.
Our tour started at the Carpet Museum close to the hotel.  There we learned about the styles from the various areas of greater Iran and saw some unique carpets such as a double-sided carpet, one with world leaders faces and a 500-year-old carpet that had ended up in the Rockefeller family and donated to the county in the late 1960’s.
We boarded our bus and drove past the former American Embassy, with large banners on the fence with anti-American statements made by Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1979 such as:
“Today, the United States is the most hated government in the world”
“Down with the USA
And several others I was not able to get a good picture of.
Our next stop was the National Museum which was a large building containing items from Persepolis.  Followed by a stop at the Glass and Ceramics Museum housed in a beautiful residential building.  The building was built alone western style by a Persian Family and eventually was used as an embassy when the Shahs wife had the government buy it and turn it into a museum.  The building was more interesting than the objects in the museum.
Lunch was at the Luxe Talaee Restaurant where we had nice kababs.  After lunch we drove north to the Sa’d Abad Museum Complex on the slope of the Alborz Mountains.  The complex has many museums but we only visited the White Place and the Green Place.  The White Place was the Shah’s summer residence and is impressive by its more modern ornate furnishings, wall and ceiling decorations.
The Green Place is at the highest point of the complex and we had to take a bus to reach it.  It was the Shah’s father’s residence and was built on top of the former owner of the estate.  The original house was converted into the kitchen and storage rooms.
On the way back to the hotel Ali had the bus driven past the Foreign Residence Compound where I believe my mother lived in the early 1970’s.  It had many two-story homes with garages behind walls and a small shopping center with several US fast food outlets.  It is still the residence for foreigners today so I think it was the area my mother lived.
Back at the hotel the group leaving (everyone except IQ and Maggie, who are going to the Caspian Sea for a few days before flying to Vienna for a family reunion.) decided to meet for dinner in the Coffee Shop at 6PM (I have to check out by 7:30PM to leave for my flight).
We ordered items that we had had since we left the states and had a grand time recounting some of the highs and lows of the trip.  I had trout (yes, Judy the head was still on it) which was delicious with apple pie-la-mode for desert.  Lou wanted a smaller desert and ordered just ice cream and ended up with a bowel of four different flavors.  She asked if she get a doggie bag so she could take it on the flight.  We finished by 7:10 and I rushed to the room to finish packing and meet Ali in the lobby.  He drove me to the airport in his own car.  We had a lengthy discussion on cruise ship travel.  Next month he takes a group of wealthy Iranians to tour the US (NYC, LA, SF, Hawaii, etc.).  Next week he is taking his wife to Dubai.  The new Ayatollah Khomeini International Airport is 30km south of the city.  Before we could reach the expressway we had a nerve-racking drive through the city streets from the hotel.  Everyone dares one another it the intersection and refuse to let another car have a right away.
When we drove past Ayatollah Khomeini's tomb there was a strong odor that caused Ali to close his window.  He told me they raise cows in the area.  It smelled like the Omaha stockyards.  We joked about it being next to the tomb.
Ali left me at the door of the terminal because passengers have to go through a Security Check Point to get to the ticket counters.  It took an hour to get to the airport.  My flight was scheduled for 11:30PM and I arrived at 8:30PM.  The Gulf Air ticket counter was empty and one of the Iran Air agents told me not to expect it to be staffed until 9:30PM.  There were internet kiosks throughout the terminal area and I signed on and cleaned up my email and read articles about Curt Schilling resigning with the Red Sox which made me happy.  Eventually, the counter was staffed and I received my boarding pass.  Next, I had to process through Customs and Immigration which had us wait even though there was a woman on duty, for 30 minutes.  Passed her there was another security checkpoint near the gate.  It was staffed but I was told to wait until one hour before takeoff.  Eventually, I arrived at the gate and they didn’t start boarding until 11:20.  Onboard I found that the A-320 which seats 109 passengers had only a couple of dozen passengers and the flight attendants wanted us all to set near the front of the plane so they could better serve us.  The plane broke ground at 11:40PM and I skipped the meal and slept most of the way.
My instructions for Bahrain were to process through the “Fast Path” Passport Control point and by the time I got to the carousel my back was already there.  Once I exited the baggage claim I was a little apprehensive because there was no one with a sign to greet me.  I stood sort of bewildered and searched through my bag to find the paper with the name of the Guide and Tour Company to call.  Just then a distinguished-looking 50-year-old gentleman with a gray goatee appeared and inquired if I was from Advantage Tours.  His name was Abdulla, a Shiite Muslim, and partner in the Ghadeer Tour Agency.
By the time I got to my fabulous room (the best on the trip) in the Sheraton Bahrain Hotel, 6 Palace, Avenue, Manama, and crawled into bed it was 2:30AM.

Map of the Gulf States Tour



Nov 8 (Thu) Manama, Bahrain
I arose at 6AM from a sound sleep, had breakfast (the usual options except the orange juice was fresh squeezed, checked out the internet (cable in the room but you have to purchase a password), and gathered my hat and fanny pack for the day’s tour.
At 8:30AM, Abdulla was in the lobby and my companions showed up.  They are Edna from Santa Monica, and Ed from Las Vegas.  They meet several years ago traveling with the same group on several trips and after Ed’s wife died that pare off to save money.  She is approaching 200 countries and he is approaching 100 countries on this trip.  Edna’s sister lived in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980’s and she has a son-in-law that is an Indian Muslim.  As opposed to the Five Stans groups, which were all Republicans, they are Bush hatters.
Our tour started with a drive around the city viewing the new skyscrapers, the world trade center,financial harbor, Bab al-Bahrain gate, and unique wind generators (three wind turbines installed between two identical buildings).
Our first stop was at the Beit al-Quran Museum which houses a collection of Qurans, calligraphy, and manuscripts.  I saw some very unique rolls of paper with phrases from the Quran written in various ways.  One way would have the Arabic letter’s shapes contain scripts from the Quran.  I also saw words from the Quran written on seeds and rice.  The building was very nice.
