COLORS of Central Asia

In the late evening we arrive in the lush and vibrant city of Almaty (Alma Ata) and transfer to our hotel to rest up before our ambitious sightseeing schedule. Situated on the far eastern edge of Kazakhstan on the site of the former Silk Road oasis called Almatu, Almaty is a fairly new city owing to the several attacks and earthquakes since it's beginning as a Russian fort, in 1854 established after the Russians solidified their hold on the area and abolished the Khanates.

After breakfast, we'll embark on a full day of sightseeing in Almaty. The city is the commercial heart of the area and a business and transportation hub for the entire region, with all the trappings of a cosmopolitan city. Our tour begins in the middle of Panfilow Park, a rectangle of greenery in the middle of which is the brightly colored and beautiful Zenkov Cathedral.

After lunch in the city we will board a cable car to a ride 1700 meters to the top of the Koektyube Mountain for the spectacular views of Almaty, the surrounding mountains and the Medeo sports stadium and skating rink. Returning once again to the city, we will visit the fascinating Museum of Kazakhstan National Musical Instruments.

We will breakfast at our hotel and then drive into the magnificent nearby snow-capped mountains to marvel at the 8th century petroglyphs at Tamgaly-Tas and perhaps have time to stroll around the area admiring the lovely scenery.

This afternoon we will travel through more beautiful scenery on our way to Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan and to our hotel for dinner and overnight.

After breakfast we will drive 140 miles (90 km) outside of Bishkek through small villages and magnificent mountain scenery to the 11th century Burana tower, the remnant of the Karakhanid minaret. Karakhanids were Turkic usurpers who were given credit for finally converting the Central Asia to Islam.

We will have the chance to see more of the rural life as we drive to a nearby village for a good lunch and then make our way back to Bishkek for dinner and overnight.

This morning we will visit the large, white marble cube that is the Historical Museum just steps from the Kyrgyz White House, the seat of the government, the president's office and the parliament. At the museum we will enjoy a lecture on the history and culture of the region's nomadic peoples.

After a typical Kyrgyz lunch we will visit the Children's Craft Center where we will see beauty created by Kyrgyz boys and girls. If there is time before dinner we will pay a visit to a local pottery workshop where we can get acquainted with the local ceramic's style and history.

After our full day, followed by dinner we will return to our hotel for our last night in Bishkek.

This morning we will transfer to the airport for the flight to Osh, one of Central Asia's oldest and most important crossroads on the storied "Silk Road". On our way to the bustling and colorful Osh market we will be able to see that, somewhat inconveniently, the town is built on two sides of Solomon's Throne, a small craggy mountain that seems to loom up wherever we go.

Saying goodbye to Kyrgyzstan, we will drive to the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border and, after completing border formalities, we will continue a short distance to Fergana for dinner and overnight.

This morning we will drive 1½ hours to Kokand, capital of the Kokand Khanate in the 18th and 19th centuries when it, like Bukhara, with scores of mosques and madrassahs, was a main religious center in Central Asia.

Once again on the road, we will continue on to Rishton, one of the most important ceramic centers in Central Asia, where we will have lunch at a local potter's home and perhaps see his assistants throwing and delicately painting pots and plates in the traditional blue and green patterns. Later we will visit the silk ikat-weaving center of Marghilan to learn how the weavers bind and dye the warps for the magnificent ikat patterns.

A short drive will bring us to the Ferghana airport for a relaxing early evening flight to Tashkent where we will spend the night.

A city sightseeing tour today will give us an overview of this capital city of more than 2.3 million that owing to the 1966 massive earthquake left the city in ruins and left 300,000 homeless. Our tour takes us to the Fine Art Museum where we will have the see old Turkestan-Zoroastrian artifacts, 1,000-year-old Buddhist statues, royal furnishings, and 20th century applied arts.

At the Abdul Khasim Medrassah we will visit artisans making traditional Uzbek crafts in former student cells, including metal chasers, woodcarvers, miniature-painters, jewelers, mosaic artists, embroiderers, etc.

