I was feeling better and decided that it would be interesting to visit the nearby Chorsu Bazaar. This massive open-air bazaar sells almost anything one could want and is divided into neat sections. Being a Sunday, it was packed and everywhere customers and stallholders were furiously negotiating prices. I am not sure that I look Russian anymore and the beard must make me stand out as not being local, but as I passed the meat section several traders started trying to persuade me to buy their flea-ridden slabs of unrefrigerated meat. I kindly declined explaining that I was a tourist. One guy just wouldn't back down, but looking at his products of animal entrails oddly made it interesting. Nothing was wasted here, whether it be cow hooves, sheep guts or goat heads. I was offereed everything one could imagine would be inside an animal. Ultimately he just wanted to chat and soon half the other vendors had gathered round to hear my story.

Half an hour later, my surroundings seemed normal but the smell was still pungent and I decided that it would be best to leave. However this was not possible until I had shaken half a dozen blooded hands! I had to leave in order to meet with Vladimir and Denis Karasev again who had kindly agreed to show me roudn the National history museum. It was an amazingly vivid experience and everywhere we looked there were artefacts that they had found. To have each artefact's story explained was fantastically interesting and then to have it put in context of the SIlk Road made it truly educational.

We took a coffee at a nearby cafe before I had to leave to meet Emanuella and Andres, who I'd met in the morning at the guesthouse. We'd decided to go and see what was on at the Alisher Navoi Theatre. Tonight's performance was the Ballet Spartacus. I'd been hoping for an opera, but having never seen a  ballet and the fact that it costs less than a euro, thought it was an opportunity not to miss. There were the odd woefully out of time pirouettes or movements, but on the whole it was an amusing way to spend my last evening in Tashkent.

Once again apologies for the terrible picture like yesterday's, but just wanted to give an initial taste of the splendour of Samarcand! Hopefully I will be able to update these photos and add more in Kyrgyzstan!