Next stop was the Al-Fatih Mosque.  An impressive new building built on reclaimed land in the mid-1980s.  Young ladies with veils guided us trough the mosque with detailed explanations on the procedures of Muslim prayers and the religion.  The mosque is new with stain glass windows and shiny marble floors and a solid carpet in the prayer area, but it was in sharp contrast to the beautifully tiled and decorated mosque’s I visited in the ‘stans and Iran.  I was given literature and a free English translation of the Quran.
From the mosque we drove around Muharraq Island and returned to stop at the National Museum.  The museum is very well organized with displays translated to English.  It has different concentrations in six rooms on two floors.  I particularly liked the Arts and Crafts area where they had life-size wax models of people in native dress, making the crafts.  But, my favorite display was a fully restored 1932 Buick Sedan complete with shop manual that was the model the New Zealander drove on the island when he discovered oil for the first time in the region.
We then drove out of the city to the Qala’at al-Bahrain Fort, overlooking the north coast.  The fort was built by the Portuguese in the 16th century to guard their ships sailing the “Spice Route”.  We didn’t tour the fort, just drove around it taking pictures and then it was off to lunch at the food court of a shopping mall.  The court had a Burger King, KFC, Subway, Baskin and Robbins, Dairy Queen plus local outlets.  We choose a local outlet and I had a seafood dish with shrimp, pieces of fish and scallops on a sizzling platter.
The mall was just like a US mall and Ed went into a Radio Shack type store to get fresh batteries for his camera.  After lunch we drove past the Sakhir Grand Prix Racecar Track to the Al-Areen Wildlife Park and Reserve 35km south of the city.  The route took us past the King’s residence which is set back from the highway so we didn’t get to see much except a huge flag of Bahrain.
In the Wildlife Park there were a number of African species and one ancient turtle.  Another 30-minute drive we reached the Dar An Neft oil fields were locals set up tents for the weekend,much like a campsite in the other parts of the world.  Abdulla, told us that they bring portable generators, port-a-potties, small refrigerators and TV to these tents.  In the oil field is the original well with a museum (closed) next to it which now produces gas.  We stopped to take photos and then drove back to the hotel.
I worked on my journal and emails until 7PM then wandered around the shopping mall under the World Trade Center.  The mall connects to the hotel.  At 7:30 I met Edna and Ed and we had a buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Nov 9 (Fri) Manama to Doha, Qatar
We checked out of the hotel at 8:30AM to drive to the airport for our flight to Qatar.  This time at the first security check they wrapped our luggage with a security band.  Check-in, the passport control and second security were not the hassle I had experienced in Tehran.  I proceeded to the gate while Edna and Ed shopped for wine.
The flight to Qatar was 30 minutes and when I exited the aircraft (Qatar has NO airbridges) I was greeted with a young lady holding a sign with our names.  We were directed to the first bus and driven to the terminal where we were seated in a waiting room.  The young lady gathered our passport and a credit card and processed our visa while we read English language newspapers and had free drinks and nuts.
At the customs desk the young lady handed our passports to a supervisor and he waved us through handing us back the passport as we passed by him.  Our bags had to be screened again.  I had Edna’s suitcase on my cart and my load passed right through.  Ed’s was singled out to be searched and I exited the arrival hall and was met by another young lady who directed me to the tour agencies booth.  After a while Edna and Ed joined us.  They told me that he was caught with the wine and they took it and will return it to him when we depart – which is for Kuwait City which also does not allow passengers to bring in wine.  In both countries you can drink it in the hotels.
We were deposited in the former Sofetel (now the Mercure Grand Hotel), Musherib Street, Doha, in the center of the city.  While we were sitting in the lobby, while Essam, our guide checked us in, there were kids running through the lobby and load sounds coming from a meeting room with trumpets blowing and loud choruses of “Jesus, Amen“.  Some Christian group (certainly not Muslim) was holding church services (Friday, is the “Sunday” in this part of the world).
I had a buffet lunch in the Hotel Restaurant (salad and fish).  The city has siesta from noon until 3PM every day.  Essam is a soft Muslim from Egypt with a fair command of English.  He has been in the country for 12 years and at one time was married to a German girl who converted to Muslim but then they divorced.
I had a buffet lunch in the Hotel Restaurant by myself.  At 3:30PM Essam picked us up and we drove to a souk where we walked around visiting the various specialty shops.  One unusual shop sold falcons and the support equipment (falcon hoods, heavy gloves, tethers and stands, etc.) to train and hunt with a falcon.  The souk had wider passageways and little crowd compared to the bazaars we have been in.  In the open areas were Arab men singing and acting out the songs.
We left the souk and drove to the camel market.  Unfortunately the sunset so it was dark, but we were able to take some pictures.  Nearby was the food market with fresh fruits and vegetables similar to markets all over the world.
As we drove to our restaurant, Essam asked us if we were interested in see some Arabian horses.  Why not, so he took us to the Equestrian Center which was very impressive.  Betting on horses is illegal in Qatar but they have a track with free admission.
Dinner was at a Qatar traditional restaurant.  Essam ordered a little of everything and it is one of the best meals I had on the whole trip.
Tomorrow we go on a desert safari and swim in the Gulf with a BBQ cookout for lunch on the beach.
Nov 10 (Sat) Doha
At 9AM we were picked up by a driver in a Toyota 4WD Land Cruiser for the drive south to the desert.  As we left the populated area we approached a lone gas station with the first oil well we had seen in Qatar behind it.  At the gas station our driver (not a very talkative type) refueled, let air out of the tires and loaded up on bottled water.  When we exited the gas station we left the paved road and set out across the desert.  A second vehicle joined us and took the lead as we drove up and down large sand dunes sometimes sliding down sideways and coming close to tipping over.  The dunes were covered with vehicle tracks that indicated that this is a popular “sport”.  Forty-five minutes into the drive we stopped for a “Kodak moment” on a bluff overlooking the sea.  I removed my shoes and ventured out to take pictures.  I introduced myself to the passengers of the other vehicle, one man, (Ron) and three women (one who was traveling with Ron named Ashley).  Ron is from Lake Tahoe and is traveling on business with a side trip to visit Ashley.  Ashley is originally from Ann Arbor, her Grandparents live in Topanga Canyon, and she has been living in London and took a job at a startup bank in Qatar 4 months ago.  One of the other women has been in Qatar for several years with her husband who is building a water desalination plant.  The third woman is her friend visiting from England.
