We wandered around town trying to change our grubby old Turkmen Manat notes and when we eventually found someone willing to change them, we got a rotten rate for them. There didn't seem to be much reason to stay here long and so we grabbed a share-taxi to Urgench. Althoguh Khiva is less than 200km away, it somehow ended up being anothertravelling day. I was looking forward to spending a few days resting and recuperating in Khiva.

From Urgench we took another shared taxi to Khiva, 35km away, and checked into a delightful old Uzbek house that has been converted into a B&B. It was great to sit in the courtyard, over a pot of tea, and relax for a few hours and whiling away the few remaining hours of sunlight before having a delicious home-cooked supper and chatting with the owner, Rashid. We were seemingly the only guests.

 Shameless advertising of the society in the desert! (Plus beard) - Apologies for terrible resolution but computers here are very very very slow! The T-shirt atcually advertises the society btw.