This morning we will pay a visit to the Imam Al-Bukhari Islamic Institute. Then, on the edge of the section of Tashkent that survived the earthquake we will visit the large and exciting Chorsu Bazaar.

After lunch, our bus will take us through a variety of lovely and mountainous landscapes to Samarkand that fabled city on the ancient Silk Road. There, we will check into our hotel in the late afternoon in time to freshen up before dinner.

This morning we will view the dramatic tile facades and domes of the madrassahs in the Registan, Samarkand's legendary central square. As we stroll around the three famous monuments we can gaze up at the turquoise domes, the towering entrances, and the minarets designed to appear of uniform diameter from top to bottom.

A short way down the street we will see the legendary Gur-Emir, Tamerlane's mausoleum with a huge, but now broken, slab of jade as his cenotaph. Returning past the Registan we will visit the Bibi-Khanum Mosque welcomed by a giant stone Koran rest in the entrance courtyard.

After lunch we will visit the Shaki-Zinda (Tomb of the Living King) ensemble of 14th and 15th century mausoleums with their exquisite and varied examples of polychromatic faience tile work reflecting the development of the Timurind Dynasty's monumental art and architecture.

This evening we will try more traditional Uzbek dishes at a local restaurant and overnight in Samarkand.

This morning we will prepare for a full-day excursion. Our day will take us to visit the once-magnificent Shakrisabz, the 1336 birth place of Tamerlane, where we will inspect the remains of the Ak Saray White Palace, Tamerlane's monumental summer residence complex which took 24 years to build.

We will then move on to Tamerlane's son, Jehangir's, mausoleum, one of the few remaining remnants of the Kok-Gumbaz ensemble. Then, a few streets further we will come to the Kok–Gumbaz (Blue Dome) Friday mosque completed by Ulug Beg in 1437 in honor of his father, Shah Rukh (Timur's son).

We will spend the afternoon visiting the region's craft centers noted for their many colorful and neatly embroidered items, such as pillow covers and bags of all sizes, and carpets.

Afterward we will enjoy dinner at a local restaurant and once more overnight in Samarkand.

This morning, after breakfast, we will further our knowledge of Uzbek culture at the 1874 Samarkand State Art Museum with its many exhibits of traditional crafts such as suzane embroidery, carpets, ornate costumes, metal work, etc.

We will also drive out examine the remains of the medieval world's best and most remarkable observatory developed by Tamerlane's brilliant and learned grandson, Ulugbek. Ulugbeg discovered 200 previously unknown stars with this instrument, and his calculations as to the length of the year have been shown to be amazingly accurate.

At a nearby restaurant we will have dinner and return to our hotel for the night.

This morning we will head for the ancient museum city of Bukhara, stopping enroute in Gizhduvan, the most important ceramic center in the Bukhara region. There we will see local master potters at work and possibly even the tireless donkeys turning huge stone wheels to grind natural glazes, and a working traditional wood-fired kiln.

In the afternoon we will continue our drive to Bukhara arriving late in the afternoon. We will have dinner at our hotel situated in the old city.

Today we will have a full day of visiting the myriad historic sites and monuments in this museum town, including a visit to the considerably restored 2000 year-old Fortress Ark, where Emirs once lived. We will then visit the great 12th century, 154-foot high Poi-Kalon minaret, the city's focal point that once also served as a beacon on the Silk Road.

After lunch we will explore Lyabi-Khaus, Tajik for "around the pool", an architectural complex composed of 16th century medrassahs and a mosque surrounding a, now restored pool and shaded by equally old mulberry trees.

Today we drive into the countryside to begin our sightseeing at the Sitorai Mohi Hosa, (Palace of moon-like stars), the former summer residence of the last ruler, situated beside a wooden pavilion and pool where women of the harem played and frolicked.