After the picture taking we continued up and down the dunes until we came upon a hard flat surface that looked like a runway.  Near the end of the runway was a truck towing a large 4 wheel trailer full of trash bags.  The driver and passengers from the truck waved down the lead vehicle.  We both stopped and saw that one of the trailer’s tires was flat.  The lead vehicle’s driver produced a portable air compressor which he hooked to his battery and inflated the tire.  Back on the road we came upon a campsite with many tents on a buff close to the sea.  Fish were jumping out of the water and we could see the mountains of Saudi Arabia across the bay.
The campsite is the Emir’s fishing camp where the day before he hosted the King of Syria.  It was a beautiful spot.  We waded in the Gulf, took pictures and I found a nice seashell.  Forty minutes later after more up and down dune driving we arrived at the Tour Agency’s campsite with a beach on the water.  A series of tents which included four of the Bedouin type with carpet floors and large colorful lounge pillows, a volleyball court, stage, cooking huts and a shaded area with tables and chairs.
Lunch was delicious kabobs with the Lebanese spreads and flatbread.
Some of us changed into swimsuits and set out to swim in the Gulf only to discover that a number of jellyfish had the same idea.  Ed brushed one and that ended the swim.  We sat in the shade and traded stories of our lives and travels.  Ron is British by birth but has lived in the US for 42 years.  He owns a 1957 Rolls Royce, a Ferrari and an Audi.  Ashley told us how she came to work in Qatar.  We had a big discussion on the new James Bond and American TV shows.  One woman loves Brothers and Sisters since it reminds her of her family.  They told us that ER is a big favorite in England.
Edna has been very active in the Sierra Club and told us about her adventures climbing the highest peak in every state and many mountains around the world including a base camp on Everest.  Ed told us about having climbed Mt. Fuji last month and Ron told us about dog sledding in Alaska.
It was a very pleasant relaxing afternoon.  At 3PM we started back and stopped to get the tires re-inflated at Seawell Beach, a resort where the locals go and where you can rent dune buggies and ATVs.
After a couple of hours in the hotel we were met by Merriam, our guide’s fiancée to drive us to a local Indian Restaurant for dinner.  After so many kabobs it was interesting to have a major change, especially when we saw so many Indians on the streets.  They are the predominate ex-pats in the country.  A little on Merriam; she is from Morocco and teaches 6th grade in a French Private school.
We were back at the hotel by 9PM.
Nov 11 (Sun) Doha to Kuwait City
We checked out of the hotel at 9AM to tour the Qatar National Museum.  We found the museum closed but the guard let us in to the museum compound to see the buildings.  The main building is the Kings Residence prior to the discovery of oil.  In addition, the complex has a traditional dwelling and a lagoon.  Next we visited a wealthy residence that has been converted to a museum with artworks, a gallery of Historical Photos of Qatar, and a large display of Italian furniture and clothing for the visit of the President of Italy this week.  That finished our tour of Qatar.  Essam had promised Ed a Turkish Coffee so we stopped at a café on the waterfront to order one.  It was interesting to see men sitting around playing table games.  We watched one that had a board with holes in each corner and the men would flick a checker with one finger to knock one of the other checkers into a hole.
Both Ed and Edna had Turkish coffee and Essam smoked a water pipe.  The smoking is not based on tobacco.  It was relaxing to just sit on the water edge discussing the Arab and Iranian attitudes toward the US.  Eventually we left for the airport for our flight to Kuwait.  Check-in was painless, I was able to make a quick email check near the gate and then boarding 30 minutes before the scheduled take-off.  The flight broke ground FIVE minutes BEFORE scheduled take off.  The plane was a new A-321 and was less than a quarter full so I had a row to myself.
The landing in Kuwait City was smooth.  Before we could clear customs we had to purchase a Visa.  It was an interesting process.  First, we took a ticket number; second we filled in a simple form; third, when our number flashed over a processing clerk, I handed him the form and my passport; fourth, I was directed to the end of the counter where I was handed my passport with a paper visa.  With the visa form in hand I was waived through Passport Control, piled my luggage on a trolley, and was waived through Customs and was met by our tour guide.  We turned over our bags to a representative of our hotel (Courtyard Marriot) and proceeded to the tour bus.
We drove into the city, toured around the sights of the city and then stopped at the National Museum which was closed so we toured the souks, first the hard goods and clothing goods souks, then the fruits and vegetable market and finished at the gold souks.  The gold souks were still closed for siesta.
Next, tour was the Beit Alsadu, House of Traditional Weaving.  When we entered there was a weaving class for women in session.  They showed us a video of the history of traditional weaving and then we saw displays of various styles.  When we left the building the sun had set and we then passed a huge shopping center and stopped at the fish market.  It was impressive for several reasons: first, the vast number of stalls; second, the variety of fish; and third, the lack of flies and smells.  It was now dark, so we decided to go to dinner.  Our guide selected a traditional Arab restaurant where we sat outside under a canopy and had the Lebanese dips, flatbread, shrimp and mixed kebabs.  Delicious!
At the Courtyard Marriot, Al Shuhada Street, Kuwait City, we had to pass through security to enter the hotel ground floor and the reception was on the second floor.  The room was as good as I have experienced on the trip with the Internet connection in the room.
