Longest days drive: 284 miles – Travel time: 07:00 – 13:40

Leaving Burkhara shortly after first light our spirits sank as the road surface quickly developed into a dismal, diabolical sequence of craters, dust and deep, striated cracks. It was tough to navigate and maintain any speed. We began to question the sense of travelling north having covered 30 miles in the first hour, knowing it was a further 250 miles to reach Khiva. At that rate it was going to take 8 hours to get to the walled city and we wouldn’t make it until after dark. Notwithstanding the recommendation to see the city by moonlight, it didn’t do much for our humour.

All said we were committed to this route and pressed on. Thank God (and possibly the Chinese) the road changed dramatically at Gazli (which appeared to be a gas or oil related settlement) and we hit a super smooth, brand new two-lane highway! Spirits soared and we travelled on the best road since leaving Islamabad, clocking a steady 80 miles an hour for a good two hours.

With no one else around we could pit stop quite happily on the hard shoulder – or indeed in the middle of the road!

The highway ended and we travelled another 30km on relatively reasonable roads to get to the provincial city of Urgench and then 25 km further on to Khiva. After 5 and half hours of travelling we were slightly challenged to find the accommodation that had been booked for us. It transpired that it was situated slap bang in the middle of the ancient walled city in the Ichon Qala, and cars were not permitted, nor physically able, to enter. Murray disappeared for 20 minutes or so leaving me parked up in the middle of a bustling, frenetic bazaar, with the impatient minivan taxis reversing and hooting, picking up shoppers and school children all keen to be in the same place at the same time. He returned with the smiliest of fellows, a young English teacher cum hotelier who had room in his ‘inn’ – I wanted to think of it as a caravanserai, but this proved too romantic a notion. Unhooking the net that stretches across the back seat of the car (holding innumerable odds and ends for our travels) and piling up what I could to one side I squeezed myself on top of my bag of clothes and lay partially folded across the back so that our hotelier – who’s head peaked through the sun roof he was so tall! – directed us to his accommodation, the Islambek Hotel.

Our host outside his hotel

Checking the levels . . .

. . . All good, apart from the slight rattle on start up and the beginnings of a whine from the somewhere under the bonnet (not within the car I hasten to add!)

There we met a young and enthusiastic Swizz couple whom had bought a clapped out Land Cruiser in Tajikistan and were driving it home, having made some significant adjustments under the bonnet! We settled in to our very modest accommodation and left the car securely parked before heading off to see Khiva and all it promised to offer.

We caught the last hours of daylight

But not before recharging

The Kaltor Minor Minaret – to my tired eye I could help thinking it looked just a little like an old gas tank – the philistine inside is rising

And why not . . . the resident camel

More madrassas . .

. . and blokes immortalised in bronze

More mosques, minarets, majolica tiles and souvenirs (over indulgence of mosque and majolica, a malaise was beginning to take ahold!) . . . Ashgabat is calling but I fear we will be visiting Hell first . . .

Khiva by night

and not a sole to be seen. Quite eerie but beautifully lit and waiting to be a film set

The Silk Road purchase

The city walls of Khiva

More minarets and clever restoration

Trainees carving new walnut panels for the restoration of the madrassa

Majolica tiles close up

Impressively tall and imposing minaret!