Returning to our vehicle we will travel a short distance to the 16th century Chor-Bakries necropolis of rather decrepit mausoleums of some of Bukhara's aristocracy, as well as a Friday Mosque and a former kanaka, a building with mosque and a shelter for dervishes.

After we arrive back in Bukhara we may have some free time before dinner and overnight at our hotel.

Today we will visit one of Bukhara's oldest monuments, and one of the most elegant structures in Central Asia, the Ismail Samani Mausoleum, dating from the early 10th century during the Samanid dynasty. The two-meter thick walls of delicate and varied brickwork, although from Islamic times bears a few Zoroastrian signs such as a circle within squares above the door symbolizing eternity.

After lunch, we will get a better view of the remains of the ancient city walls and visit the 12th century Magoki-Attori mosque. We will continue on to the Madrassah of Ulug Beg (1417), the earliest of three he commissioned featuring star motifs reflecting his interest in astronomy, the facing unrestored Abdul-Aziz Khan (1652) Madrassah, and the nearby dome covered markets so important on the Silk Road.

This morning, after breakfast we will see another aspect of Uzbekistan's endlessly varied landscape as we drive through the Kizyl-Kum desert on our way to Khiva, the most intact and remote city in Central Asia.

Upon reaching the storied Amu-Darya River we will pause for a picnic lunch and to reflect on the vital part it has played in the fortunes of the area as it continually changed course. After lunch we will continue on to Khiva, arriving late in the afternoon in this combination of a seemingly lifeless perfectly preserved museum city packed with mosques, madrassahs, tombs and palaces.

There we will have dinner at our hotel and overnight.

Today we will spend the day in Khiva, the remotest city in Central Asia with its most homogenous collection of architecture in the Islamic world. One of the first building we will see is the Mohammed Amid Khan Madrassah which now serves as a hotel beside we will see a squat, rotund turquoise-tiled minaret appearing in need of at least 50 more feet in height.

Our afternoon we will have free time to enjoy strolling around the town, trying on the preposterously long haired but warm hats, and visiting monuments too numerous to mention.

We will rejoin the group for dinner at the hotel restaurant and overnight in Khiva.

This morning after breakfast we will drive to Kunya Urgench, the original capital of the Khorezm Kingdom which, after having been attacked by Genghis Khan and five times by Tamerlane, the town was in ruins.

In the southern part of the area we will have the opportunity to see the 220-foot high Kutlug Timur minaret, the tallest in Central Asia, erected in the1320s. Across the road we will visit the beautiful mid-14th century blue-tile mosaic- domed Turabek Mausoleum, one of Central Asia's most perfect buildings erected after the Mongols destroyed the area.

As we drive on we will stop on the way for a picnic and then continue on to Tashauz for a late afternoon flight to Ashgabad very close to the Persian border.

There we will have dinner and spend the night.

Today we spend the day seeing the many interesting sights in Ashgabad, especially the vast, colorful, and exciting Sunday market with crafts and other items of a kind and colors we have not seen in Uzbekistan.

Seeing believes so we will visit the 250-foot Arch of Neutrality topped by a 40-foot golden statue of President Niyazov that rotates with the sun. Adjacent we can see the new marble and gold Palace of Turkmenbashi and the government buildings facing a large plaza.

After lunch we will visit The Textile and Carpet Museum with guides dressed in lovely embroidered traditional costumes pointing out a stunning collection of hand-made carpets. At the History Museum we will feast our eyes on a superb collection of carved ivory drinking horns from the 1st and 2nd century BC Nissa.

Today we will breakfast and then drive out to the site of ancient Nissa, going back to the time of the Parthians in the third century B.C. who repulsed Alexander the built an empire. This ancient grassy site, looking much like a green, wave- decimated sand castle, is located at the foot of the Kopet Dag Mountains which divide Turkmenistan from Iran and is what remains of this fabled city as it existed 2300 years ago.

Later we will stop at the famous stud farm of the Akhal Tekke horses.

After a good breakfast we will head for the airport to catch our plane to...