Nov 12 (Mon) Kuwait City to Muscat, Oman
We started our tour at 9AM.  The first stop was the Kuwait National Museum which had been damage and looted by the Iraqi Army during Gulf War I.  Some of the buildings are still under repair.  Cameras were not allowed.  One of the buildings we visited was the Planetarium which had a nice IMAX show of Mars.  Overall this was not as impressive as some of the other National Museum I have visited on the trip.
Next stop was the Tareo Rajab Museum in a private residence.  This museum was saved from looting by its design.  When you the home there is three series of steps with landings and the walls had museum objects.  At the bottom was a beautiful tiled wall.  The story goes that when the Iraqis entered the building they saw the few objects on the sidewalls and the tiled wall and thought that was the extent of the museum and left it untouched.  Behind the tiled wall is the main museum with outstanding displays of historical art, objects, coins, firearms, manuscripts, clothing and jewelry. It was a lot more impressive than the National Museum and well displayed.  Again no cameras were allowed.  The owner of the museum also owns an English language Grade School down the block.  The museum was full of students from the school drawing objects that they were then to report to their class.
From the museum we drove to the famous Kuwait Landmark, Kuwait Towers.  Three towers on the edge of the Gulf shaped like ancient perfume bottles.  We took an elevator to the observation deck in the top of the large bubble.  The upper floor of the two-floor deck rotates 360 degrees per half hour.  It provides beautiful views of the city and the offshore islands.  Below we could see a water amusement park located between the towers and the beach.  On the walls were pictures of the destruction the Iraqis did to the facility and the restaurant in the tower next door.
By now it was time for lunch so our guide took us to the huge shopping mall – very much like a US mall.  We took an escalator to the second floor and had our choice of KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Chili’s and Applebee’s.  We selected Chili’s and I had a delicious salad and the first Iced Tea in three weeks.
It was now time to return to the hotel to check out and drive to the airport.  At the hotel we got our confirmation for a 1605 flight to Muscat on Oman Airlines.  On the way to the airport Edna and Ed decided to give the wine to the driver and guide rather than have it confiscated at check-in.  They hid the bottles under their seats since they could get in trouble even having it in the vehicle.
Our guide left us at the security before check-in and remarked that he didn’t see a 1605 flight to Muscat on the board.  A baggage handler led us to Oman Airlines check-in and there was a long line of Indians with huge luggage in the Economy line.  We were at the end and noticed no one was moving – even at the lone Business Class line.  The display boards listed our flight departure as 1735.  The baggage handler and I decided we looked that part to get into the Business Class line and eventually we reached the counter and were told that their computer was very slow reacting.  She processed us very quickly and we then went through Immigration, Customs and another security x-ray.  Our gate was at the end of the terminal.  We found three seats and waited over an hour when then started processing the passengers into another room with another x-ray.  I had been talking to a British businessman that lives in Kuwait earlier and when he passed through this third x-ray they open his bag and removed his shaving cream.
The Business Class passengers lined up at the entrance to another hall that had the air bridge gateway at the end of it.  We sat and read (the plane had still not arrived).  Eventually, the plane arrived and passengers disembarked and the standing line got longer.  I started to get concerned about overhead space and didn’t want to get stuck with no room.  One of the Business Class women left the line and sat next to us.  She told us that the crowd was from a canceled Kuwait Air flight to Dubai and since our flight was stopping there en route to Muscat the people had been rescheduled and many were unhappy since they could not sit in Business Class on our plane.  When the line started moving I got up with her and entered the position that several men had saved for her and was able to get to my row before anyone had used the overhead.  Every seat was taken and the bins were full and it was a fiasco.  The wealthy Saudi looking businessmen that entered at the last from the canceled flight had to sit in the very back and had great difficulty with their luggage.  I removed what I could from the overhead and placed it under the seat in front of me.  The plane was stuffy and I removed my ticket wallet that I hang around my neck with my ticket and passport and placed it in the seat pocket.
It was an 1 hour and 25-minute flight to Dubai.  We did not depart the plane but they had the cleaning crew come on board.  The Muscat passengers were stretching their legs walking up and down the aisle while a cleaner was trying to vacuum – it was a ”Keystone Cops” moment.  After cleaning, the plane filled again and there was problems getting all the carry-ons stowed.
At Muscat there was no Air Bridge and we boarded a bus to the terminal.  First stop in the terminal for us was Visa Purchase.  As we got to the counter to purchase an Oman visa I realized I had left my ticket wallet in the seat pocket on the plane.  PANIC!!  I informed the Airport Police and they conferred with the Oman Agent and I was told to sit and wait.  Our original schedule had us arriving at 9PM which was late enough – with the delayed departure it was now 10:30PM and I hated to delay Edna and Ed.  Eventually, they showed up with the wallet and I was able to quickly process through Visa Purchase, Immigration, baggage claim and Customs to find them waiting for me.  I apologized and was told they had just gotten out because Ed’s bag didn’t show and he had to file a claim when they discovered it had fallen off the belt and was on the ramp under the plane.
Our Guide met us – his name is Khalib and he is from a fisherman’s family in the coastal city of Shinas near the UAE border.  He is married and his wife has just had their first child which he proudly showed us pictures of on his cell phone.
We were in our nice room in the Radisson SAS Hotel, Al Kuleiah Street, by mid-night.
Nov 13 (Tue) Muscat
We started our Muscat City tour at 9AM with a tour of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  It is a new mosque funded by the Sultan and is open to the public in the morning.  It is so new that it is not mentioned in the Guide Books we had.  The Sultan encourages foreigners to tour the mosque and learn about the Muslim religion and customs.  It is a huge beautiful complex equal to any of the mosques I have visited.
Leaving the mosque we started our tour of the city passing through the city gate towards the sea.  The rocky mountains come very close to the sea.  In the Mutrah area of Muscat we drove along the cornice with the watchtowers and fort overlooking the drive.  We told our Khalib that we were not interested in visiting the fish market which was on our schedule and he bypassed it to stop at the Mutrah Souk.  The entrance has a modern façade but inside you have the same look as other old souks with many corridors to wander through.
Following our time in the souk we re-boarded our vehicle to drive to Old Muscat.  The Cornish leads through a gateway into a walled city with a beautiful harbor in front of the Sultan’s Palace.  After stopping for picture taking of the waterfront and the fort above we drove to the Place for more pictures.  Khalib insisted on taking my picture wearing his Omani skull cap.
Back in the vehicle we drove to Bait Al Zubair, a museum in a restored ancient merchant’s home that displays pictures and artifacts of the history of Oman.  This museum was the last stop on the day’s tour.
Back at the hotel we were scheduled to purchase our own lunch.  I walked across the street to a strip mall to eat at a place the Khalib recommended named the Automatic Lebanese Restaurant.  I don’t know what is automatic about it but I had a nice hummus with meat dish.
Back in the room I attempted to write my journal and got to review my pictures to create an outline and start dozing off.  I lay down for a nap and slept 4 hours.  The two short nights due to flying had gotten to me.
I awoke to met Edna and Ed for dinner in the hotel restaurant at 7:30PM.  I had two Foster beers with my meal which was a pick your own BBQ.  My picks were rock lobster tail, salmon, beef and a white fish, very delicious.
Back in the room by 9PM, I checked email and finished my journal for the 12th.
Nov 14 (Wed) Muscat
We started at 8AM on a two-hour drive to the city of Nizwa in the mountainous region of Al-Dakhiliyah Region, southwest of Muscat.  On the way we stopped at a high point overlooking the village of Birkat Al-Mawz which roughly translates as “Banana Pool”.  From our point we looked down on several large villas in palm tree groves and the Bait-al-Radidah fort.
Once we arrived in Nizwa we toured the Nizwa Souk and the Nizwa Fort.  The fort was built in the 17th century and is considered one of the best ones to tour in the country which has hundreds of forts.  I climbed to the top where I was able to take pictures of the city, the souk area and the mosque next door.
Back on the road, we stopped for a photoshoot of camels grazing on the side of the highway and then at a high point overlooking the village of Bahla with the remains of a 600-year-old wall that circled the city to protect it from criminals that used to raid the city for money and women.  Down in the city we visited a Pottery Factory which still makes pottery with old fashion methods.  A mound of mud was piled next to brick and stone pools.  The mud was placed in the pool with other ingredients and water filled to the top, in the next pool the mud was drying to clay, and in the third pool it was clay covered with plastic.  The clay is taken in buckets to the room where the turning wheels are and the plates, vases and cups are formed.  Next to that room was the kilns that fired the objects.  In the past the kilns used wood but the government has made the factory switch to natural gas.  It was an experience to see the old fashioned way after the more modern pottery factories I have toured in other countries.
It was now lunchtime so we drove to the Jabrin Castle for a picnic lunch.  The hotel had provided box lunches which included tomato, cheese, and sliced meat sandwich, hummus, and pita bread, rice and fried chicken paddy, an apple and an orange.  Khalib spread out a mat and we sat in the shade of a large tree and eat our lunch.
After lunch we toured the Castle which is the best-preserved castle in the region and possibly the country.  It has many rooms connected by hidden passageways.  It is not lavishly decorated but the stairs and the walls are in good condition.
After the tour Khalib took off across the rocky desert on what he told us was a short cut to the highway back to Muscat.  It was rough but not too long and we entered the highway.  The highways in Oman were built by a German Contractor and are as smooth as glass.
The scenery on the road to Muscat was desert with rocky mountains – like so many other areas I visited on this trip it reminds me of driving in southern California to Las Vegas or Palm Springs.
Once we arrived in Muscat in the area of our hotel Khalib wanted us to view the city from the top a sandy hill in the desert near our hotel.  He set forth in our Toyota Land Cruiser in four-wheel drive and attempted to climb the hill.  Twice we got stuck and he had to back down to try again.  On the third attempt, we got close to the top but could not get all the way and he stopped so we could take pictures.  Ed has the same model in the states and drives off-road a lot.  Khalib and Ed decided that the tires needed to let the air out to enable the vehicle to operate more effectively in the sand.  Anyway, we got the view and returned to the hotel.
The evening dinner was scheduled to take place in a traditional restaurant which Khalib selected as the Automatic Lebanese Restaurant that we had lunch in the day before.  Ed was to pay for the three of us and be reimbursed by Khalib the next day.  Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, we each ordered an appetizer, hummus, tabouleh, and mojabal, and then swami, lamb chops, and shish kebab.  We left half the foot and still felt stuffed.
Nov 15 (Thu) Muscat to Sohar
We checked out of the hotel at 8AM and started the drive north along the coast to Sohar.  An hour up the road we turned off the highway to the city of Barka and on to its beach.  We drove up the beach watching people fishing and arrived at a large crowd of men on the beach and numerous cars and pickup trucks parked.  We stopped and entered the crowd to see displays of fresh fish and fishermen carrying them from their boats to a mat in front of a man with an accounting ledger.  A lot of discussion would take place which we learned was the bidding for the fish and the amount would be recorded and the fish moved to the pickup trucks.
Nearby was a group gutting fish and across the paved road from the parking lot was a covered fish market.  I guess wholesale is conducted on the beach and retail is conducted in the market.
As we left Barka we drove past meat markets and supermarkets (hard goods and clothes, etc.) across the main highway to the road to Nakhal.  Nakhal is in a valley with mountains close by and has one of the best forts to visit.  The fort predates Islam and until the last 5 years was still the residence of the local Wali (Mayor).    It was a beautiful tour and the view from the top was spectacular.  It was nice to see most of the rooms containing rugs, books, dishes, beds, and colorful pillows.  The rooms were cleverly designed to have gun ports that catch the breeze, yet still, make it difficult to shoot through from the outside.
A few miles from the fort we stopped at the Ath-Thowra hot spring.  Hot water flows from the rocks into catchment pools and troughs into the river, and since it was the end of the week the place was crawling with teenage boys having swims and BBQ.  They were singing beating on large water bottles (Arrowhead size) as drums.  When we approached they started singing American songs.  For a group of sober young men, they were acting like a wild fraternity party picnic.  In the river (which was not very deep) were small kids playing, and across the river, families setting up picnic mats to be away from the noisy young men.
When we returned to the highway at Barka, Khalib stopped at a Camel Farm where we were able to take pictures of newly born camels and special bread camels that were masked so they can’t eat between meals and are fed a special diet when they do eat.
An hour and ten minutes later we entered the gates of Sohar and Khalib turned off the highway into a restaurant.  Khalib helped us order the fish specials.  Ed’s was a local fish with a lot of bones.  Edna and I had Kingfish in a sauce so we couldn’t tell where the bone was but it must have been cut like a swordfish steak and we managed to get through it without swallowing any bones.
From the restaurant, we drove to the Sohar Beach Resort to check-in.  We were assigned Chalets with an entryway leading to a kitchen.  To the right was a toilet and sink, to the left through double doors, was a living room as large as my living room in Woodland Hills.  Next to the kitchen was a door to the 10 x15 ft dressing room, off the dressing room a 15X15 ft bath and the bedroom which is the same size as the living room.  The bedroom has sliding glass doors to the pool and a short walk to the beach.
I changed into my trunks and ventured out asking a couple what the water temperature was like in the pool and the ocean.  Their answer was both are the same as the outside air.  I walked down to the gulf and waged in and walked and walked.  The man that had given me the temperature appeared and told me it was a long walk before you could swim without hitting the bottom with your stroke.  Eventually we arrived at a point where the water was chest high and I was able to swim.
When I returned to the pool and showered I found the large pool to be the same temperature – not exactly refreshing but it was my first venture on the trip.  The couple was Dutch, one works at the seaport for a Dutch company and the other flew in for a holiday.
Dinner was buffet style outside and I was able to order a Fosters.  That night I didn’t sleep too well – it was like I had a temperature when I went to bed and when I awoke I was soaking wet.
Nov 16 (Fri) Sohar to Dubai
We checked out of the hotel at 8AM for the long drive to Dubai.  Shortly after leaving the hotel I realized I didn’t have my Tilley Hat and we returned to discover that it was not left in the room or in the hotel.  It must have fallen out of the car at our lunch stop.  On the way out of Sohar we drove down the Cornish past the fort which was on our itinerary but closed on Fridays. At the next city, Shimas, which is Khalib home town, Khalib drove down to the beach and then proceeded north where we could see the fisherman stringing out nets and then hauling them in via a pickup truck.  The buildings along the beach were deserted and there were vast open areas.  Khalib explained that the Government was planning to build a beach resort with a number of hotels..The beach and Gulf in this area are surely inviting so I can see that it would be a great place to build hotels.  I was just surprised that people had not built villas in the area.
Back on the highway we soon reached the UAE border.  The processing was handled by Khalib and did not take very long.  The first Emirate that borders on Oman is Al Fujayrah.  The city of Al Fujayrah is on the coast  and we toured the city on then just north is the Omani village of Madha which is at the base of a mountain.  It is not entirely clear why this mountain and its village are not part of the UAE but driving in from Al Fujayrah you can notice the difference.  The street lights are different, as is the road surface and the style of the houses.  Since the houses are provided free by the government they look the same and are a lot cleaner than the UAE house on the road leading to the enclave.
The next stop was in the city of Dibba on the border between the UAE and the Omani Musandam Peninsula.  We stopped at the beach park and since it was Friday there were a lot of people on the beach and picking in the shady park.  Note that no women were swimming or were wearing swimming suits.  Those not wearing abeyyas were at least wearing jeans.
Ten minutes out of town we stopped at the Al Bidya Mosque made of stone and mudbrick, and dates back to 1446AD.
Leaving the Gulf of Oman coast we drove across the UAE peninsula where the desert sand turned to orange.  Along the way we passed Bedouin camps (some set up for tourists) camels grazing in the desert and not villages.  The highway was smooth and as we approach the Arabian Gulf coast the traffic increased.  Along the way, we passed through areas administered by the Emirates of: Fujeirah, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Qaiwain, Ajman and Dubai.
Arriving in the city of Dubai near the Airport we encountered traffic jams created by road closers.  I could tell that Khalib was not sure how to get to our hotel, the Flora Grand Hotel, Al Rigga Road.  There is also a Flora Park Hotel in the same area.  He stopped for lunch and we noticed that he was talking to the Doorman at a nearby hotel.  He told Khalib we were close but the streets are torn up for the construction of a subway system and he could not direct Khalib to the hotel.  After lunch (I had a Chicken Swami) we set out to find the hotel.  Several times we saw it but could not drive to it.  We were trapped several times by street closers.  After 40 minutes we finally got on a street that was not barricaded and drove to the hotel.
The hotel was in a hotel district.  No liquor is offered (an Indian Hotel next door has a nightclub where you can buy drinks), and my room was the smallest of the trip.  I did have a Fosters in the hotel next door before dinner.  The dinner was buffet style and more western choices that Arabic choices then we have experienced on the trip.
Nov 17 (Sat) Dubai
We met our tour guide at 9AM and set out to tour the northern Emirates.  Our Guide was named Vinod, an Indian from Calcutta who has worked in Dubai as a Guide for nine years.  He only sees his family in India for 4 to 6 weeks every 18 months.  He drove the same highway north that we entered Dubai on the previous day.  Even though it was the weekend the commuter traffic into the city was crawling, we were happy to be driving counter to the commute except the van did not have cruise control and had a beeper that beeped continuously when the van exceeded 120km which is the speed limit on the highways.  Everyone drove between120km and 140km so the beeper was on most of the time.  There are radar and cameras along the highway and if you exceed 140km your car’s picture is taken and you have to pay a fine for each occurrence during the year before you can renew your drivers or auto license.
The first Emirate north of Dubai is Sharjah which has lower cost of living so many ex-pats that work in Dubai live there.  The weather was morning fog and we could not see very far from the road on either side.  At an exit to Sharjah we turned east to drive 50km into the desert, past the Sharjah Airport, several schools, a University and a Classic Car Museum (none of which we couldn’t see through the fog).  We exited at the Sharjah Desert Park and stopped at a gate to take pictures of a monument  and then drove to the Natural History Museum across the highway to learn that on Saturdays it does not open until 11AM.
Back on the road north retracing the previous day’s drive we skipped by the exits to Ajman and Umm al-Quwain (UAQ) on our way to Ras al-Khalmah (RAK).  At 11AM was stopped as a service station just outside of RAK for a rest break and to buy some water.  We drove around RAK for an hour past the new buildings, the old buildings, and the seaport.  Along the coast, there is massive resort construction and the large homes of the Sheik and his family.
We were now headed south on the coast road and soon we were in the UAQ area.  The city of Umm al-Quwain is on a spur of land out in the Gulf so we had to turn off the coast road to reach it.  My now Edna was getting hungry and the Vinod told us the plan was to stop for lunch at the 5 Star Kaminski Hotel in the city.  Ed did not want to eat in a hotel and Vinod called his office to see if they could recommend a local restaurant in the area.  We stopped at a Beach Resort and Ed checked it out and rejected it because it was full of smoke odors and yet had no patrons.
Back on the highway towards UAQ, we came upon a round-about that had a restaurant with a lot of cars in front, so Vinod circled around and we stopped.  Ed checked the place and gave it his OK and we entered and were directed to the Family Section.  UAQ is not as liberal as Dubai.  It turned out to be run by Indians from Vinod’s home state.  We each ordered club sandwiches, mine contained a nice seafood mix.
After lunch we toured UAQ and returned to the Sharjah Natural History Museum.  This time we were able to see the airport, schools, universities, and museums that were covered with fog earlier.  The Natural History Museum was excellent, well worth the wait.  It had good dioramas of the UAE peninsula terrain and videos of how the landmass was formed, the history of the animals and people of the area.  We were pleasantly surprised.
Back on the road we still had to visit the Emirate of Ajman, 60km away, which is the smallest and most liberal of the Emirates.  It is not that far from Dubai and is benefiting from the building and real estate growth in Dubai.  A few blocks south of the center of Ajman we entered Sharjah and found the most conservative of the Emirates.  It has been designated to be the cultural center of the UAE.  We stopped at a mud wall souk with tourist stores and I loaded up since my next flight will be flying home without the one 40lb bag restriction that I have had since I arrived in Almaty, one month ago.
By now the sun was setting and we had some nice photo shots over the bay.  Traffic entering the city of Dubai was slow but Vinod lead us directly to the hotel without the hassle we had the previous day.
When I returned to my room I was greeted by a bill for Internet charges of $27.41.  I questioned the front desk since a continuous connection for 24 hours was $27.41.  They charge a $1 per minute and I had exceeded 27 minutes of connect time.  I remarked that it would be more acceptable if I could buy a beer in the hotel and the desk clerk replied “beer was bad for your health” which I replied “it is actually good for your health when taken in moderation”.  They also told me that their internet was less expensive than the Internet Cafés in the area.
I left the hotel to exchange some more money for the next day’s lunch and to buy one more item that was not available in the Sharjah souk.  On the way back to the hotel I passed an Internet Coffee Shop advertising Free Internet with a 10 EAD purchase of a sandwich or breakfast.  That would be a $2.74 purchase.
This hotel is not going to rate high on my list of the hotels, I stayed in on this trip.
Dinner was in the hotel’s Monsoon Indian Restaurant.  Again it was a buffet and was not as good as the previous night but did had a nice mixed seafood dish.
Nov 18 (Sun) Dubai
We started earlier today because we have a lot of driving down to Abu Dhabi, Al-Amin and return.  Vinod met us at 8AM and we drove southwest through the city in heavy morning rush hour traffic.  It took us an hour to finally clear the city on the six-lane highway to Abu Dhabi and we stopped to purchase water.  Forty-five minutes later we reached the outskirts of the city which is actually on an island.  Our first stop was the Women’s Handicraft Center in the Women’s Union Building.  We were able to enter small rooms were old women in traditional dresses with face masks sat on the floor performing various handicrafts.  Next door there was an Exhibit Hall where we could buy their output.  There was also a museum that displayed models of how the city looked 50 years ago before oil was discovered and how the people dressed and lived in their tents and palm leaf huts.
We then drove past Qasr al-Husn also called the white Palace Fort built in 1761 which is Abu Dhabi’s oldest building.  It was not open to tour but was interesting to see among the skyscrapers in the city.  By the way, they are condemning the 20 story buildings built in the 1970’s because of corrosion and they will be replaced by 50 story buildings.  We drove around the city viewing the new buildings and the buildings under construction, past the monuments, along the Cornish and down to the seashore and out to the Heritage Village which was closed but has a great view of the city.  Next door was the Heritage Village Theater where we were able to watch a group of Emirate men in native dress practicing a dance routine with carbines for a TV commercial outside the theater.  Our next stop was the Abu Dhabi Palace Hotel managed by the German Kempinski Hotel chain.  It is one of the most extravagant hotels I have ever seen.  Vinod gave us fifteen minutes to walk around and we watched new Bentleys driving up for check-in
From the hotel, we drove past the President of UAE’s palace and then on to the boatyard were they still build the wooden dhows that are used in the Gulf.  As we left the city we stopped for lunch at the Sea Shell Café, a little hole in the wall but I had a nice fish burger.
After lunch, we set out for a ninety-minute drive across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to Al-Ain, an oasis at the base of the Mountains that border on Oman.  Al-Ain is the birthplace of the late President, Sheikh Zayed, the first President of UAE, and father of the current UAE President.  Thus the 162km highway is three lanes wide and beautifully landscaped through the desert.
Al-Ain is a green city with grass and trees planted in the desert and fertilized and watered from the mountain springs.  In the background of the city is the jagged Jabel Hafeet rocky mountain raising over 4,000 feet with the President’s Palace on top.  We drove to the Green Mubazzarah Park at the base of the mountain where the hot spring water flows from the mountain into a small reservoir.  The Park has Chalets for rent and several outdoor and indoor swimming pools.
We drove up the mountain pass the 5 star Mercure Grand Hotel to a viewing area just below the palace to take in the view of the park below, the city of Al-Ain and the desert beyond.  On the other side we viewed the Oman city of Buraimi and was able to observe the contrast between the oil-rich, materialistic nation of UAE and the modest tradition nation of Oman.
Back down the mountain, we toured the city of Al-Ain including a drive through the largest palm forest in the Gulf and past Sheikh Zayed birthplace which is being restored as a museum.
Leaving Al-Ain we headed out on the highway to Dubai which was not as wide nor as landscaped as the highway to Abu Dhabi.  There were trees along the edge of the highway but not as deep as on the other highway.  The desert was the rust color we observed on the drive from Dibba the day before yesterday.
The sunset during our drive and it was dark when we reached Dubai and slowed for the traffic and the Metro construction congestion in the area of our hotel.  We arrived at 6:30PM, had a buffet dinner at 7:30PM and I return to my room to write my journal.
Nov 19 (Mon) Dubai
My last day of the trip started at 9AM with a drive around the Deira neighborhood of Dubai.  It is north of the airport and close to the cruise ship docks.  Our hotel is in the area and it is the original trading center of Dubai.  The Dubai Creek forms the western boundary of the Deira area.  We stopped for picture taking at the edge of the creek before crossing the Creek to the Bur Dubai neighborhood where the old souks and original buildings are.  Our next stop was at the Dubai Museum in Bur Dubai which had great models of the history of Dubai and its people.  The displays were translated into English and there was an interesting video of the history of Dubai during the last 50 years.  Prior to the discovery of oil in the late 1950s this was just a small village of fisherman and pearl divers.  The growth has been mind-boggling.
From the Museum Vinod drove us to a water taxi dock where we boarded a wooden boat where we sat on the engine cover under a canopy and were ferried across the creek.  Vinod told us that until 1970 that was the only mode of transportation across the creek.  Of course, you could drive southeast into the desert and come back around the creek which doesn’t extend that far inland from the coast (7 to 9km).
Vinod met us on the other side and our next stop was the Bur Dubai Souk.  Edna stayed in the car while Ed and I walked up and down the covered alleyways of the souk.  It differed from other souk’s by having more toys, school supplies and modern kitchen utensils than others – you could still buy a knock-off Rolex.
From the Bur Dubai Souk, we drove to the Gold Souk which has one of the largest numbers of jewelry stores in the world in one area.  There was a large parking lot across the street but it was full so Vinod dropped Ed and I off and drove around with Edna while be walked up and down the streets with the shops.
So far in Deira and Bur Dubai, we did not see the skyscrapers Dubai is noted for.  The buildings in these neighborhoods are 3 to 6 stories high and most were built in the 1970s.
From the Gold Souk, we drove past the Cruise Ship Terminal, the Dry Docks and into the Jumeirah residential area along the beach.  Here the buildings are two-story high villas and stretch 25kms along Al Jumeirah Road with the world’s first air-conditioned bus stops.  At the end of the road is a public beach just east of the Buj Al Arab (Arbain Tower) Hotel the symbol of Dubai and the world’s most expensive and tallest hotel.  We stopped for photos along the beach.  A tourist can’t enter the hotel property without a reservation.  Next to the hotel is the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the Madinat Jumeirah which tourists can enter without a reservation.  We drove by the Wild Wadi Waterpark and past the lobby entrance to the Madinat Jumeirah Hotel built in traditional mud-brick style.
Our next tour was the mind-blowing drive up the stem road of The Palm-Jumeirah one of the four offshore landfill developments under construction in Dubai.  Three of the four are shaped like a palm tree with the stem connected to the mainland with high rise apartment houses on both sides and then connected like the leaves of the palm off the stem road are curved roads with two-story villas, each with a private beach on each side of the road.  Encircling the development is a road with Hotels.  The apartments are full having sold out in 72 hours to foreign investors.  The villas are sold out and the hotels are under construction.
We did not visit the forth offshore landfill under construction called the World in which each individual island is being constructed that when viewed from the air they will roughly have the shape of the world.  These islands will only be accessible by helicopter or boat.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have purchased one of the islands.
Close by is the American University and the Dubai Marina.  We stopped at the Marina Walk with the large yacht basin.  The irony of this expensive life is that it is not the oil-rich local Emirates (they live along the El Jumeirah Road) but foreigners from some 70 countries.  One of the two liquor stores for ex-pats holding a license to purchase liquor is in this complex (parked outside the door of the liquor was a bright red Ferrari convertible).  Adjacent to this area Vinod told us that 110 high rise buildings are under construction.
South of the Dubai Marina the desert is being transformed into a golf course and a series of little lakes.  We drove along the edge of this construction site and were soon in the desert and then the President’s Palace which where we were allowed to drive by but not take pictures.
We now started back toward our hotel district, passing the Internet City with Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, etc. buildings, the mall with the indoor ski slope, more skyscrapers either recently constructed or under construction to the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world and still being added to), the Dubai Financial Center, the Emirates Towers and the Dubai World Trade Center.
Back to the old six story buildings of our hotel district – my tour of the Five ‘Stans, Iran and the Gulf States was over.
But, we still had not had lunch so we set out on Al Rigga Road to find a place.  Ed has been the most critical so we let him select – Burger King!  After 34 local lunches, I ended up with the last one being a Whopper with Cheese.
Our last dinner was again the hotel buffet.
Nov 20 (Tue) Dubai to Los Angeles
We checked out of the hotel at midnight for our 3AM flights to LAX.  Ed and Edna were taking American via London and I was on Lufthansa via Frankfurt.  Vinod